A provincial tour fails without money in an abandoned theater in the capital and puts on a review under the sign of optimism.

Count Dimitri is sentenced to death for hitting Prince Paul who was trying to steal a kiss from Countess Vera. Prince Paul pardons him because of a young girl who knew how to conquer his heart at the right time.

In 1852, the young Austrian emperor Franz Joseph persuades his friend, Count Michel de Thalberg, to act as a go-between in his love affair with the Bavarian duchess Elisabeth. Not long after his arrival in Munch, Thalberg has an embarrassing encounter in a public garden with an attractive young woman. The innocent incident is misinterpreted by a passer-by who, recognising the woman as the youngest daughter of Ludwig Tomasini, a highly respected caterer, persuades her father that she should marry the man who flirted with her to avoid a scandal (FilmsdeFrance).

A religious fanatic finds his entire life and philosophy turned upside-down as he falls in love with a girl and kills her in a jealous rage. His search is for peace of mind and a desire to justify the murder of the girl to himself. His mind becomes distraught as he gropes trying to rationalize his deed and his world falls apart around him. A police inspector patiently and tirelessly stays on Barrault's trail, without putting him under arrest, though convinced he is the murderer, and waiting for the moment when he feels Barrault will break under the strain of his own religious fanaticism.