Wounded during a rugby match he'd come to Paris to play, Tonin Bonnafous, a thoroughbred southerner, settled in Paris with a former stalag mate he'd happily met. Tonin liked the asylum. His friends are charming, and there's a neighbor, Martine, a young cinema extra, whom Tonin finds to his liking. Through his electrician friend, Tonin gets a job on the radio, and through his young neighbor, he even gets a job as an extra in the cinema.

Thanks to a bit of string-pulling by his aunt, Jean du Bois d'Ombelles, a young recruit who has blue blood in his veins, hopes to go through a nice and comfortable military service. Unfortunately he becomes Corporal Bourrache's pet aversion. Nevertheless, against all expectations, Jean ends up taking a liking for military life.

Arlette and her brother are penniless orphans; as the man is to leave for Africa to work for a long time, the young girl is forced to live with her cousins, four spinsters, who place virtue over everything.

A young noblewoman regrets having to marry the village ironmaster for money reasons, but later comes to appreciate her new husband.

A young student on vacation falls in love with the daughter of his hostess. The father, who has come to put an end to the beginning idyll, falls in love with the young girl's mother, but she refuses to marry him. He will end up, despite his disappointment, giving his consent to his son's marriage.

Louberger, director of an orphanage, is full of praise for a former boarder, Mr. Sauval, who has become their benefactor. One night he arrives and he does not seem to be exactly the man described by Louberger. He has in fact become a crooked lawyer and he is wanted for a crime he has just committed. Despite his efforts he will not escape the police but he will manage to remain, in the eyes of the children, at the height of his legend.

Micheline is a pretty girl but rich, spoiled and whimsical as well. Jacques, the brother of her friend Danielle, is so exasperated by her behavior that he decides to give her a chance to learn about good manners. To that effect, he kidnaps her and detains her in a hut on the edge of a wood. He starts "taming the shrew" but the situation soon gets out of control when criminals - real ones this time - abduct Micheline in earnest... and for ransom!