Louise Conte

A young man joins a band of brigands, but, faced with their exactions, rebels against them.

On an otherwise normal day, Étienne, a happily married man and a good father, sees something that stops him dead in his tracks: a gorgeous woman in a billowing red dress. Long after she has left his vision, her memory continues to haunt his mind. He falls instantly in love with her and tries everything to get to know her better. Helping Étienne snare his elusive lady in red are his three bumbling buddies, which all have secret affairs and/or cheat on their wives.

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.

Irène is the unhappy wife of a wealthy publisher, Jacques Voisin-Larive, who cares about her no more than a beautiful piece of furniture. Her meeting with Étienne, a young cabinetmaker with whom she falls in love, turns her dismal existence upside down. Not wanting to reveal her condition to her lover, she pretends to be a modest maid, employed by the Voisin-Larive. At the end of a weekend spent with her lover, Irène discovers that she is pregnant. The fragile balance of their existence is suddenly broken. Taking the initiative, she reveals her affair to Jacques and tells him about her desire to divorce. But her husband has no intention of giving her back her freedom...

During the stagecoach trip of a frightened group of inhabitants of Rouen, Elisabeth Rousset, known as "Boule de Suif", renders these people a signal service, but comes up against their stupidity and their sufficiency. A little later, Boule de Suif assassinates the formidable Prussian lieutenant whom his friends had nicknamed Fifi and who shamelessly displayed his taste for pillage and his sadistic tendencies.