The story begins with an ageing, alcoholic woman (Vivien Leigh) being clapped into debtors' prison in the slums of Calais. In a husky, despairing, whiskey-soaked voice, the former Lady Hamilton narrates the story of her life to her skeptical fellow inmates. In one of the early scenes that launches the flashback, Emma, well past her prime, looks into a mirror and remembers "the face I knew before," the face of the young, lovely girl who captured the imagination of artists - most notably George Romney and Joshua Reynolds.
Oscar Françoise de Jarjayes (Catriona MacColl) is a young woman whose father, a career military man, wanted a boy. After she was born her father took to dressing Oscar in boy's clothes and raising her as a man. Privately Oscar acknowledges her feminine side, she dresses as a man and gains an honored position as a guard of Marie Antoinette (Christina Bohm). In her youth, Oscar is in love with Andre (Barry Stokes), the son of the family's housekeeper. Years later, when the French Revolution begins, Oscar and Andre's paths cross for the first time in years. With the assault on the Bastille, Oscar and Andre find themselves fighting on opposite sides of the revolution.
During the French Revolution, the Scarlet Pimpernel (David Niven), who is really Sir Percy Blakeney in disguise, risks his life to rescue French noblemen from the guillotine and take them across the English Channel to safety. As cover, Sir Percy poses as a fop at Court, and curries favour with the Prince of Wales (Jack Hawkins) by providing advice about fashion, but secretly he leads The League, a group of noblemen with similar views.
Paris, février 1817, trois ans après la chute de l'Empire, l'avoué Derville reçoit la visite d'un vieillard misérablement vêtu. Il assure être le colonel Chabert, laissé pour mort, à la bataille d'Eylau en 1807. Il avait alors contribué à la victoire en conduisant une charge de cavalerie devenue célèbre.
Julie and Désirée Clary are courted by the brothers Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte. Joseph marries Julie and Napoleon is affianced to Désirée. When Napoleon breaks the engagement and marries Joséphine de Beauharnais, Désirée becomes involved with General Bernadotte
Il s'agit de la biographie filmée du prince de Talleyrand, évêque d'Autun, qui servit la France de l'Ancien Régime jusqu'à la Monarchie de Juillet en passant par le Directoire, le Consulat, le Premier Empire et la Restauration.
En mai 1789, deux jeunes filles entrent au Carmel de Compiègne. L'une prend en religion le nom de sœur Constance, tandis que sa compagne, Blanche de la Force, devient sœur Blanche de l'Agonie du Christ. La Révolution n'épargnant pas la vie des religieuses, le commissaire de la Révolution dispose d'un mandat de réquisition. Les Carmélites sont dès lors traquées et dépossédées de leurs biens, avant d'affronter l'ultime sacrifice.
Pendant l'occupation de l'Espagne par les troupes napoléoniennes, le beau Juan d'Aranda (Jean-Claude Pascal) se distingue par sa bravoure et aussi par ses succès féminins. Ignorant ses origines françaises, il combattra tout d'abord auprès des guérilléros puis sous les ordres du général Gaston de Sallanches qui se révèlera être son père. Plusieurs femmes le tireront de situations critiques : Térésa (Magali Noël), une jeune paysanne, la duchesse d'Albuquerque (Sophie Desmarets), séduite par sa prestance, mais son cœur appartiendra à la mignonne Pilar (Brigitte Bardot).
Already the most powerful man in France, Maximilien Robespierre (Richard Basehart) wants to become the nation's dictator. He summons François Barras (Richard Hart), the only man who can nominate him before the National Convention. Barras refuses to do so and goes into hiding.
During a battle in the Aragonese town of Saragossa (Zaragoza) during the Napoleonic Wars, an officer retreats to the second floor of an inn. He finds a large book with drawings of two men hanging on a gallows and two women in a bed. An enemy officer tries to arrest him but ends up translating the book for him; the second officer recognizes its author as his own grandfather, who was a captain in the Walloon Guard.
On the eve of the French Revolution, Lucie Manette (Elizabeth Allan) is informed that her father (Henry B. Walthall) is not dead, but has been a prisoner in the Bastille for many long years before finally being released. She travels to Paris to take her father to her home in England. Dr. Manette has been taken care of by a friend, Ernest Defarge (Mitchell Lewis), and his wife (Blanche Yurka). The old man's mind has given way during his long ordeal, but Lucie's tender care begins to restore his sanity.
In 1792, at the bloody height of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, vengeful French mobs are outraged when again and again French aristocrats are saved from death by the audacious "Band of the Scarlet Pimpernel", a secret society of 20 English noblemen, "one to command, and nineteen to obey". Among the latest scheduled for execution are the Count de Tournay, former ambassador to Great Britain, and his family. However, one of the Scarlet Pimpernel's men visits them in prison disguised as a priest and gives them a message of hope. As the prisoners are being escorted to the cart to be taken to the guillotine, the guards take the count away; French leader Maximilien Robespierre wishes to question him further. The countess and her daughter are rescued and spirited away to England.
On the last day of 1770, youngster Jonathan Blake (Freddie Bartholomew) overhears two sailors discussing something suspicious in his aunt's ale-house in a Norfolk fishing village. He persuades his more respectable best friend, Horatio Nelson (Douglas Scott), to sneak aboard the sailors' ship with him. They overhear a plot involving insurance fraud. When Jonathan decides to warn the insurers, Horatio cannot accompany him, because that same day he is invited to join the Royal Navy as a midshipman. Jonathan walks all the way to London to Lloyd's Coffee House, where the insurers conduct their business. Mr. Angerstein (Guy Standing), the head of one of the syndicates that make up Lloyd's of London, listens to him. Instead of a monetary reward, Jonathan asks to work at Lloyd's as a waiter. Angerstein teaches him that news, "honestly acquired and honestly shared," is the lifeblood of the insurance industry.
The film begins during the French Revolution, with the aged Marquis d'Apcher as the narrator, writing his memoirs in a castle, while the voices of a mob can be heard from outside. The film flashes back to 1764, when a mysterious beast terrorized the province of Gévaudan and nearby lands.