In Cambodia in 1943, a family is massacred by the Japanese, before the eyes of the eldest son who manages to escape. His four-year-old sister is taken in by a Cambodian family.
After reluctantly packing up his daughter, Mollie, and sending her away to study art at a Paris college, Frank Michaelson gives new meaning to the term "concerned parent." Reading Mollie's letters describing her counter-culture experiences and beatnik friends, Frank eventually grows so paranoid that he boards a plane to Paris to see firsthand the kind of lessons his daughter is learning with her new artist amour.
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.
Josepha is on the verge eighteen living with her drunken washed up actor uncle. She longs for the companionship of a group of her mo-ped riding peers who dabble in activities on the shady side of a legal dividing line. In order to get the semi-delinquent group to accept her, Josepha runs to the police with a tall tale about the local druggist, Savary. The police are looking for a sex murderer, and Josepha insists Savary is their man. What she does not know, however, can do her considerable damage.
Sophie, viscountess of Valrude, believes herself being a widow since her husband disappeared in the Amazon.
A businessman who lives from blackmailing begins to be blackmailed by his own wife who hates him.
Denis, a hypersensitive teenager, is revolted both against his distant, pretentious, well-to-do parents and their superficial society firends and the stiff, intolerant catholic establishment in which he studies. Fortunately,he has an open-minded philosophy teacher, Father Philippe de Maubrun, who understands him and supports him in his distress.
A young American art student must decide whether to stay in Paris with her boyfriend or go back to the U.S. when her wealthy father arrives to bring her back.
During World War II, a young poet remembers his love on a train bound for the front. He spent the days before his enlistment with his sweetheart. Poetry and love bring them momentary happiness. Bálint does not want to be separated from the girl, so they run away from the draft notice. Then, the girl disappears...
In occupied France during World War II, a resistance leader is accused of betraying his own side.
An unsure American girl finds love in Paris, in spite of being repulsed by an assault as a child, and is able to overcome it.
A French resistance group free twelve soldiers from a German prison camp, but apparently there's an additional detainee among them suspected of being an enemy spy.
Antoine, an accountant by trade, becomes a private detective to support his family. His wanderings lead him to transport a cargo of malachite to Le Havre, in the hope of a large bonus. With the help of his family, and despite a few mishaps, Antoine achieves his goal.
Marguerite, a beautiful woman of affairs, falls for the young and promising Armand, but sacrifices her love for him for the sake of his future and reputation.