On the night before their execution during the French Revolution, 21 condemned prisoners and their friends are permitted a last banquet before their trip to the guillotine on the morrow. While they feast and jest on their last night alive, they begin to speculate about the hour of the execution the next day. Only one prisoner, Duprat, is quiet on the subject.
His friend Marginy questions him on the subject, and Duprat asserts than he knows the exact time at which he will die on the next day. He relates a strange story about a series of dreadful and supernatual prophecies about his family, of which his death at the exact moment of nine o'clock will be the culmination.
