Lucien travels back to the town where he works by bicycle and stumbles on the hotel that is the headquarters of the Carlingue, the French auxiliaries of the Gestapo, and is taken into custody.

He enjoys his new power and position, but falls in love with France Horn, a beautiful French-born Jewish girl living in seclusion with her father Albert, a tailor, and her paternal grandmother Bella, who left Paris in fear and are trying to cross the border into the safety of neutral Spain.

A text epilogue states that Lucien Lacombe was arrested on October 12, 1944, tried and condemned to death by a military tribunal of the Resistance, and executed.

Schneider wrote, "Every so often a director makes an inspiring casting choice to not hire a real actor for a role, but go with an unknown, an amateur.

Yet, not that far behind has to be Louis Malle's decision to cast the lead character for his 1974 film, Lacombe, Lucien with an amateur named Pierre Blaise.

No actor would likely be able to capture the natural ferality that Blaise brings to the role of a none-too-bright French farm boy who unwittingly, at first, becomes an accomplice and collaborator with the Gestapo in the final months of Vichy France, in late 1944.