Leaping forward twenty years, the trilogy continues with the death of Fanny's husband, Panisse, and the discovery of her secret by her son, Césariot. The young man resolves to track down his biological father, Marius, whose life has been fraught with calamity and poverty.

Two different sales agents named Max Durand live at the same address. One of them pretends to be the other so he make the money and get the girl that he wants.

Now that they have inherited a huge sum of money Moïse Lévy and his brother Salomon are the prosperous owners of a a department store, the Galeries Lévy & Cie. Life is sweet but unexpectedly sours the day a fake Lévy cousin gets into their lives, claiming that the business is his, not theirs.

Poor Arlette is married off by her well meaning mother to a supposed count who turns out to be a fake and a crook.Arlette seeks out the real count, to whom in name technically she is married.

Maurin, an accomplished lady seducer, has acknowledged Césariot as his son. Tonia, Maurin's mistress, is jealous of his love for the boy and follows him one night as he attempts to protect Césariot from the customs officers. But Maurin is shot and dies in Tonia's arms. Based on Jean Aicard's novel.

Following a quarrel with his father, Prince Jean joined the Foreign Legion. When he returns, he finds his brother who, on the king's death, usurped his title, and the woman he loved, betrothed to another. Helped by a very rich and philosophical old uncle, Jean, disgusted with classes and politics, flees with the young woman.

Dora Nelson, a famous actress, leaves both her husband Philippe de Moreuil and the role she was playing in a movie directed by Nivert, to follow her lover Santini in Italy. But she soon realizes that Santini deceives her with a girl named Elsa. In vexation she decides to return to her husband and to her career. Unfortunately for her, Suzanne Verdier, a little working girl, has in the meantime replaced her not only in the film she had left unfinished but in her husband's heart as well. Dora eventually understands she must step aside.

The Marquis de Barfleur, an unattractive man, decides to resort to plastic surgery to ensure the fidelity of Colette, his young mistress. Now endowed with a face to die for, he is about to achieve his goal. But the Marchioness de Barfleur, the Marquis' loving wife, does not hear it that way. She has her revenge claiming everywhere that her husband is... dead! An assertion people believe since they do not recognize the Marquis! When her vengeance has lasted long enough, she forgives the Marquis and husband and wife fall into each other's arms.

Gontran is required to marry if he wants to benefit from his aunt's inheritance. To convince the latter in favor of a visit, he calls on the wife of a friend who will play the role of the future wife. This maneuver will cause many misunderstandings.

At the urging of her childhood friend Brémontier, Lucie de Kéradec, a wealthy widowed countess who wishes to remarry, invites all of her seven suitors to her mansion. Her untold intention is to test them by claiming to be ruined. The experience is a success in that each of the potential husbands reveals his inner nature but a failure when it comes to finding a new life partner. None of the guests passes the test except - the eighth man, namely Brémontier who loved Lucie in secret but, being penniless, had not dared declare his flame to her.