Catherine Hubscher, laundress, saves the life of an Austrian nobleman with the complicity of her fiancé, Sergeant Lefebvre, the day when royalty collapses. And then the years pass ... Become Marshal of the Empire and Duke of Danzig, ex Sergeant Lefebvre always has for wife Catherine, the ex laundress; and this, in spite of the efforts made by the Emperor Napoleon to have him divorced, the Emperor blamed him strongly for the lack of distinction of Catherine. Faced with the Marshal's refusal, Catherine was summoned to the Emperor's house and the dialogue between them lacked heat to say the least, until the former lieutenant Bonaparte recognized in Maréchale Lefebvre, Catherine the laundress, who once , gave him credit for his laundering debts.
Catherine married Jérôme, a wealthy landowner living in North Africa, from a bourgeois but noxious background. While living in total family harmony, she is seized by a mystical crisis following a vision of a cleric in ecstasy. She abandons her home and worldly possessions to take a job as a maid. After a bumpy road that severely tested her spirituality, Catherine found peace by returning to live with her devoted partner.
France under the Occupation. Executed for treason against the Resistance, Cora, code-named "La Chatte", was left for dead. Recovered and cared for by the Germans, Dr. von Hollwitz brainwashed her to control her and use her as a counter-espionage. In the spring of 1944, her escape was faked so that she could resume contact with the Resistance. She has to scupper the mission of Charles, an engineer with the SNCF, to blow up a train loaded with V1s intended to power the launch pads set up on the French coast to bomb London. But at the last moment, La Chatte regains her lucidity.
The artist Edouard Lavigne falls in love with a young girl but must quickly leave her because her parents are opposed to this relationship. Edourd's son will go in search of this woman and will thereby meet her daughter. About a love story that continues from one generation to the next.
Sénéchal, an actor touring the provinces with the "Tournées Carlini" does not meet the success he thinks he deserves. One night in Dreux, he finds himself without his luggage and dressed up as a Foreign Legion officer, he is invited to a party thrown by a colonel. He creates a sensation there and does not leave the colonel's wife ... indifferent! Back in Paris, Sénéchal goes through a similar experience. This time around, wearing tuxedo and top hat, he gets mistaken for a diplomat and charms the guests of a wedding party. Arrested by the police, he chooses to do without an attorney at his trial and his brilliant eloquence has him acquitted. A question remains unanswered though : will all those people who give an ovation in real life ever go to see him on stage ?