This subject deals with an episode of the Neapolitan revolution in 1647. The Duke of Arcos had imposed such drastic taxes upon the people that they rebelled, and when a proclamation of added imposition was posted in the town, under the leadership of Masaniello they tore it down and burned it. Marching to the palace, they presented an ultimatum to the Duke, who, in face of the tremendous odds, feigned to submit gracefully to the demands of the people. Carrying the deceit further, he appointed Masaniello captain-general, with royal powers. He then gave a banquet to which he invited Masaniello, and in a speech lauded the general to the skies. Responding to the toast, Masaniello drinks from a glass in which the Duke had placed a terrible poison which drives Masaniello to madness. Drawing his sword, he marches down the street, compelling all he met to do him homage. His mad deeds are brought to a climax when he attacks a statue of the Virgin, an object of veneration by the Neapolitans, in front of the Carmel Church. The outraged populace falls upon him and destroys him. The Duke, surcharged with pity, silently soliloquizes over the corpse of his vanished foe, and immediately re-establishes the taxes, which the disconsolate public, bereft of its leader, accepts ignominiously. The madness of Masaniello, depicted by Albert Lambert, the noted French actor, is remarkable in its intensity of action, and the film throughout is a masterpiece.