Helene loves to play poker for big money in men’s company. But one day she looses big time against bar manager Antonio. He grants her 24 hours to come up with the 50,000 Francs. She asks all of her friends, but nobody will help her. When she finally steals the money from her brother Stephane, she gets them into serious trouble — she didn’t know where he got it.

The night of August 24, 1944. The fate of Paris is in the hands of General von Choltitz, governor of Grand Paris, who is preparing, on Hitler’s orders, to blow up the French capital. The descendent of a long line of Prussian military men, the general has never had any hesitation when it came to obeying orders. This is what’s on Swedish consul Raoul Nordling’s mind as he takes the secret staircase that leads to General von Choltitz’s suite at the Hôtel Meurice. The bridges on the Seine and the major monuments of Paris (including the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower) are mined with explosives, ready to be detonated. Armed with all the weapons of diplomacy, the consul will try to convince the general not to follow Hitler’s order of destruction.

The Comte de Gonzague schemes against his cousin, the Duc de Nevers, even though he is the Duke’s heir and will inherit his estates. The Count has kept secret the existence of the Duke’s bastard, recently born. When the Duke learns of his child, he journeys to wed the mother, a baron’s daughter, in her father’s isolated chateau. The occupants of the castle are surprised and murdered by the Count and his men. The only ones to escape are the Duke’s friend, the skilled swordsman Lagardère, and the infant, a girl, now the rightful heiress to the Duke’s vast fortune. The Count believes the pair to have drowned, when in fact they have been concealed by a travelling troupe of Italian players. Twenty years pass. The Count has discovered that the two survive and seeks to have them slain. But Lagardère gains the confidence of the Count, and employment as his bookkeeper, through his clever disguise as a hunch-back…