Alphonsine Plessis, a half-orphan, grows up in poverty and suffers from a lung disease from an early age. But she has a way with men, which serves her well after her drug-addicted father repeatedly sells her for cash. Through a young nobleman, she escapes her miserable circumstances and rises in Parisian society to become a high-class courtesan, known only as the "Lady of the Camellias." She is kept by wealthy patrons, moves in the highest circles, and marries into the nobility, which grants her all sorts of privileges, from which her father also benefits. The young Alexandre Dumas, son of the famous writer of the same name, falls in love with the young, consumptive prostitute. She, too, is deeply in love with him, but fate has other plans...