The queen, who is dying, makes the king promise to take for a new wife only a woman more beautiful and better made than herself.
After her death, the king is overwhelmed with sadness but does not break his promise. With his ministers, he searches in vain for his future queen. The only person able to compete with the beauty of his late wife is none other than his daughter, whom he proposes in marriage.
The princess asks her godmother, the Lilac Fairy, for advice. To escape this incestuous union, the princess asks her father for impractical dresses: she asks first for a dress the color of time, then a dress the color of the moon and finally a dress the color of the sun. But against all odds, he always manages to offer them to her. She then asks him to sacrifice his donkey which produces gold coins as dung. The donkey is the king's most precious treasure, but he does.
The princess then fled from the castle, dressed in the skin of the donkey and taking her dresses.
Peau d'âne moved to a small village and worked as a slut. The prince of another kingdom, visiting the village, sees her in his hut, then adorned with her sun-colored dress. Dazzled by her beauty, he falls in love with her and when he returns to the palace, is dying of love. He then asks Donkey Skin to bake him a cake. While making the dough for the cake, she slips her ring into it. The prince, almost choking on it, immediately asks that all the women of the country come to try the ring at the castle. But, none can pass the latter. We then bring Donkey Skin to the castle. Her finger enters the ring and her donkey skin falls, revealing her most beautiful dress. The prince can then marry her, the celebrations for their nuptials last three months and let all the greatest princes of the whole world parade.
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