For his first film in six years, Robert Bresson has been inspired by a short story by Leo Tolstoy, "The Counterfeit Note". When making a delivery of fuel oil, a young Parisian workman is given a fake 500 franc note by some shop keepers. They themselves had received the note from a group of bourgeois youths who had staged this little swindle just for fun.

The oil company goes to Court, but the shopkeepers give false evidence and the young man loses his job. Subsequently, he agrees to take part in a bank robbery; is arrested and sentenced to gaol. During his prison term his wife abandons him. When he is released, he sets out to revenge himself for the injustice that has ruined his life.