The French are returning from war against the Germans, defeated. They all tell stories about what happened with the exception of one young man who foesn’t speak about what he saw at all. This changes when one night he gets drunk at a bar with the two fruit juice sellers sitting by him, and the man decides to tell them everything that happened. During the war, the French were losing a battle and the Germans would call out for the Frenchmen to prepare to die and for the Frenchwomen to get ready to dance. The man got captured, but he was able to escape with his friend. They ran to an abandoned schoolroom where only the teacher reamined. She clothed the men in disguises and fed them, and the men noted that the French were fine as long as they still had their women. The two prisoners rode away on bicycles. One of the stops the made was the night of the German party. The men joked about how the Germans would have the right music, clothing, and food, but they would have no one to dance with because the French still had their women. In the beginning of the ni9ght, the Germans stand awkwardly and no one comes to the party. As the night progresses, however, the women see the extravagant food and champagne. They begin to dance with the Germans and the French lose their women. One of the fruit juice sellers mentions that it was only in one town and the escaped soldier sadly agrees that it was in a French town.