A French farce set in Victorian London where a botanist and his wife get into trouble when they pretend to go missing in order to hide from their sanctimonious cousin – an Anglican bishop who is leading a campaign against such writing.

The scene of action embraces Tangier, Toulon and the Mediterranean, where Pierre Fresnay, Rolf Wanka and Kim Peacock, cast as captains of French, German and English boats, respectively, unite to rescue the passengers of a neutral boat that is about to be engulfed in a cloud of poison smoke released by a smuggling ship.

A film based upon the life of Vidocq, the famous adventurer, who, after numerous prison escapes ceased being a crook, a thief and a counterfeiter, and was employed by Pasquier’s government’istry as director of the crime-fighting Sûreté Nationale.