For Naval officers duty comes first. Navy Lieutenant Favrel is one of these men. He has promised his wife Simone to stay with her all the time but a last mission aboard a training cruiser makes him realize that his life is tied to the sea. For his part, Navy cadet Pierre Hardouin understands that sailing is his vocation. The prospect of staying home alone while Pierre is on mission, frightens Madeleine, the girl of his heart. But the young woman ends up accepting the ordeal and marrying Pierre.

Roberto, a 10-year-old boy, is drawn to music. An old organist discovers his gifts, and begins his musical education which will lead him to the head of an orchestra.

Fates of multiple otherwise disconnected characters intertwine miraculously under the sky of Paris. And it all happens in one day.

A pathetic police chief, humiliated by everyone around him, suddenly wants a clean slate in life, and resorts to drastic means to achieve it.

A lieutenant, at the head of a commando ready to land in France, finds among his men a maquisard who had tried to kill him in the past.

The Ceddo people try to preserve their traditional African culture against the onslaught of Islam, Christianity, and the slave trade. When King Demba War sides with the Muslims, the Ceddo kidnap his daughter, Princess Dior Yacine, to protest their forcible conversion to Islam.