Paris 1938. A countess channels money and charm to the top circle of French politicians, both in the salons and in the bed chamber. A baroness engages in a torrid affair with a suave German diplomat. Unknown to both women, the diplomat is a spymaster weaving a web to make German-inspired appeasement dominant in the French cabinet table. As German power grows, Berlin challenges Paris and London over sovereignty for German-speakers in Czechoslovakia and a "free hand" in Eastern Europe to counter Russian Bolshevism. In Paris, the wealthy elite fear Russian Bolsheviks more than Nazi revanchists. French industrialists and a corrupt press champion appeasement-minded politicians. Peace at any price, they say, as champagne glasses clink and beautiful women arrange favored assignations.

Amidst the appeasement, an intrepid woman diplomatic correspondent reveals sinister Nazi designs and weak and fearful policy responses by governments in Paris and London as the Versailles Peace Treaty unravels in the late 1930s as resurgent German military power thirsts for European conquest.