In 18th century France, an executioner faces enormous job stress leading up to and throughout the French Revolution. He must choose between his beloved wife and his job, and he struggles to leave the profession that was his father's before him.

After struggling to appeal to their state governor, a dysfunctional family anxiously awaits the public execution of a relative. As they wait at home new of the execution, tensions and strife erupt in a dispute over the relative's innocence.

A famous cook prepares the last meal of a prisoner on death row, abiding his wishes to be poisoned to death by her.

A Frenchman tells the story of his escape from the Germans and how he believes the French have lost, not because of the battle, but because they have lost the French women and the French spirit.

An assassin begins to question the king's authority after they are forced to kill someone innocent. The assassin must decide if they will still protect the king, who is their brother, against a legendary murderer of royal figures.

An American writer listens as the father of his friend tells the story of a writer he met in Paris many years ago who was tortured and taunted by Parisian aristocrats until he's driven mad.

Professor gives a talk about the human appetite for death

After being sentenced to death row, a man must seek help from his cellmates

In an alternate universe in 19th century Boston, a single mother commits an act of unnatural cruelty against her son. However, since women are invincible against a man's violence, the wife of an esteemed policeman takes on the task of executing her, only to have second thoughts in the cold gallows.

During World War II, a group of French prisoners on a windowless train find a hole in the wall of their boxcar and are delighted, when they look through it, to see the countryside of their homeland.