Set in late summer on the first day of September, the Prologue is told in the third person and opens in the spa town of Cauterets, located in the French Pyrenees, where highborn visitors have come from all over to enjoy the healing waters. As patients are preparing to leave, heavy rains come and flood the area, sweeping away bridges, carrying away people to their deaths, and trapping others in the mountains. Oisille, an older widow, decides to weather the floods in the abbey of Our Lady of Sarrance, losing her retinue along the way except for one man and one woman.

In the meantime, two noblemen named Dagoucin and Saffredent, who visited the spas, come upon two married couples, Hircan and Parlamente, and Longarine and her husband. While spending the night in a cottage nearby, Dagoucin and Saffredent are awakened by a fight nearby and find the married couples under attack by bandits. The two gentlemen kill the bandits, but not before Longarine’s husband is killed. Traveling on together, the group arrives at the abbey of Saint-Savin, where they find their friends

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