France, around the time of the French Revolution: the revolutionary-minded poet Andrea Chénier falls into the clutches of Robespierre’s reign of terror and is suspected of being a counter-revolutionary.
His fate is closely intertwined with that of the young noblewoman Maddalena Coigny and that of the former valet de chambre Gérard: both men love Maddalena, she in turn loves Chénier. In the end, however, death awaits: Andrea Chénier and Maddalena Coigny go to the scaffold together.
