The children set a trap for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, knowing he has to come through the window because their estate has no chimney. Their father, who abandoned them and his wife before she inherited her fortune, plans to burglarize that very house, unaware of the occupants or the trap.
A pair of lookalikes, one a former French aristocrat and the other an alcoholic English lawyer, fall in love with the same woman amongst the turmoil of the French Revolution.