Traveling through the French countryside in their brightly painted wagons, the actors of the Augusto Troupe perform comedies and spectacles in villages and chateaux, and hope for a warm place to spend the winter. The group encounters religious fanatics, desperate maidens, greedy peasants, nefarious nobles, and the scourge of the plague. Their director Béjart tries to cajole his actors into performing his masterpiece correctly, while obsessively scribbling a possibly scandalous new play inspired by a mummy's ghost. Lead actress Isabelle dreams of the Théâtre du Palais-Royal where her rare talents will be appreciated. And Argon's beautiful voice has become a rough croak that he can only intermittently rely on, leading him to chase a cure-and maybe even to steal a powerful relic from the grave of the recently-deceased Molière.