Belgium, 1980. On the banks of the Meuse river, against the background of a steel-producing city, factories close down one after another and lay off workers. One of those made redundant is Fabrice, who, at thirty-five, is proud of his trade, and now feels he has become useless. His wife, Céline, tries to renew his interest in life, but Fabrice remains trapped in his depression, and then one day he disappears...

Two physicians, one old and one young, fall in love with the same woman, Juliette, a quixotic hairdresser. First, she is with Raoul, the older one; then passion for Clément, the younger doctor, takes over. Raoul fights back, playing on Clément's guilt and Juliette's lack of self-assurance; then, Clément makes his case to Juliette, abandons his fiancée, and takes her to the provinces where he sets up practice and asks her to have a baby. She panics and abruptly leaves Clément, taking up with Raoul again. When she contracts Hodgkin's disease and the treatment does no good, Raoul believes she has the malady of love. Is there a cure?

Gilles' wife, Elise, who smiles when she thinks of him, cooks and scrubs and cheerfully makes love to him, suspects during her third pregnancy that he is having an affair with her coquettish younger sister, Victorine. Elise suffers, usually in silence. She listens to her husband rave; she asks her priest; she breaks picture frames; she weeps. She decides on a strategy to keep him. Will she succeed?

Based on French writer Colette's 1923 novel, Le Blé en herbe focuses on the changing relationship between childhood friends Vinca and Phillipe. Both are on the verge of adulthood and beginning to recognize romantic feelings for one another when Phillipe meets a lascivious, wealthy older woman named Madam Dellaray. He is torn between his innocent but restricting affection for Vinca and satisfaction of his impatient lust for the new and mature world Madam Dellaray offers.

After many years of rambling across Europe the aging Giacomo Casanova is impoverished. He wants to return to the Republic of Venice but he doesn't dare going there directly because he was a fugitive when he left. While he tries to find a way to get a pardon he meets a young lady named Marcelina. The more he shows his affection, the more ostentatiously she rejects him. Even so he doesn't give up on her because her lover Lorenzo has grave gaming debts. In return for the required money Lorenzo tells Casanova about a looming secret rendezvous with Marcelina. Moreover he lets Casanova take his place. Undercover of the night Casanova finally seduces her. Lorenzo later feels his honor was besmirched and demands satisfaction. Casanova kills him in a duel and then goes home to Venice.

The story of Léopold Salvat, a retired general practitioner from Montmartre, is bored since he no longer works. An armed attack on a gas station near his home wakes him up.