Since the plot of Les Etudiants Miserables can be somewhat confusing, we
will attempt to summarize the important events:

Our story begins in 1832, when our protagonist, Swan Valswan, escapes from
the Chateau D'Iff, where he had been imprisoned for stealing a piece of chalk.
Valswan is forced to fight a duel with the tormented genius Evariste
Galois, whose brief life is the most tragic episode in the history of
mathematics.

We return to Paris in 1870, where our hero Valswan has been dead for
twenty years. We meet a young Henri Poincare, whose long, productive career
is one of the least tragic episodes in the history of mathematics.
Poincare sings a beautiful duet with his love, Betty, after whom he named
so many of his important ideas.

The scene shifts to Gottingen, 1938, where Saunders MacLane regales a group
of Nazis with stories of the Franco-Prussian war. The colorful anecdotes
distract the guards long enough for Samuel Eilenberg to free Nicolas Bourbaki,
who had been held in solitary confinement.

Finally, we find ourselves in 1995 Chicago. Hyde Park. Eckhart Hall...