Gaston Rozen, a young Parisian flâneur and a pleasure-seeker with the makings of an extraordinary adventurer, ends up in a penal colony prison in French Guiana—only to escape by gaining the trust of the head of the prison and seducing the children’s governess of the commandant. Arriving in London, through a contact with an anarchist, he meets a brilliant scientist with the instincts of a revolutionary—Falquetti. Thanks to the scientist’s inventions, Rozen ensnares all society in his own web and becomes the “King of Paris,” seeking various pleasures and control over the entire world…