Set in the countryside of Provence, the film is based on three tales from Alphonse Daudet's 1869 short story collection Letters from My Windmill: "The Three Low Masses", "The Elixir of Father Gaucher" and "The Secret of Master Cornille".

Jean-François Robignac, a teacher, arrives at a provincial college to teach literature to ninth-graders. He quickly wins over the children with his youthful way with words. But his parents want to have him expelled when they learn that Jean-François uses slang words to rejuvenate writers' texts.