Vidocq has obtained papers for himself and Desfossés, and with Annette they head north to join a traveling theater. Stopped en route, they learn only too late that the two men whose names they have borrowed are deserters. It's their good fortune to be handed over to the “rolling army”, a group of thugs who pretend to be soldiers to profit from looting. But Flambart is still on Vidocq's tail, and what's more, after the retreat of the real army, the rolling army has to fight for the first time...