A freedom-loving man has found a way in the midst of loan sharks and apaches to get it almost totally with a minimum of work, needs and connections. After a few misadventures, he continues to wander in Paris whose streets he loves more than anything in the world.

In 1721, at the end of his career as a bandit, Cartouche, touched by the grace of an honest young girl, and falling into the hands of justice under the charge of the father of his beloved, asks as a last resort, that the young girl may, before her execution, come and forgive her.