Frédéric Lansac, an artist and botanist, has a wild affair with party girl Moira, but throws her over when he meets the lovely Anne. Frédéric and Anne marry, but tragedy strikes when Moira shows up at the wedding party and makes a scene, causing Anne to fall into a bonfire. Frédéric and Anne lock themselves up in his mansion with his servants, a pair of mute dwarves. Anne, needless to say, becomes bitter and demanding. Frédéric tells everyone Anne has died, then on the sly, hires a nurse to look after her.
Determined to assert his paternal rights, Quentin leaves his small village on the Swiss border to go to Lyon to look for his daughter, now a hairdresser, who, busy with her work, hasn't been back to the village for two years. In a few days, it will be Denise's birthday, the youngest of his daughters, and, urged on by his wife, he sets off, determined to bring the prodigal son back to the family celebration. But Denise is now living off her charms.
A beautiful and sophisticated teenager is placed in a regimented French girls' boarding school after her father apparently commits suicide over a business scandal. She immediately gains admirers -- a lustful middle-aged artist, a handsome young composer, a fellow female student -- as well as a jealous rival. With the help of her schoolmates, she attempts to elope with the composer, but the adults catch on to the plot, and she is locked into her room at night.
