A nouveau riche bourgeois gentleman makes a jackass of himself by trying to impress everyone with his importance and wealth. He will not permit his daughter to marry anyone who is not a nobleman and is quite willing to suffer an indignity providing it comes from a person of quality. He will lend money, with no hope of recovery, to anyone who claims to be on speaking terms with the king. His attempts to dress in a style suitable to his new station are ludicrous. Finally he is made the butt of a practical joke, takes part unwittingly in the marriage of his daughter to a man of her choice, and is properly initiated into the nobility by a sham ceremony that only emphasises the servility of those that pretend to greatness.