Blaise Cendrars's final novel, an energetic and picaresque dive into the criminal underbelly of postwar Paris. The narrative centers on Thérèse Églantine, a flamboyant, septuagenarian actress and former rival of Sarah Bernhardt, whose intense, scandalous affair with a young, tattooed Foreign Legion deserter drives the chaotic plot. A roman à clef (novel with a key), the book follows Thérèse's entanglement with a cast of black marketeers, theater eccentrics, and low-lifes after she is implicated in a murder, ultimately serving as a vibrant, cynical celebration of a relentless human spirit against the backdrop of postwar disillusionment.