The story begins in France with a black-and-white, silent film-style sequence in the pre-World War I era, where a woman (Judith Magre) meets a man (Charles Denner) operating a prototypical Lumiere movie camera in a park. After charming her into taking a turn operating the crank on his camera, she is next seen bearing his child while he is enlisted in the French army, documenting soldiers in a trench. He receives a telegram announcing the birth of his son, but is killed by enemy fire quickly after. His widow and young son are given posthumous medals for his service by a general (Daniel Boulanger). The general later takes a fancy to a chorus girl (Marthe Keller), whom he quickly marries. His wife bears him a daughter, but is previously shown cheating on him with his younger aide-de-camp. The general kills her upon discovering her infidelity. (This scene is omitted, but flashed back to later on, in the U.S. release version.) On the same day as her death, the shooting of the Romanov family takes place, and a brief montage of the succeeding Russian leaders is shown.