Jean-François Robignac, a teacher, arrives at a provincial college to teach literature to ninth-graders. He quickly wins over the children with his youthful way with words. But his parents want to have him expelled when they learn that Jean-François uses slang words to rejuvenate writers' texts.

A small village is torn apart by a quarrel between the baker and the italian grocery tenant, mother of a pregnant young girl. She accuses the baker's son, doing his military service in Algeria, to be the father of the would be child. Offended, the baker refuses to deliver bread to the villagers standing on the mother's side.

In Cantagrel, Urbain Coindet, a farmer and town councilor in his forties, finds his wife hanging from a beam in the barn. Aurélie Coindet has committed suicide but not everybody is convinced. The village is soon divided in two conflicting sides, the Republicans who support Urbain and the clericals accusing him of murder, which particularly suits Frédéric, a tobacco smuggler who hates the farmer. Urbain's case becomes even worse as he develops a tender feeling for Jeanne, a sweet young lady who happens to be Frédéric's sister...

Because the shiner Titin has fallen in love with a singer, he braves the latter's protector, the baron, and passes himself off as an insurer in connection with a pearl necklace that is circulating. Bitters get involved, Titin kidnaps the beauty and leaves the pearls to the baron.

Jules and Fernand are two boys from the Café des sports in Marseille who take part in their corporation's annual race.