The Colonel Chabert

A French colonel who everyone believed was dead comes back to his family and attempts to get back part of his money from his wife, who has married another man and had children. She doesn't want to help him because he knows secrets about her shameful past.

By using the arm bone of a dead soldier, Colonel Chabert manages to dig his way out of a common grave, in which he found himself after the French cavalry charge at Eylau. It takes him ten years to get back to Paris, where a lawyer, Master Derville, agrees to help him retrieve his fortune, now in his remarried wife's name. But instead of heeding Derville's advice, Chabert tries to negotiate directly with his wife, who much prefers that he remain dead.

A French colonel, thought to be dead, returns to his family and tries to recover some of his fortune from his wife who has since remarried and borne a family. She is reluctant because he can reveal her less than distinguished past.