The director of a dairy cooperative in La Manche dies in a vat of milk. In line to succeed him are his four deputy managers, all with very different temperaments: the aristocratic Dufaux, the seductive Courtin, the pious Lainé and the wait-and-see Tousseur. Each of them pulls out all the stops to win a major order from Morloch. Once this is achieved, election to the post of director by the cooperators is all but assured.

In the 18th century, Louis de Bourguignon is working with the Malichot's gang, but their ways are too 'unethical' for him. He creates his own band, acting under the name of Cartouche, making audacious robberies of the rich people, and even distributing the takings with the poor. Thus, cartouche attracts the people's sympathies, Venus's love, and hate from the Police and Malichot... Cartouche can escape all the traps they set at him - except the entrapments of love. Eventually, he will be saved by a woman, at her own cost.

A woman becomes distressed by the resemblance between the plot of a film and the reality of her own life. But what is reality: life or film?