Pierre Hot

A man travels to the remote and decaying mansion of his old friend Roderick Usher, who lives in isolation with his mysterious and gravely ill wife, Madeleine. As the strange atmosphere surrounding the Usher family grows increasingly unsettling, the visitor finds himself drawn into their world of obsession, illness, and supernatural dread.

A mother sells a photo of her daughter to the press for publicity, and a daughter suddenly dies leaving the mother desperate surrounding by portraits of her daughter all around town.

In 1776, an inventor conceals a Polish nobleman in his chess-playing automaton, a machine whose fame leads it to the court of the Russian empress.

Julien Villandrit is the owner of the estate of Les Basses-Bruyères and its textile factory, where the manager is his childhood friend Corradin. Julien marries his neighbour Régine, unaware that Corradin also loves her. Julien is sent to gaol for a murder actually committed by Corradin. The only witness to the truth is the woodsman Rudeberg and Corradin buys his silence by paying for the education of his son Pascal. Julien's struggle to clear his name and to rescue Régine and their daughter Christiane from Corradin's scheming extends over many years and faces many setbacks.

Jacques Prémont-Solène is a degenerate gambler and his losses at baccarat have bankrupted his lover, Laure Maresco. When he steals four hundred thousand francs and loses that at the gambling tables, he flees to the United States, and Nathalie takes the blame. Twenty years later, she has a flourishing career as a nightclub singer, but their son is just as inept a gambler as his father had been.