Chateau Uturry had fallen on hard times since the beginning of the century, with the dissolute Monsieur Uturry (fils) abandoning his family with most of his fortune in 1902. Monsieur Uturry (pere) was unable to bear the shame of his son’s desertion, and took his own life. The various members of the family drifted away until only three remained of the seventeen Uturry family members who had once lived there: the wife of Monsieur Uturry (fils) and two of his daughters. Though the youngest, Thérèse, had been a notable beauty and had made quite a splash in fin de siècle Paris, her parents had always brought her up as a caretaker of her mother and invalid sister, and she had been recalled to the chateau for that purpose in 1903.

When the war started, the battle lines snaked directly through the chateau’s grounds. All three inhabitants refused evacuation and were caught in the crossfire as Chateau Uturry became a landmark in no-man’s-land. At first their sector was relatively quiet, and with a well and the provisions laid in by Monsieur Uturry (pere) there was no immidiate danger despite being cut off from the world. But as the offensives of 1916 began, Chateau Uturry found itself in two sets of crosshairs.

And Thérèse found herself once more ready to make a splash.