Don Juan leaves Venice and gets back to Seville, his home city. When he arrives there, he learns that his father is dead and has left all his properties to him, on codition that he marries Doña Inés. Don Juan makes up a former marriage, but when he meets her he becomes fascinated by her beauty.

A virtuous Spanish princess becomes queen of Portugal, and soon is affected by the social struggles and the reckless fight to power between the king's faction and that of his son's.

In 1922, Infantry Captain Fernando Salas, arriving from Madrid, joins, without much enthusiasm, a battalion ruled by Commander Almendro, a tough veteran of the African war who soon notices a clear lack of military vocation in the new recruit.