The heroine is the young Romani girl, Paquita. She doesn't know that she is really of noble birth, having been abducted by Romani people when she was an infant. She saves the life of a young French officer, Lucien d'Hervilly, the target of a Spanish governor who plots to have him killed by Iñigo, a Roma chief.

ACT I

A rocky landscape with a Gypsy camp. The action is set in Spain during the French occupation in the time of Napoléon (1808-14). Paquita (Grisi) is a gypsy girl who saves a French officer, Lucien (L. Petipa), from a plot to murder him. Lucien's father, a French general (Monet), wishes him to marry the Spanish Governor's daughter, Dona Seraphina (Pierson), but the Governor views the proposed alliance with such distaste that he bribes the gypsy chief Inigo (Elie) to kill the young Frenchman.

Act II

Scene 1

Inigo’s cabin. Inigo offers Lucien a glass of drugged wine, but Paquita, who has heard of the plot, changes the glasses, and as a revolving fireplace brings the hired assassins into the gypsy cabin, she and Lucien, standing with their backs to the fireplace, are taken outside to safety. .

Scene 2

The Governor’s ball. Paquita restores Lucien to his father during a ball. The Governor is arrested, and Paquita discovers that she is herself of noble birth, thus removing the obstacle which stands in the way of her marrying Lucien.