Wirsoq, who belongs to the type of cosmopolitan financier, gets into his power a young French aristocrat, Arthur de Sorgepois, and insists that the boy's sister should marry him. The girl is in love with a young artist, Pierre Levannier, who secretly returns her affection, but does not declare himself at this critical moment because he is not rich enough to support a wife.

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.

Pedro (played by a white actor in blackface), a son of a former slave, leaves Cuba (where he was being mistreated for being black) to seek his fortune in Paris. While working as a bellboy at a dance club, his dancing prowess is discovered and then he goes to become a famous dancer of the Charleston in the city. He falls in love with his dancing partner, who could not stand the thought of marrying him because of his skin color.