In the days before the Civil War in the old French Quarter of New Orleans there lived the gens de couleur libre, the Free People of Color, a fierce and proud people, descended from slaves and their French and Spanish owners, neither black nor white, but caught between the two - free and yet not free. Among them is Marcel, the mesmeric copper- skinned youth, mercurial, attractive, wild: an artist in the making, he dreams of Paris, and the lure of a brand new art, Daguerrotype. His gentle sister Marie longs for love and marriage in a world ready to sell her charms to the highest bidder. And there is Anna Bella, the beautiful young courtesan; and Dolly Rose, the splendid madame; and Christophe, the brilliant young teacher who has returned from Paris with dangerous ideas.