From the back country of Louisiana, just married Cissie Larand arrives home from her wedding to find a check made out in her name in the amount of $1,100, which is more money than she could have ever dreamed. The check is signed by Julian Poydras, a man she doesn't know nor does she know why she received the money. The story... At Mardi Gras one hundred fifty years ago, Poydras, then a poor immigrant from France, pretended to be a man of wealth to infiltrate upper class society. He wanted to use the opportunity to make connections for his just set up retail business, and perhaps to marry into wealth. He did find a girl at the Mardi Gras party with who he fell in love and asked to marry, the wedding which would happen upon his return after the forty days of Lent. But she too ended up being poor, living in a shack in the Louisiana back country of West Baton Rouge. Over time, Poydras was able to achieve wealth and prestige, but it was his encounter with this woman, the only love in his life, that turned into the legacy of the money to poor brides in West Baton Rouge.