Odette Joyeux

A beautiful 18-year-old orphan escapes from a reformatory and hooks up with a gang of jewel smugglers, and decides on a life of crime. However, she falls for and marries a policeman, putting a crimp in her criminal career.

In Paris in 1887, Irène works as a governess to Douce, the grand-daughter of the dowager Countess de Bonafé. Douce believes she is in love with Fabien, the handsome manager of the estate. However she cannot hope to marry him because of their class difference. Douce's widowed father, the Count de Bonafé, has a wooden leg, and is infatuated with Irène. Douce discovers that Fabien is planning to flee to Quebec with Irène, and also finds out that the Count has asked Irène to marry him. So Douce tells Fabien this and convinces him to run away with her, causing consternation in the family.

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.

Catherine is scouted by magazine editor Judith and her co-worker/boyfriend Michel. Promoted under the stage name 'Chouchou', Catherine becomes a big asset but things become complicated when she and Michel start developing mutual romantic feelings. These are exacerbated when Judith gets the idea of doing a wedding-themed shoot, wherein Catherine plays the part of the blushing bride and Michel finds himself as the groom.

Bella Krastner is sunbathing on a beach on the Côte d'Azur when she attracts the attention of an attractive younger man, Ralph Scaffari. It is the start of a whirlwind romance which looks like it might last beyond the end of the summer. Unfortunately, Bella is already married, to Carl Krastner, a once renowned pianist who has become bitter and reclusive after a car accident that irreparably damaged one of his hands. Krastner no longer has any zest for living. He tyrannises both his wife and his sister Laurence and divides his time between scuba diving and gambling. After ratcheting up a small fortune in gambling debts, Krastner decides to fake his own death so that he can claim on his life insurance.

A teenager becomes fixated on a painting of the handsome suitor who died in a duel for her grandmother's love. On her sixteenth birthday, her father hires three men who pretend to be the ghost of the suitor to entertain her. Little do they know, the ghost of the suitor himself is roaming the castle halls.

1938, France, Paris, at the Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art ("Conservatoire Supérieur d'Art Dramatique"). The first-year entrance exams are in full swing. Many applicants, few accepted. Isabelle (Janine Darcey) is one of the few chosen. She joins former students from the second and third years, including François (Claude Dauphin) and Cécilia (Odette Joyeux). They attend the drama class run by Professor Lambertin (Louis Jouvet). The young people, passionate and eager to become comedians, clash in tumultuous love affairs, because by dint of acting, they imagine that life is a farce. François, for example, is in love with Isabelle, who also loves him, but is pursued by Cecilia, his former mistress... "Put art in your life and life in your art!"

Historical film directed and written by Sacha Guitry follows the the history of Paris from its founding through the significant events in the city's history.