Jean Servais is Tony le Stephanois, a master thief with a battered face and a tubercular cough, souvenirs of a recent stint in the pen. The ageing Tony is reluctant to return to a life of crime, but when he realizes his girlfriend has thrown him over for a rival gangster, he agrees to attempt one last job. Together with three collaborators - a young father, a boisterous Franco-Italian, and a sentimental Milanese safecracker - Tony meticulously engineers his biggest heist yet: robbing the most heavily guarded jewellery store in Paris.