The year is 1832. Napoleon has fallen, leaving behind a vacuum of power. The Austrian empire is attempting a takeover of Italy, and many Italian patriots have fled to France to continue the fight from there. Meanwhile, a devastating cholera epidemic sweeps across France like wildfire, wiping out entire towns and generating a widespread fear of all strangers.
Soldiers patrol the countryside, enforcing quarantines by lethal means.
It's a grim era, and many superstitious folk think that God's judgment of the world has finally come. This is the setting for Jean-Paul Rappeneau's The Horseman on the Roof , an old fashioned, historical, epic romance in the same vein as recent films like The Last of the Mohicans , Legends of the Fall , and Queen Margot . Replete with heaving bosoms, thundering horses, energetic swordfights, and glorious widescreen cinematography, The Horseman on the Roof delivers what's expected. Like any good summer film, it's fun to watch while not offering a serious intellectual challenge. Their relationship is surprisingly chaste, primarily because Pauline is determined to remain faithful to her husband.