At the end of the 19th Century, young Fanning finishes his studies in theology at the University of Cambridge. During a walk through the countryside, the boy, inspired by the lecture of romantic novels, discovers an abandonned house, from which an old man is coming out. He returns to the house regularly without ever seeing its mysterious inhabitant. Fanning finally surprises the old man while he is sitting on a bench at the cemetery and manages to gain his confidence...

The film consists of seven roughly 15 minute episodes, each showing what will happen if one or more of the Ten Commandments will be broken: Jérome Chambard is warned that he will lose his job if he continues to swear; Françoise Beaufort enamored of a stripper calls on her only to find her married to a janitor who doesn't know what kind of dancing his wife performs; Denis, a Jesuit novice, leaves the order to avenge his sister's suicide, which was provoked by Garigny, who seduced her into prostitution and drug addiction; Philip buys a necklace for Micheline though he is bored with her; a young man find out that his real mother is not Madeleine, but actress Clarisse Ardant; Didier Marin, cashier of a bank, was fired by his boss; the Devil appears as a serpent for Jérome Chambard and the bishop are eating.

An old Montmartre building with countless tenants: on the seventh floor, a Russian painter, Igor, lives in his art and dreams, whose paintings express kindness and indulgence; two floors below, a poor cabaret singer, Seraphita, poses for her neighbor when she feels too lonely and abandoned; further down, the Prunelle family lives, where the father and mother, inveterate drunks, indulge in drink and give their eleven-year-old son. Tique, who seems to have become indifferent, the spectacle of atrocious domestic scenes. By the time the film begins, Father Prunelle, drunker than ever, has chased Tique's mother away with insults...