百万富翁让-马克-克莱蒙特得知在外百老汇将上演一场可能关连自己“时俗讽刺剧”，他来到了剧院，在那里遇见了正在排练的阿曼达。导演认为克莱蒙特是最适合在剧中出演“自己”的人选，克莱蒙特答应参加这次演出，只为能再次见到阿曼达……

Released in France as La Kermesse Heroique, Carnival in Flanders is set during the long-ago war between the Dutch and Spanish. A tiny village in Flanders is invaded by Spanish troops. The townsfolk have heard of Spanish cruelties in other towns, and decide to deflect the vanquishers by playing dead. This isn't terribly effective (you have to take a breath once in a while), so the wife of the burgomaster tries to soften up the invaders with a lavish carnival. So successful is this venture that the Spaniards allow the village to escape being decimated, or even taxed. An award-winner many times over, Carnival in Flanders was banned in Germany; evidently, Goebbels caught on that director Jacques Feyder and scenarists Bernard Zimmer and Charles Spaak were drawing deliberate parallels between the Spanish and the then-burgeoning Nazis.