Julien Villandrit is the owner of the estate of Les Basses-Bruyères and its textile factory, where the manager is his childhood friend Corradin. Julien marries his neighbour Régine, unaware that Corradin also loves her. Julien is sent to gaol for a murder actually committed by Corradin. The only witness to the truth is the woodsman Rudeberg and Corradin buys his silence by paying for the education of his son Pascal. Julien's struggle to clear his name and to rescue Régine and their daughter Christiane from Corradin's scheming extends over many years and faces many setbacks.

Bulba's younger son Andry has fallen in love with Panochka since meeting her at the seminary in Kyiv. She is the daughter of the Polish provincial governor. Andry dreams of her and flees from school through a window to his beloved, climbs up a tree in front of her house and slips down the chimney into the house.

A foundling is left in front of the home of a rich aristocratic bachelor during the Nice carnival. The marquis adopts the child but soon finds that he cannot cope, so he employs a nanny who turns out to be the child's real mother. Just as the two have fallen in love and there is a happy ending in sight, the woman's husband - long thought dead - turns up.