Orphans of the Storm (1921)

In the Eighteenth Century in France, a few years before the French Revolution, the Countess de Linieres asks her minion to deliver her baby daughter Louise to an orphanage to protect her. However he leaves the baby on the stairs of a church. A peasant finds Louise and brings her home to his wife and they find a necklace with her name and money in the basket. They raise Louise with their daughter Henriette as sisters, but years later there is a plague and they die and Louise becomes blind. Louise Girard is totally dependent on Henriette Girard and they travel to Paris expecting to find the cure of Louise's blindness. The rogue Marquis de Praille sees Henriette and becomes fascinated with her virginal beauty. He asks his men to abduct Henriette and brings her to his party. Louise is left alone in Paris and the scoundrel Mother Frochard forces Louise to beg on the streets for her. Meanwhile the noble aristocrat Chevalier de Vaudrey saves Henriette and they fall in love with each other. But Henriette explains that she had promised Louise that she would not marry until Louise could look upon her husband to approve him. Meanwhile Danton, who is saved by Henriette, and Robespierre are plotting the French Revolution that explodes on the streets keeping the sisters apart.