Augustin Renard, a decorated war hero in the First World War, left his Picardy hometown in 1920 and went off against his family's wishes to become a priest. Now he has been appointed parish priest to St.Josse des Bois but his arrival coincides with an exodus south by many of the population, the evacuation of a local airfield by the British and the arrival of the Germans, as Marshal Petain announces an armistice.

As the German prosecution of the Jews begins, Renard uses the annual procession of St.Josse to register the disgust at events taking place.