- When Charlemagne returns to Aix, France, Alda asks where her fiancé Roland is. Charlemagne gives her the bad news but offers his son, Louis, as a replacement.
- Alda rejects the offer as strange and immediately dies, not wanting to remain alive without Roland. Awww?
- Charlemagne realizes she is actually dead, not in a faint, and calls for four countesses to take her body to a convent.
- Meanwhile, Ganelon, lashed to a stake and beaten, awaits his trial as Charles summons vassals from all over his empire to be on the jury.
- Charlemagne opens the trial with a biased summary of what Ganelon is accused of: arranging the massacre of 20,000 Frankish knights including Roland and Oliver, and betraying the Twelve Peers for his own gain.
- Ganelon answers by claiming that his motive was private revenge against Roland, who had previously wronged him in some money matter, and not high treason.
- Standing tall and handsome before the jurors, Ganelon argues that Roland hated him and nominated him to visit Marsile so he would be killed. The only reason he came back alive was through his own cleverness. He issued a formal challenge to Roland and cannot be accused of treason.
- Privately conferring with thirty of his relatives, Ganelon begs Pinabel to use his public speaking skills to argue for his defense. Pinabel promises that he will deliver, even if he has to fight to prove his innocence.
- Vassals from every part of the empire discuss the trial but carefully because they fear Pinabel. Some suggest they put in an innocent verdict—after all, Roland's dead, isn't he? There's no fixing that. Everyone agrees but a man named Thierry.
- But when the knights tell Charlemagne to let Ganelon live and continue to serve him, he is not pleased. He lightens up though when Thierry speaks in favor of executing Ganelon.
- Even if Roland is to blame, he argues, he should have been protected from any private revenge by his service to Charlemagne. Anyone who doubts that Ganelon has committed a felony is challenged to a duel with Thierry.
- Pinabel protests Thierry's judgment and agrees to fight with him to determine the verdict. After giving Charlemagne three hostages, he is allowed to keep Ganelon until his fate is decided.
- Thierry and Pinabel make formal challenges and benches are set up to observe the fight. After confessing, hearing mass, making church offerings, and being absolved of their sins, they arm themselves for battle. At the prospect, the weepy Franks go off again, moved at Thierry's conviction and Roland's death.
- Thierry and Pinabel duel in a meadow, both fighting hard and courageously with 100,000 spectators. Unseated from their horses, they stay at it on foot.
- Pinabel shouts that if Thierry surrenders and lets Ganelon off, he (Pinabel) will become his vassal. Thierry shrugs off this bargain and wants God to prove through their fight who is right. You're strong and scary, he says, and you won't be dishonored if you stop now and agree to execute Ganelon.
- But family loyalty is more important to Pinabel than his life. He will either save Ganelon or die.
- Pinabel whacks Thierry's helmet so hard it sparks and lights the grass on fire. His sword slices Thierry's face, but God saves him at the last minute, the lucky rascal. Enraged at seeing his own blood, Thierry smashes his sword through Pinabel's brain, winning the battle.
- The observing Franks declare it a miracle. They want to hang Ganelon as well as the relatives who argued his case.
- Charlemagne and forty knights embrace Thierry, clean him up, and bring him back in triumph to Aix. When he asks what he should do with Ganelon's family, his advisors demand that they be executed. Charlemagne tells his provost marshal to hang all thirty of them.
- Of all the jurors, the Franks (that is the Frenchmen, as opposed to the Saxons, etc.) are most insistent that Ganelon die as painfully as possible. Each of his limbs is tied to a horse and as they ride in opposite directions, his body is stretched until it explodes—a death worthy of such a wicked traitor.
- Once Ganelon is gone, Charlemagne calls for his bishops to deal with Queen Bramimonde, who has heard enough sermons as a prisoner in France that she now sincerely wants to convert. She is baptized in the Aix baths and re-named Juliana.
- When night falls, Charlemagne goes to bed, but his sleep is interrupted by Gabriel who tells him that the Christians in the city of Imphe, under King Vivien, are under pagan siege. They need the Frankish army immediately. Charlemagne hears this command with great sadness. He cries out to God that his life is full of suffering.