When young Lucia attempts suicide by jumping from a train, she meets a man to whom she explains what has driven her to this. He, a former doctor, has his own demons and their conversation might just help both to face their future.
In Paris, in the middle of the 19th century, the Comte de Chamery died of poisoning, leaving a considerable fortune to his long-dead son. Sir William, the count's murderer, hires a young rogue, Rocambole, to pretend to be the deceased's son. The two accomplices have the Count's fortune handed over to them. But their trickery is discovered by an intriguer, Baccarat, who finds the real Count of Chamery, a young painter without fortune, in love with Carmen de Montevecchio. Rocambole, who stops at nothing, kills Sir William, gets rid of Armand and makes Carmen love him. But Baccarat is determined not to let him continue his villainies.
In the 19th century, a thug from the slums of Paris pretends to be a young aristocrat, but is unmasked by a demi-mondaine, from the same background as him.
Former batsman Carlo Mezzetti, who has been left homeless with his daughter Annuccia, takes advantage of favorable situations and legal loopholes to find temporary accommodation, illegally occupying vacant houses.
The film tells the story of Maria, a young typist who falls in love with a distinguished gentleman by whom she becomes pregnant, without knowing that he is married. The gentleman, assailed by debts resulting from his dissipated life, depends upon his rich wife, and has no intention of marrying the poor girl. After having refused the money offered by him in compensation for her dishonour, Maria wanders desperately, with her baby in her arms, until she decides to accept the propositions of a stranger, with the single aim of buying a gun to carry out her own revenge.
