Chatelard, one of Viscount de Kerlec's guests, has died in mysterious conditions. The police initiates an investigation and sends detective-inspector Pauc to de Kerlec's manor. Pauc decides to mingle with the viscount's guests , who are all likely to have committed the murder. Among them, there is Jacques Mauclerc, a naval officer, and a seedy character named Bartoli, in fact a spy in search of secret documents. Pauc will end up untangling the web during a dramatic séance.
Augustin, the bashful but model secretary of Fontange,a tyrannical industrialist, is desperately in love with Christiane,his boss's daughter. Of course Daddy will never allow. On the contrary he wants to force his daughter to marry his business partner, a single man, whose money would be a welcome help. To escape such an unfortunate lot, Christiane must find a subterfuge. The solution is Bichon, the baby that Jacques, her younger brother, is supposed to have had from a certain Loulou. By claiming that the baby is hers and that Augustin is the father, she hopes to compel her father not to marry a man she does not love.
Sophie de Réan, an unruly mischievous little girl grows up under the thumb of Mademoiselle, her strict governess. Following her mother's death, she is entrusted to Mme de Fleurville, her aunt, who at the same time hires Mademoiselle to further Sophie's education. A few years later, the little girl has blossomed into a lovely young lady. She is now in love with Paul, her cousin, who, unlike her, used to be a model child. Unfortunately Mademoiselle will not hear of a union between them. Instead she wants Sophie to marry Armand, the conceited son of Prefect Hugon. To make matters worse, Paul, the good boy, unexpectedly turns into a revolutionary, who defends the Republic on the barricades against Louis Napoléon's coup. Not being one of the victors, Paul is forced into exile. Will Sophie finally yield and accept the established order or will she react in her usual rebellious way and follow the one she loves ?
In Flanders in the eighteenth century, Ramon de Ortila, a young lord who has been dispossessed of property has turned into a gentleman brigand. His main target is Monsieur de Saint-Brissac, the salt tax farmer. But Solange, his daughter, sets a trap and lures the young man to her father's manor. Little does she know that love is at the rendezvous.
A ruined banker is abandoned by his mistress. He commits suicide after entrusting a prostitute with twenty-thousand francs. The money changes hands. A crook is arrested in the house of an an actress he had fooled. In a luxury hotel, a typist kills her lover's wife. The trial of the murderer is followed by the bankruptcy of another financier and the money finally returns to the mistress of a suicide in the restaurant in which she had first appeared.
Madame Millois, an ambitious mother, thinks she has found the perfect match for her daughter Arlette, Count de Tremblay-Matour. Alas, the ideal husband happens to be a crook. On the night of the wedding, the fake nobleman robs his wife and abandons her. While the outraged Madame Millois looks for the real Count de Tremblay, Arlette seeks consolation with Maxime, a childhood friend. At last, the real count is found. Unsurprisingly, he is furious to learn that, legally, he is Arlette's husband. After a while though, he mellows and accepts to "remain" Arlette's husband.
Monsieur Vincent is the respected healer of a Basque village. But nobody knows that Vincent Berteaux used to be a surgeon in Paris. When Assomption, a young holidaymaker, arrives in the village in the company of her mother, little does Vincent know that the past returns to his life.
In 1914, in the first months of World War I, Louise Jarraud loses her husband, killed on the front. Shortly after, she gives birth to a baby, who soon dies. Devastated by this double misfortune, Louise decides to dedicate her life to caring for the children of others. She becomes a nurse with several employers, giving her affection to little boys or girls. A widower and another man propose to her but she refuses twice determined as she is to live only for the children in her charge.
Mademoiselle Bressac is a bossy spinster who manages "Le Clos", her estate, with an iron hand. But is she really a bad person? Her manners are abrupt but they only hide a heart of gold. Doesn't she bring up four orphans, Dominique, Fabien, Chantal and Jean? And as if it were not enough, she has accepted to educate another child, her niece Patricia, entrusted to her care by her irresponsible father. Thanks to her, the five young people have grown up in harmony and now they are about to find their place in society. Two of them, Jean and Patricia, who love each other, live only for the estate.
Lucien Mazerand, a bookseller from Châteauroux, goes to Paris to spend a few days in the French capital. At the music-hall, he discovers Stella Losange, a singer who literally enthralls him. Determined to seduce her, he is aware that a mere bookseller from the provinces stands no chance. So he resorts to a stratagem: posing for a globe-trotter who has gone through millions of adventures. The scheme works but the lady wants more : why doesn't he take her along with him so that she can share his dangerous life?
In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for designing clothes, and he and his bride live in a blissful paradise, until the war breaks out and he becomes a soldier. Janine dies in childbirth and, no longer desiring to live, Pierre volunteers for a dangerous patrol behind German lines. While recuperating in the hospital from a wound he received on the mission, Pierre spends his time drawing sketches of dresses. He becomes rich and famous after the war. Years later, after devoting himself to his daughter, Pierre seeks a marriage with a girl no older than his daughter. A conflict develops and to ensure his daughter's happiness, Pierre sacrifices his own plans.
A famous violinist enlists in a music school in order to woo one of the students.
Alexandre Mérital, the leader of a political party, finds himself under attack from Frépeau, one of his opponents. The latter has indeed discovered that Mérital committed a theft in his youth. But Mérital will not be intimidated by his adversary's move. In his turn, he discovers that Frépeau was once involved in a financial scandal, which forces the plaintiff to discontinue the prosecution.
Flanders, Hispanic Monarchy, 1616. The inhabitants of the small town of Boom are busy organizing the annual local festivities when the arrival of the Duke of Olivares, who rules the country on behalf of the King Philip III of Spain, is announced. While the male citizens cowardly surrender to panic like rats on a sinking ship, the brave female citizens, led by the bold wife of the burgomaster, decide to become the best hosts the Spaniards can ever meet.
Mr. and Mrs. Noblet run a boarding house on the French Riviera. One day, they are led by circumstances to welcome a little boy Pierre, whose father is in jail, into their home. Which makes Louise Noblet all the happier as she can't have children herself. But, after a while, Pierre's father is released from prison and reclaims his son... Time passes and Pierre, now a young adult, lives in Paris more or less on the wrong side of the law. He has a mistress, Nelly, who does not say no to other men's money... Louise, who still loves Pierre as her own son, wants only one thing - to help him get by.
Célestin, the organist of a convent, has written and composed a light operetta under the name of Floridor. One day, the Mother Superior asks him to chaperone one of the boarders, Denise de Flavigny, who is returning home to get married. Now, Denise, for all her goody goody looks, soon proves as saucy as can be. Things get even more complicated when Célestin starts courting Corinne, the star of his operetta, to the great displeasure of a commander of dragons, the young woman's lover. Worse, the latter is none other than the Mother Superior's brother... To say nothing of Lieutenant Fernand de Champlatreux, who happens to fall in love with Denise, his fiancée that he has never seen before...!