Elisabeth, a young historian visits Lyon. In the footsteps of the 19th-century feminist socialist Flora Tristan, she roams the city with her tape recorder seeking to reconstruct the reality that Flora might have seen and perceived. In the sounds and noise, the faces and façades, she discovers layers of history. A history professor tries to set her back on the scientific pathway, but she breaks free from academic rigidity and, in search of lost time, finds her own present and that of the city of Lyon.