STORY

Jacqueline Floriot is driven from her home by her husband Louis, a deputy attorney of Paris, because of his unjust suspicions regarding her relations with another man. Floriot forbids Jacqueline to see her baby boy, who is dangerously ill, and when informed that the boy believes her dead, she attempts suicide. She is saved but becomes a woman of the streets, and twenty years later, when Jacqueline returns to France from Buenos Aires, she is destroyed by drugs and drink.

Jacqueline’s love for her son is all that remains of her early life, and when Laroque, a blackmailer, learns who she is, he determines to use the information against Floriot and his son Raymond, now a promising young attorney. Rather than allow her son to suffer, Jacqueline kills Laroque, is sent to prison and registers as Madame X. The case is assigned to Raymond, who finds himself strangely attracted to this woman, unaware that she is his mother. When she collapses after her acquittal, Floriot, recognizing Jacqueline, informs his son of her identity. Raymond calls her “Mother,” but the shock of the trial has been too much for her and she dies after forgiving her husband. (TCM)