A medical intern finds himself drawn into a world of international intrigue after discovering a shrunken human head in his luggage.

Victor Valance, an absent father and gambler, works with shady casino operations abroad. When he returns to Paris in need of money, he plans to take advantage that Pauline, his eldest daughter now fully responsible for the whole family, has begun to work for the Ministry of Finance. Pauline thwarts his new projects but when she realizes gangsters are looking for Victor she will put her life at risk to help him and save their family.

In a time of war and disease, a young officer gallantly tries to help a young woman find her husband.

Paris, Kingdom of France, August 18, 1572. To avoid the outbreak of a religious war, the Catholic princess Marguerite de Valois, sister of the feeble King Charles IX, marries the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre.

Monique Zimmer, in her sixties, killed her lover, Oscar Foulard, cut up the body of the corpse, and is now walking with a suitcase containing Oscar's trunk. This one continues to speak, and comes to testify during the trial of his widow.

Didier never knew that a wrong film review of a film which he did not bother to watch would land him in numerous troubles.

Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.