During the First World War, Camille (Sylvie Testud), a young woman whose husband is away fighting at the front, receives a short letter of break-up from him. Distraught, she decides to go to join him, but is driven back by the rule of the time which forbids women to move around alone. She has no other recourse than to dress herself up as a man so as to be able to take to the road on foot. As she lives near the Western Fromt she hooks up with a passing group of French soldiers without too much trouble. But there's something a bit odd about these stragglers, and it's not just their habit of bursting into song at every opportunity.

A college stands in the middle of verdant grounds. One day, Édouard, a student, suddenly falls sick. The college doctor is unable to diagnose the young man's illness. Anna, the college director, calls in Édouard's two brothers, professional soldiers, in the hope that they will help her discover what the mysterious illness is.

While Koala, the quartermaster, deeply sleeps, Captain Diamand tells the young sailor Luciole about the finest memory of his youth. She was called Cinnamon.

Alexandre, a thirty-year old tailor, has decided to improve his cultural level. That is the reason why he has decided to attend an evening school. The lessons are given in the classroom of an elementary class by a teacher named Etienne. The subject of the course is : "The solitude of Jean-Jacques Rousseau". Will Alexandre become another man after grappling with with Rousseau, Diderot and ... Etienne? - Guy Bellinger

Alix is a woman of 27 looking for the only thing she is incapable of: love.

Laurent comes to visit his father not far from Bethune. But his father, who lives a hermit's life deep in the woods, has only one thing on his mind : to do away with his six children in order to relieve them of the miseries of life. Welcomed at the Caboche farm where his brother Frederic works (Frederic advises him not to try to see their father), Laurent is delighted to see hardy 81 year old Alfred again. The gods are not far off, and, despite all, the pleasures of existence too.

Théophile spends his holidays in Italy, in the Marche hills, and enjoys the freedom he finds at his grandfather’s. The latter, who lives a reclusive life, becomes seriously ill and the child calls for a doctor, William Stein, who had saved the old man’s life seven years ago. Stein sends his best nurse along… who is absolutely free to do as she pleases.