Pierre Boucheron, alias 'The Rat' and a former underworld notoriety, is now living the high life as the kept man of Zelie de Chaumet. But when she learns he is planning to marry another woman, her vengeance pursues him into the murkiest depths of Paris...
Set against the backdrop of the shell crisis of 1915 at home and the Battle of Loos on the Western Front, two soldiers, one the manager of Grimlaw’s munitions factory are tested in their rivalry for Diana, a red cross nurse (Madeleine Carroll in her first film role).
In the Jacobite Rising of 1745, the Young Pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie leads an insurrection to overthrow the Protestant House of Hanover and restore his family, the Catholic branch of the House of Stuart, to the British throne.