One crucial night in 1791, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette flee Paris for the German border, only to be taken prisoner by the townspeople in Varennes. However, it is not the King's coach that captures the imagination but one following close behind it. The players in this eighteenth-century Stagecoach include Casanova (Marcello Mastroianni), his wilting spirit haunted by the reputation that precedes him; the journalist Restif (Jean-Louis Barrault), a writer of plebeian pens?s; Citizen Tom Paine (Harvey Keitel come to cheer on the Revolution; and an aristocratic lady-in-waiting (Hanna Schygulla), a locus for the film's ironic affection for His Nibs. In the course of the journey they come to realize that what they are witnessing is not the demise of one richly pantalooned royal body, but the beginning of a new era. Like Ettore Scola's best films La Nuit de Varennes is infused with the warmth of individuals confused and/or bemused by the vectors of time and change.