The Marquise de Saint-Ange wants to marry her niece Nicole, but the young girl, put off by the chosen suitor, flees with her friend Jacques.
Anatole, quivering nostrils and greedy lips, is the resourceful clerk of Mrs. Paufilat, a butcher. It takes a fancy to take on the identity of the Paufilat son, Paul. He must then undergo the assaults of the tumultuous Germaine, exhilarated by the money of Paul Paufilat.
A marquis organizes a matrimonial contest with the aim of enriching three spinsters.
This is the disaster for the Veyron-Lafitte. Régine, the maid, has just given up her apron and the meal is not ready for the dinner guests, the Gachassins. Adèle arrives at their house as a maid and saves the day. Very quickly, the masters of the place realize that she has the gift of seeing the future. Adèle predicts that the Gachassins will not come, which will be verified.
In a small village, an abbot tries to take lightly the jokes of three men, recalcitrant to religion.