Le président et la garde-barrière (1997)

France, 1920. After falling out of the window of his railway carriage, President Paul Deschanel walks along the tracks in the night to ask the level-crossing keeper at Mignières-Gondreville for help. Marie, a former nun and front-line nurse who became a level-crossing keeper after her fiancé was killed in the war, resents her fiancé for having “left” her and hopes to meet another man. She prays to Bernadette Soubirous, and then Paul Deschanel turns up at her home. During his feverish delirium, the President tells her that his adviser, Baron Hubert, has betrayed him: Hubert is a spy working for Germany who is using the President to undermine diplomatic relations between France and Great Britain. Paul Deschanel grows fond of Marie’s simple little home and talks to her about archaeology, his passion. Everyone actively searches for the President aboard a rail trolley, and eventually they find him. His rival, Georges Clemenceau, takes advantage of this mishap to ridicule him in the press. Marie leaves her job and goes to Paris to join Paul Deschanel and defend him. He decides to resign and signs the letter with the name “Napoleon” in order to make himself appear mad and thereby save his friends’ careers.