Sylvie, a rich girl, learns at the same time the death and the ruin of her father. Forced to find work in Paris, she is given shelter by a medical student who soon falls for her. Another young man falls in love with her. When her benefactor gets ill and finally dies, Sylvie refuses to give the other man her heart out of faithfulness for the dearly departed. But youth commands and after a time love -but not oblivion - triumphs.

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.