In this film, Denis Diderot, a prominent figure of the French Enlightenment, is part of an aristocratic circle that prints the scandalous Encyclopédie in a rural castle. The group's libertine lifestyle is disrupted by the arrival of a flirtatious painter, Madame Therbouche, who convinces Diderot to pose nude for her, leading to a row with his wife and a confrontation with the feared Cardinal, who is hunting for the Encyclopaedia's printers. The baroness tries to distract the Cardinal with a series of confessions and lewd displays, while a Turkish eunuch's intimate massages blur the lines between hospitality and impropriety. As secrets are revealed, Diderot's ideas about morality are challenged, and the group's decadent lifestyle is threatened.
The Libertine
In 18th-century France, a prominent intellectual, Denis Diderot, was part of a prestigious circle on the Holbach estate that championed radical libertarian ideas and published pioneering works.
