A widower sends his son Dédé to boarding school, falls in love with a young woman and gradually neglects the child, not out of disaffection but because of routine. The little boy is helpless: he feels he has been completely forsaken - Fortunately, things improve: Dédé ends up finding a new mummy.
Inflamed by his readings of chivalric novels, Don Quixote, a knight with a sad face, accompanied by Sancho Panza, a peasant steeped in common sense, decides to set off across the world in search of improbable adventures.
Denise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle's store. But the glamorous department store 'Aux Bonheur des Dames' across the street crushes all the little businesses around. She finds a position there.
Paris, France, 1784. After living many tribulations, Joseph Balsamo, known as Count Cagliostro, an infamous adventurer, enigmatic magician and necromancer, experienced physician and ruthless swordsman, triumphs among the members of the decadent French aristocracy. But a bold foretelling about a very prominent noblewoman causes his fall in disgrace… (Partially lost film.)
Jacques Prémont-Solène is a degenerate gambler and his losses at baccarat have bankrupted his lover, Laure Maresco. When he steals four hundred thousand francs and loses that at the gambling tables, he flees to the United States, and Nathalie takes the blame. Twenty years later, she has a flourishing career as a nightclub singer, but their son is just as inept a gambler as his father had been.