Félicité is a poor but deeply loyal servant who spends her whole life working for her mistress, Madame Aubain. She is kind and devoted, but she suffers many losses throughout her life.
She is abandoned by her first love, then loses her nephew Victor at sea, and later the young girl she raises, Virginie. These repeated tragedies leave her increasingly alone.
As she grows older, Félicité finds comfort in religion. She also becomes deeply attached to a stuffed parrot named Loulou, which she begins to associate with spiritual meaning and divine presence.
In the end, she dies during a religious procession, experiencing a final vision of peace in which the parrot appears in a heavenly form.