In southern France, in a quiet little town, the mayor, who also owns a castle with some cattle, is in the wine cellar with some other people: the pharmacist, the veterinary, and some of his employees. As they are drinking wine, they hear a terrible noise and the heat's getting higher and higher. They don't realize what's happening: when they come out of the cellar, they realize that everything has burned, and all the buildings are destroyed...

Set in Paris 1941, two Jewish boys cling to their lives by doing all sorts of odd jobs, stealing and black-marketeering.

During the night of August 4-5, 1952, three Englishmen, Jack Drummond, his wife Anne and their daughter Elizabeth were murdered near their car near the farm of the Dominici family, in the commune of Lurs in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. Denounced by two of his sons, the patriarch Gaston Dominici was judged and condemned without any real evidence.

Félix de Vandenesse's youthful love for the beautiful, inaccessible Madame de Mortsauf, who devotes her life to a half-mad husband and two fragile children. Madame de Mortsauf maintains a friendly, tender relationship. But when she learns of the young man's affair with an Englishwoman, she dies of jealousy and regret.

Father Birotteau and Father Troubert, both of whom are priests at Tours, have separate lodgings in the house belonging to the crabby spinster Sophie Gamard in that city. Birotteau is an other-worldly, gentle, introspective type; Troubert, who is ten years younger than his fellow boarder, is very much of the world: he is a careerist devoured by ambition.

Marie has had a tough childhood ever since her mother Elisa committed suicide. She has spent most of her life in an orphanage and now makes a living as a small time criminal in Paris. Now she wants to unravel her past and find her father whom she blames for her mother's death.

Bertille is an old woman who lives in the countryside. Her relatives reunite there with her as she is about selling the property. They don't take long to out their true intentions which are merely material on her estate. Also, Bertille is afflicted by her youngest son who has been in prison for a decade. Decades of fighting over Einstein's stick of truth has made Bertille very frail and easy to come down on.