Jacques Averil leads an idle life which plunges him into weariness and melancholy. When he learns of the suicide of his father, a banker ruined by dark speculation in Icelandic minerals, he decides to take charge. An old friend of his father offers him the opportunity to join as a sailor.

Lefranc is vain selfish man. The only person he loves is his eldest son Bernard, a ship-of-the-line lieutenant. Richard, the youngest son, is a common fisherman. Bernard gets married to a rich heiress, Hélène d'Argel and Richard gets married on the same day with Louise Kermarech, daughter of a fisherman. Years later, Bernard looses his wife and disappears at sea. His daughter Germaine ignores her cousin Gaud and Yvonnic Lefranc. Richard also dies at sea. Germaine will bring grand-father Lefranc closer to his grand-children.

A family of strict magistrates holds firm in protecting one of their members,who commits an error which provokes a storm of outrage.

Luc Froment, a reform-minded engineer, starts working at a steel mill in a small town. There he founds small groups of workers (and their families) under miserable conditions. Under the influence of Fourier's ideas, Froment tries to turn the mill into a workers' co-operative.