Césaire’s play is set in the early days of the Haitian republic, in an atmosphere of danger and suspense. Napoleon’s ambitions to re-establish the institution of slavery on the island compel the play’s two central characters to espouse radically different ideals as to how Haiti can be sustained as an independent country. President Pétion, a successor to the revered liberator of Haiti, Toussaint Louverture, and general Christophe, a hero of the revolution who now aspires to rule in the style of a European monarch, find themselves locked in conflict. Christophe proves an effective, if deceptive, orator, appealing to Haitians' hatred of slavery and reverence to their African heritage while extolling the grandeur of European-style monarchies. He succeeds in convincing the peasants of Northern Haiti to have him crowned king, binding many of them to his reign by means of patronage, the granting of comical noble titles such as "The Duke of Lemonade." The first act concludes with the king undermining his professed love of his subjects' African heritage by asserting that Haitians will come to think of him alone as their heritage.

Civil war ensues, and the king makes a series of decisions during the second and third act which constitute a waste of his kingdom’s much needed resources in the pursuit of the European ideal he dreams of, culminating with the construction of an ornate palace meant to imitate the palace at Versailles in France. The decline of the king’s fortunes culminates with the success of the republic’s troops and with his suicide in the play’s third act.

Throughout the play, Pétion is portrayed positively as a selfless and conscientious politician whose actions are motivated by a desire to guarantee the gains of the Haitian revolution. Christophe’s legacy is more complicated, in that while despotic and irrational in terms of his actions and his ideals, he also makes a number of powerful speeches representing the horrors of slavery and a nostalgic longing for an African past, speeches which for some render him a sympathetic figure. Perhaps the most enduring message that Césaire conveys through Christophe’s fate is the fact that tropes of European nobility and wealth are not compatible with the cultures of the African continent remembered by enslaved peoples across the Americas.