Until the day in 1978 when he was accused by a weekly newspaper of being the main organizer of the Vel'd'Hiv' roundup, everyone seemed to have forgotten that in 1942, René Bousquet was head of the French police. But then the past caught up with this former high-ranking civil servant, brilliantly reconverted into high finance. The next fifteen years will be devoted to answering the accusations. To organize his defense, he knows he can count on the support of his family and a network of political contacts. Gradually, the ambiguity of the compromises and "arrangements" made by almost all the political forces at the Liberation, in the name of national reconciliation, becomes apparent.