1787 – Heinrich Berlingen, Baron von Satten, needs an heir for his title and his life's work, but does not want to get married. Thus, Junker Niklas von Altenmark, the seven-year-old son of a Prussian knight, comes to live with the restless elderly gentleman, even though he never wanted to leave home.
Under the baron's wing, Niklas travels via Berlin to pre-revolutionary Paris, experiences the decadence of the Rococo period before the French Revolution drives them to London, and from there across half the continent. He meets people of his time, from Marie Antoinette to Danton, from Beau Brummell to the Duchess of Devonshire, from the later Tsar Alexander I to Queen Luise of Prussia, from Josef Haydn to Ludwig van Beethoven. All the while, one question hangs over them: What drives the baron, and what really happened in his youth so that he never settled down?
Niklas and Colette, the baron's natural daughter, will find the answer at the end of their own journey.