The detectives of the Paris Judicial Police, based at the Quai des Orfèvres, are mobilized by four criminal cases. A double murder, perpetrated in a hotel on the Place de Clichy, intrigues the investigators. The owner and a little maid were murdered in cold blood.
Summer 1870. Following the French defeat at Sedan. Léon, a soldier in a detachment isolated in the Ardennes forest, is sent in search of water. When he discovers the most peaceful of rivers, he decides to undress and bathe in it. At bend of the river he catches sight of another naked swimmer. It's...
Violeta, an Andalusian gypsy, foretells a lady she will become empress. The lady is Eugenia de Montijo, and when she marries emperor Luis Napoleón of France she takes the young girl with her. The empress'cousin readily makes her his focus of attention, then she discovers a criminal attempt against...
Line, Annette's daughter, is about to marry a man she's not in love with. At the engagement party three ghosts revisit their disastrous relationships with Annette and decide to take action to help Line.
The romantic life of the head of a bandit gang, wanted by the police. Cartouche gets away with being deported to Louisiana after unmasking a plot by a Duke against the throne.
Denise Moret joins her husband, Pierre, in Mongolia where he works as a civil engineer. One night she loose a lot of money on the roulette and therefore is forced to borrow money from Prince Lee-Lang. The Prince immediately begins to flirt and make advances towards Denise. Advances she rejects.
Isidore Lechat is a ruthless self-made man whose money allows him to humiliate the others, particularly a ruined noble: he wants his daughter to marry this marquis's son but the girl is in love with a young scientist.
A young reporter solves a mystery crime. The fictional reporter is Joseph Rouletabille. He works on a complex, and seemingly impossible, crime in which the criminal appears to disappear from a locked room.
For 15 years after Waterloo, a baron refuses to accept the defeat. He reluctantly marries one of 2 Bourbon sisters but lands up dueling with the wife's former lover. Finally he gets a chance to prove himself again in battle.
During the Christmas season, Christine, a singer and her friends find themselves penniless. She falls asleep and dreams that she goes to heaven, followed by her friends...
Noël Rambert is overwhelmed by fate. Marthe, his wife, has left him. His son, little Jacques, sickly and touching, has psychic gifts. Life is not a happy one. A crime is committed. Poor Rambert is unjustly suspected. A good-looking man convinces him to confess his guilt. In doing so, he secures...
A drifting woman hangs out in the suburbs of Marseille. A young engineer picks her up drunk and takes her to the hospital. He does not know then that it is the Countess Armance de Lunegarde, driven from her home and performing as a gummy in third-rate music halls.
In the 19th century, a thug from the slums of Paris pretends to be a young aristocrat, but is unmasked by a demi-mondaine, from the same background as him.
The daughter of a foreign diplomat in Paris is courted by two men. One of them entrusts her with a harmless commission for Poland, as she has a diplomatic passport. But it's a trap, and the girl is forced to work for Eastern spies.
Julien Mortal, a singer from Portugal suffering from amnesia, made a career in France under the name of Paolo. One day, he discovers the truth about his past: a man tried to assassinate him.
On the borders of the desert, Péhu, a rather blunt creature on the verge of death, confesses to Charles Sigouane that some time before he stole and killed for the sake of a woman named Marie. Péhu recovers against all odds and returns to France with a view to finding Marie and to retrieve a loot...
The knight Henri de Lagardère wants to avenge the death of his friend, the duke Philippe de Nevers assassinated by the prince de Gonzague, a few years before.
