Michel Paquette, 12 years old, suffering from polio, attends Sunday mass to read poetry published by St-Amour et fille. His old companion, Archange St-Amour, suffering from Parkinson's, needs Michel to help him type Vive le Quebec Laique, an anticlerical pamphlet in the Quebec of great darkness. The pamphlet scandalized the clergy. The vengeance of the Church is nothing compared to that which seethes within Michel and his friends. The young people go to great lengths to defy the clerical order and risk everything for their quest for a secular and egalitarian Quebec.