"Les Trois Valses" traces the love story of two people over three eras. In the first waltz (music based on Johann Strauss I), Yvonne is a sensitive Parisian ballet dancer, whose romance with a dashing officer is brought to an abrupt end by his family. She goes off to Vienna to become a big star. In the second waltz, her daughter, an even bigger star, but now of Paris music halls, has a brief flirtation with the rakish man-about-town who is the son of suitor number one. She throws him over pretty quickly for a chance to shine at a Gala performance. Finally, in the third waltz, the two get together, when she is a movie star, and he is posing as an insurance salesman.

Odette Joyeux plays an eccentric young aristocrat called "Chiffon", who is struggling to comply with the social conventions of the community. A widow, her mother (Suzanne Dantes) would like to remarry a rich noble. Without realizing it, Chiffon is in love with her uncle, a ruined pioneer of aviation ...

Marie, a young bourgeois and Jean, a cargo sailor have an affair, she becomes pregnant but he has to go back to the sea. Marie leaves for Paris where she meets Pierre and marries him. War breaks out, Jean and Pierre will befriend each other on the front.

Trouble is started by one of the unfortunate girls, ensconced in a chateau by a generous lady so they can recuperate,but a grandfather and a teacher cause the little drama to be soon forgotten.

An ambitious and perverse adventurer sows dissension and ruin in a wealthy family of industrialists.

A painter has his daughter brought up by a couple of innkeepers who run an establishment on the edge of the water with the sign: Here we fish. Having grown up, she refuses to join him and prefers her adoptive parents.

Monsieur Vincent is the respected healer of a Basque village. But nobody knows that Vincent Berteaux used to be a surgeon in Paris. When Assomption, a young holidaymaker, arrives in the village in the company of her mother, little does Vincent know that the past returns to his life.

An untiring lady social worker, Émilienne, has as one of her charges a stableman who was wounded by his mistress. Unfortunately, Émilienne's young sister who was helping her at work decides to go away with the stableman.

The exploits of Chief Police Inspector Chabrier, first before the invasion of France in May 1940 as he fights against spies preparing the coming the Germans, particularly Emmy de Welder, the alleged manager of the Rouen hospital. Later, Chabrier and his men go underground and resist the occupiers whatever the price to pay. When the Liberation comes Chabrier resumes his activities at the French National Police.

A man remembers all the incredible stories that took place in his hotel.