Savary, aide-de-camp to the First Consul, prepares for his boss's visit to Strasbourg. The police arrest Joliet, a courier for the émigrés, who confesses the purpose of his mission: to make contact in the city with a certain “schoolmaster.” The problem is that there are 150 Schulmeisters (schoolmasters) in Strasbourg. One of them is a suspect because he is a former smuggler. The courier Joliet recognizes him in order to save the real one, but he proclaims himself a Bonapartist and offers to find the real culprits himself. Savary agrees and organizes a fake escape. With Hammel, one of his friends, Schulmeister infiltrates the heart of the conspiracy and recognizes the man giving the orders: his own cousin, Neubacher, the real “schoolmaster.”