le plus-que-parfait

We use it to talk about an action or situation that took place before another past action. The plus-que-parfait is often used when telling stories and anecdotes to provide background information on situations that occurred prior to the main action of the story.

We use the plus-que-parfait to talk about an action that occurred before another action in the past.

This tense is usually used together with another past tense (such as the imparfait, the passé composé and establishes the order of events: the action expressed in the plus-que-parfairt always occurred before the action expressed by the other past tenses.