Jacques Natanson

Lola Montes, previously a great adventuress, is reduced to being the attraction of a circus after having been the lover of various important men.

Three stories about pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Madame Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falls in love with his model - pleasure and death.

An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.

Betrayed by his wife, a teacher proceeds to have an affair with a young and pretty student. The two women both find themselves expecting a child. The girl dies during childbirth. In a spirit of revenge and to keep his real son, the scorned husband exchanges the babies.

During the First World War, a woman doctor falls in love with one of her patients who turns out to be a German spy. She herself ends up working for German intelligence.

Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, is kept absent from the royal court due to his dangerous political ideas. Sent on a tour of inspections and inaugurations, he falls in love with Countess Sophie Chotek.

Irene, a young Hungarian becomes an elegant and brilliant Parisian for the love of a car racer. Her transformation earns her the heart of her beloved.

In a little town with a renowned college a female student is found after she was hogtied and strangled to death. Inspector Marco is assigned to catch the murderer.

Denise Moret joins her husband, Pierre, in Mongolia where he works as a civil engineer. One night she loose a lot of money on the roulette and therefore is forced to borrow money from Prince Lee-Lang. The Prince immediately begins to flirt and make advances towards Denise. Advances she rejects.

The rise of a canning maker and then his abandonment of the factory because his ideal of social progress for his workers is undermined by the Board of Directors.

An adventurer tries to seize oil deposits in Mongolia .

A slippery femme fatale, a spy for Germany during the Great War, is sent to Thessaloniki in Greece and becomes involved with a man on the other side, a French military officer.

The eponymous garçonne or flapper is Monique Lerbier, an emancipated French woman who leaves home to escape a marriage of convenience to a man she does not love which her parents have forced on her. She then falls into all sorts of carnal temptations and artificial pleasures previously unknown to her. These include her being seduced into a lesbian love affair by a chanteuse.

A father wants to try by all means to avenge the death of his son, a test pilot, whose responsible is the attractive female star of a Parisian cabaret.

A sailor, who meets a lovely music hall singer during a police raid, falls in love. In a contest at a fair, he defeats a former boxing champ. The ex-champ trains the sailor to become a boxer. After he wins the French championship, the sailor is swayed by easy money and a sultry coquette. The singer goes on a singing tour, and the sailor falls into decadence. He enters the European championship spiritually empty and in bad condition.

Pushed by her husband to settle in the family castle, Agnès finds her sister-in-law Alix there. Her husband Carlos, often absent, loses interest in his wife and gradually approaches Agnès who will end up giving up this relationship.

Pierre Buxeuil is better known as the popular clown Bux. One day, he falls in love with Nicole, a romantic but whimsical young lady. He soon elopes her and the beautiful Nicole follows him, persuaded that she will love circus life. Unfortunately for Bux she does not and she leaves him as a result. After a few other disappointments due to false accusations, Bux finally marries a kind-hearted circus acrobat and pursues a successful career under the big top.

An idle and very jealous woman sets a trap for her husband by luring him to an appointment to which she goes herself. But the faithful husband sends one of his friends there. He falls in love with the young woman.

The Czar charges a man to deliver a message to the Grand Duke behind enemy lines. On his way he encounters a number of adventures.

In 1913, in Russia, a widower hides from his daughter that he is a butler in a meeting restaurant. She meets a banker who is trying to seduce her and takes her to this restaurant. The father, knowing the decadent life of this client, immediately sends his daughter home. The pure love that her piano teacher devotes to her will allow the young girl to console herself for her disappointments...