An Empire colonel, left for dead on a battlefield, returns to Paris and finds his wife remarried.

Colonel Hyacinthe, a.k.a Chabert, was left for dead on the battlefield of Eylau. Rose, his wife, remarried with Count Ferraud with whom she has two children. Under the Restoration, Chabert reappears to see the hostility, the wickedness and the cunning of those whose kindness, comfort and respect he hoped for. Disgusted, he voluntarily enters a hospice for the poor where he ends his life in the company of other remains of the Empire.