A rich man's son has lived a dissipated life and has joined a circus where he shares the courageous and perilous lives of its artists. He falls in love with a young dancer and is loved in return by her. But their passion goes through many vicissitudes.

A pair of sisters leave the country for the city after their parents are slaughtered in a mysterious axe murder.

Denise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle's store. But the glamorous department store 'Aux Bonheur des Dames' across the street crushes all the little businesses around. She finds a position there.

The niece of a shady tavern-keeper of Port Said, surrounded by dangerous men who haunt the ports, meets a man whom she will love and with whom she flees.

During a transvestite ball, a young provincial meets Fanny Legrand. A great love is born between them. Later, the young man learns that Fanny was a great coquette. He leaves her, he comes back, he forgives. But when he embarks for America, Fanny does not follow him.

Dédé is a young wealthy man who buys a shoe store, owned by his friend Robert, in order to receive more conveniently his mistress. Everything seems fine and Dédé seems to be enjoying all of this. But the man barely knew that he would fall in love with one of the many pretty vendors of his new "acquisition", favoring this new girl over the previous one.

A few colorful characters, with very different social origins and whose destinies are not always glorious, will parade before our eyes, for our greatest pleasure. Turning among characters such as : an alcoholic bum, a rich banker, an eccentric old lady, a working class girl, a poor lover, and a hypocritical bourgeois.

Victor Berthier, a good man but also a very jealous one, killed his wife in a fit of jealousy. After serving a few years in a chain gang, he is released for good behavior. He feels very happy to be able to return to Paris and to meet Lise, his daughter, again. But, to his dismay, he finds that Lise, through the fault of André, her lover and pimp, has unwillingly committed a murder.

Mild-mannered novelist of Western fiction, Amédée Lange, and his colleagues take over a publishing house after their exploitative boss disappears, only for the superior to return and try to reclaim the profits from their successful cooperative.