A florist in a nightclub in Montmartre, a good, naive man is manipulated by a gang of gangsters who use him to smuggle drugs.

In 1919, Pierre Darmont, a handsome, much-loved piano virtuoso, falls in love with Anne Morris, a young woman who shares his tender feelings. But, quite inexplicably, after an unforgettable night, Anne vanishes without trace. Twenty years later, Pierre, at the peak of his glory, has become embittered. Unable to recover his unhappy love affair, he has collected women without ever committing himself to any. Until some night he meets the eyes of a beautiful young lady, who happens to be the spitting image of his great love...

Following a trivial road accident, Ariane, an international adventuress, falls in love with Bernard Fleuret, a young artist-painter with diseased lungs. Being pursued by the police, she chooses to hide in the sanatorium where the young man is treated. Ariane proves so smitten by love that she finally changes her ways: she decides to let herself be arrested, sure as she is she will be reunited with her loved one later on.

The story of the Swiss soldier, Henri Dunant, who was responsible for the founding of the Red Cross, and who was offered the first Nobel Peace Prize.

The evocation of Paris in the 1920s mingles with the rapid rise of the irresistible Caprice, a talented singer, and her tumultuous love affair with Jeff the composer. A photographer nicknamed Bagnolet, a gentle anarchist, gently monitors the activities of Caprice, who has become Lady Paname and, in the absence of morality, makes love triumph.

Suppose lost and found objects could talk... But they can! At least four of them... : -A statuette of Osiris remembers how two ex-lovers, a model and a good for nothing who claimed to be an Egyptologist, met again one Christmas Eve. -A violin has things to say about Raoul, a humble policeman who lost Solange, a widowed grocer he loved, to a god-dam seducing busker also named Raoul. -A scarf was witness to an eerie romance between a young madman and girl he had saved from suicide. -A funeral wreath lets us know how it caused a young woman to believe her lover dead. After having told their respective story, the objects return to their customary stillness.

In 1942, a French prisonner of war in Germany decide to escape to France using a cow hold by a lunge as a decoy. He cross all Germany in this way.

Jean Michaut is a bargeman who lives near an old barge cemetery named "Bras-Mort". He is in love with Monique, the daughter of a wealthy boat owner. The girl returns his affection which goes against her family's class prejudices. Her family prove willing to do anything to separate the lovers, but, Monique will not buy in. On the contrary, she leaves her intolerant family to live with Jean among simple, more tolerant bargemen.

Back from the war, Marceau Le Guern remembers. Educated in an orphanage run by Dominican brothers, he fell into misery when he left it. His only asset was his good looks, which did not escape the attention of Madame Alice, a shady woman who persuaded him to pose for pornographic photos meant for lonely aging women. Marceau also served as a gigolo before the war and captivity put an end to this juicy business. Now he wants to start a new life, all the more as ha has found love in the person of a pure young lady named Dominique. But Madame Alice won't hear of it...

Paul has to leave his country home to collect his father's inheritance of a department store. A natural-born son, Paul's stepmother gives him a cold reception, and he's appalled by the behavior of his half-sister Dominique, an existentialist of the highest order. Paul's gumption restores the Galeries Parisiennes to its former glory, and he gives a farewell present to a more subdued Dominique. He returns to his village, arm in arm with the wise Marie-Louise, ex-saleswoman at the Grand Magasin.