In the seventeenth century , beautiful women of Madagascar are unwillingly sent beyond the seas to distant French colonies and married off to wealthy French colonials.

Young orphan girls and a convoy of prostitutes leave Salpetriere to populate the island Bourbon. Marie (Sara Martins) longs to turn her back on a painful past. Louison (Cecile Cassel) a former prostitute, is ready to do anything to obtain wealth and respectability. Upon arrival, Alix (Marie Piot) is married to Henry La Baume, a straight and sensitive man, but she can not seem to love. She befriends Marie, a Malagasy young wife of Jules Gaudin, representing settlers from Saint-Paul. Louison wins the trust of Father Romand, who escorted the convoy of women from France. The latter is scandalized to discover that Chevalier Jean Penmach, the clerk of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales who manages the colony is a bi-racial. A power struggle between the two men begins. Father Romand finds a powerful ally in Michel Blancpain, rich land owner, who is not averse to brutal methods.—Dave Zimoy