William Crimsworth goes to Brussels to seek his fortune and takes a job teaching at a boarding school for girls. He begins a flirtation with the headmistress, ZoraÔde Reuter, but later falls in love with the young pupil-teacher Frances Henri, only to have his courtship thwarted by the jealous Mlle. Reuter. Deeply critical of a society in which relationships between men and women are reduced to power struggles, The Professor was Charlotte BrontÎ's first novel.