In 1914, during the First World War, the rich chatelaine de Boissière, with a sulphurous past, took in Jean le Barois, a young soldier lost in territory occupied by the Germans, who was none other than the son of the man she loved, then ruined. The young man, after having despised her, falls madly...
The Count of Kerlor, to chastise his wife whom he believes to be unfaithful, entrusts his son to a couple of scoundrels. When he repents and wants to find the child, the carnies make their nephew sick. But the other little boy, in search of his comrade, is recognized by his reconciled parents.
Separated by an ancestral hatred, two small villages of the South see their infant population engaging in war, while the teacher of the first village and the mayor of the second love each other.
L'Ange rouge is a cabaret run by a former mobster with his friend, a singer and dancer he brought back from Argentina. A fleeing gangster takes refuge in the cabaret. The singer and the gangster have an affair.
Rémy (Robert Lynen), a stolen child is adopted by a wandering singer. With him and his trained animals, Rémy travels the roads of France. But his adoptive father dies and Remy, who has knowledge of a boy who knows something of his history, sails for England to find his mother.