The story of a French officer who is assumed dead during the Napoleonic Wars, but returns ten years later to a very different France, both on a political and personal level. The film is based on the novel Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac.

On a rainy night, eccentric tramp Mr. La Souris finds a corpse. But the body soon vanishes in his car leaving only his wallet. While the police start investigating a missing person report, La Souris concocts a plan to secure his find.

A wealthy old maid offers to be the godmother of a regiment in order to find a fiancé for her niece who must come into possession of a large inheritance the day she marries a private.

A legend about the Malveneur family tells of how their ancestor sold his soul to the devil and was cursed: man by day, wolf by night. The last of the Malveneurs is a scientist who carries out strange experiments on... nobody knows exactly what the does in the underground. The wife has a heart condition, her sister-in-law is a authoritarian lady. And nights in the old castle are not exactly peaceful.

Fabienne believes herself to be cheated on by her husband Claude and divorces her. He leaves for America and does not return until eight years later. He then meets his daughter.