A young Parisian in quarrel with his father goes to join his uncle who runs a sawmill in the provinces.
A playwright offers two actress friends the chance to appear in his new, unfinished play, which consists of only one female part.
In 18th-century Rome, impish aristocrat Onofrio del Grillo amuses himself by playing pranks on all sorts of people — his reactionary family and fellow nobles, the poors, the French occupiers trying to modernize society, and even the Pope himself.