After marrying a dour and disinterested lord for status, a young woman falls in love with a stage actor while her best friend from boarding school enters an affair with her husband.

The grandmother of a British nobleman, reluctant to marry, plays matchmaker. He outmaneuvers her by getting all of the matches married off .

In 1827, Berthet, the son of a craftsman and a young seminarian, was tried and sentenced to death for murdering his former mistress, the wife of a noble who had hired him as tutor to his children.

Chéri-Bibi is a world class escape artist, but he cannot escape the false murder charge that is placed on him.

A dashing marquis bends from his horse when he discovers a lost garter in the woods and falls. During his delirium he is serenaded by a little hairdresser. She is the person who lost the garter to begin with and has only come to get it back having borrowed it from her employer--the empress of France. The marquis mistakenly thinks he was nursed by the empress, herself, and decides to woo her.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Charles Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned former family servant. He is himself imprisoned and condemned by the revolutionary forces there. His wife, the former Lucie Manette, is secretly loved by a gentlemanly wastrel, Sydney Carton. Carton embarks on a daring plan to save the husband of the woman he loves.

Two gentlemen battle for the "prize". Things escalate quickly...