In Nazareth in Galilee, at the time of Roman emperor Augustus and of the king of Jews Herod, lives a simple young woman, Mary, between the love of her parents, of her fiancé Joseph the carpenter, and of her fellow citizens. One day, a dazzling light, that of an angel, announces to Mary that, through the work of the Holy Spirit, she will give birth to a son, Jesus, who will be called the son of God.
A man remembers all the incredible stories that took place in his hotel.
The wife of a Marseille industrialist is murdered. An inspector and a young journalist investigate together, and suspect the husband, then the lover, before finding the real culprit.
On the the bank of a peaceful river, two fishermen are... fishing! An idyllic scene indeed. At least until their lines get intertwined. At one of their two ends, a single fish! But whose end? Which of the two contenders is the legal owner of the aquatic vertebrate? To resolve the dispute, the two men decide to fight a pistol duel.
The story closes in Paris in January 1871, at the height of the siege, and introduces the main character, Monsieur Morissot, a watchmaker who has enrolled in the National Guard. Morissot, who is bored, hungry, and depressed, is walking along the boulevard when by chance he bumps into an old friend, Monsieur Sauvage, with whom he used to go fishing before the war. The two old friends reminisce over several glasses of absinthe in a café;, talking wistfully of the pleasant Sunday afternoons they used to spend fishing on the banks of the Seine before the war. Tipsy from the absinthe, the friends, for want of anything else to do, decide to go fishing in their old spot, and having obtained a laissez-passer from their officer, walk along the river to Argenteuil, a few miles west of the city, in the no man's land between the French and Prussian lines.
In the thirties, a Chasseur Alpin commander is accused of spying and sentenced to death. At the last minute, he is saved from the firing squad by a female spy's confession.
In a slum set to be demolished, dramas are played out among the picturesque slum dwellers, including a young couple who, denounced by the police, are forced to leave home.
Monsieur Fred is a friendly Southerner who recruits pretty girls down on their luck to send to South America. After some dramatic incidents and an eventful chase, a policeman manages to lock up the gang he runs.
