Jose and Esperanza got married just before the Revolution blew up, and they got separated in the chaos, each assuming the other was dead. Six or eight years later...
In the village of Sableuse, the local manor has been bought out by a nouveau riche, Emile Cousinet. When his wife Lisette, a former music hall actress, flees to Paris with young Pierre de Sableuse, Cousinet asks Father Pellegrin, the village vicar, to bring the lost sheep back home.
Reflecting the filmmaker's passion for automobiles, who in his youth participated in car races, the film portrays the attempt to manufacture a new model in the Ford factory in the city of Porto.
Herr Werther, a new magistrate to the Grand Duchy of Walheim who is a violinist and poet, seems to have fate on his side as he meets and pursues a beautiful local woman, Charlotte.