Arsène Lupin

As a boy in the 1880s, Arsène is being taught fencing by his father Théophraste Lupin. They live at the Château of his mother's family, the Dreux-Soubises. When the police tries to arrest Théophraste for thievery, he flees on horseback. Late at night, he returns to persuade Arsène to help him steal jewelry from his uncle--a collier that once belonged to Marie Antoinette. When the theft is discovered, the uncle makes Arsène and his mother leave the house. On the roadside, they are horrified see a murdered man who wears Théophraste's ring. Fifteen years later, young Arsène is on a cruise ship from Africa to Le Havre, gallantly stealing jewelry from the ladies. Back in France, he visits his dying mother in the hospital. She tells him that his father's murderer has visited her--then she dies. At her funeral, Arsène meets again his cousin Clarisse. She invites him home and spends the night with him. But Arséne doesn't want to stay--he wants to find his father's murderer. He feels that his uncle knows more than he admits, so he follows him to a secret meeting. A group of men around a descendant of the French royal family wants to end the Republic and reinstall monarchy in France. To complete this task, they are searching for a treasure that has been hidden by Marie Antoinette. They need several crosses from abbeys and cathedrals all over France to give them clues. Arsène witnesses Joséphine, la comtesse de Cagliostro, being brought in and condemned to death for sabotaging the group and hiding Marie Antoinette's jewelry. Arsène understands that this is the jewelry that he himself had stolen for his father. He saves Joséphine and becomes her lover. A member of the group, Beaumagnan, tries to warn Arsène against Joséphine, but she in return warns Arsène against Beaumagnan. When Arséne breaks into the Louvre to discover another cross, he finds himself framed with the murder of the night guard. Still he has no idea who is framing him--Beaumagnan, Joséphine or someone else? Things culminate at a ball, where Arsène, pretending to be a Russian Prince, dances with Clarisse. A hypnotized Beaumagnan steals another cross. Arsène confronts Joséphine, then saves Clarisse from an over-eager suitor. Arsène learns that she is pregnant with his child. Beaumagnan tells him that he is Arsène's father with a remodeled face, and that he killed another to pretend his own death. Horrified by this news, Arsène manages to flee with the cross before the police arrives. When Clarisse visits him at his lab, she tells him that her father's group wants to trade--he can have her if he gives up the three crosses he has managed to collect so far. Joséphine disrupts the meeting between Arsène and the group with a bomb. She saves Arsène and kidnaps Clarisse. They free themselves. Back in the lab, one of Arsène's accomplices shows them the body of Clarisse's father, who died in the explosion. They discover that he has a glass eye with the final clue to the treasure. Arsène and Clarisse get married and have their son, Jean. At night, Arsène leaves the house to break into rich people's homes. During one of those nights, Joséphine enters his own home, shoots his wife and kidnaps his son. Arsène starts a hollow life of clever thefts, using various disguises and wrong names. In 1913, he has a new woman friend, and they attend a parade honoring Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian crown prince. Suddenly, Arsène sees Joséphine with a young man--his son, Jean, grown-up! When he realizes that she has hypnotized Jean to place a bomb in a suitcase, he confronts Jean and makes him give up the suitcase, throwing it into the air. Joséphine searches the hysteric crowd, but he has disappeared - all that's left on the sidewalk is a flower--a lupin.