The inhabitants of Marboue-Chambourcy want a swimming pool, and the difficulties in realizing this expensive dream divide the village into two clans: on one side the women, on the other the men. Piedalu, whom this conflict desolates, discovers by chance, as part of a found bicycle, a fortune in gold coins.

During Christmas night, two police officers make their nocturnal rounds, in their round they meet tramps, brawlers in a café, a naked man, a concierge, a sexton, revelers in a nightclub, and end by signing in their report to the police station.

In the 1953 elections, Piédalu was elected mayor of Marboue-Chambourcy. The esteem of his fellow citizens won him popularity, but he had to reckon with the wiles of his political opponents if he ran for deputy. The support of the son of one of his rivals, who loves Françoise Piédalu, and above all his stubborn common sense and natural malice, help him to overcome all obstacles.

In the Charente, during the Nazi occupation, 51-year-old apparent pacifist Edouard Martin is in fact the leader of a resistance network, using his hobby of orchid growing to hide radio equipment.