In 1858 Lourdes, France, Bernadette, an adolescent peasant girl, has a vision of "a beautiful lady" in the city dump. She never claims it to be anything other than this, but the townspeople all assume it to be the Virgin Mary. The pompous government officials think she is nuts, and do their best to suppress the girl and her followers, and the church wants nothing to do with the whole matter. But as Bernadette attracts wider and wider attention, the phenomenon overtakes everyone in the the town, and transforms their lives.
The newly-named emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlota arrive in Mexico to face popular sentiment favoring Benito Juárez and democracy.
Nazis are about to overrun France, and a Jewish man named Jacobowsky is stranded in Paris. He hitches a ride with reluctant Polish serviceman Colonel Prokoszny, who harbors a bias against Jews. They are soon joined by Prokoszny's bride-to-be, Suzanne, who takes an immediate liking to the engaging Jacobowsky. This furthers the hostility between Jacobowsky and Prokoszny, but they must put their differences aside to evade the Nazis trailing them.
