A group of European aristocrats planning to attend Charles X’s coronation in Reims, await their departure at the Giglio d’oro (Golden Lilium).

Madama Cortese, the director of the Giglio d’oro, anxious that her guests have a good time, instructs her crew (including Maddalena, Antonio and Prudenzio, a buffoonish doctor) to treat them with great consideration.

The first guest to appear is a fashion-crazed Parisian, Contessa di Folleville, followed by her migraine-ridden maid Modestina and, shortly after, by her cousin Luigino, who arrives with bad news: her luggage has been irreparably lost in an accident. At the prospect of having nothing to wear to the coronation, Folleville first faints, then recovers her senses and bitterly laments her loss. But Modestina, much to the amusement of the onlookers, cheers her up again by miraculously producing a hat which survived the mishap.