- The film opens with Parisians arranged around a park in various states of leisure, some in chairs, some strolling, some reclining in horse-drawn carriages.
- Honoré Lachaille, an older man in a top hat, addresses the camera, introducing himself.
- In a sing-song voice, he explains the condition of marriage: that there are those who marry, and those who will not marry, and those who cannot marry. (Those who will not are men, he explains, and those who cannot are usually women.)
- The camera pans to a little circle of young girls playing, and Honoré calls them the future, saying, that soon enough they too will be "married or unmarried."
- Then Honoré begins to sing the most famous song of the movie: "Thank Heaven," in which he extols the virtues of little girls—after all, they're going to be courting-age in no time at all…cue the creepiness.
- Honoré brings us to our heroine Gigi, who dashes around laughing with other young girls, wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat and a school uniform. (The actress in this role is playing very young—she's 26.)
- "Gigi," he tells us: "what you have to look forward to."
- Honoré resumes his song and Gigi drops her books. He picks them up and she dashes away as the music fades and the scene changes.