Arrigo Amerio

After leaving Elba, Napoleon camps in a wood near Grenoble, where a peasant leads him to a gameskeeper's cottage. Napoleon sends an orderly officer with the intention to warn Colonel Labédoyère and his grenadiers in the city, but the guards at the gate turn him back. The gamekeeper and his son volunteer instead, and the boy is hidden in a basket of cabbages carried into the city by a peasant. At the checkpoint, a guard stabs the basket with his bayonet, wounding the boy's arm, but he stays silent and delivers the message before fainting. The next day, Napoleon enters Grenoble in triumph and awards the boy the Legion of Honour.

Paolo Bianchi, an average young man, picks up an underground newspaper on the street: he lives in northern Italy during the Nazi occupation and is mistaken for a communist, searched and beaten by the police. An influential friend manages to get him released, but now Paolo has a positive reputation among the partisans. To save him from further trouble, his friend gives him a document that corroborates his strong loyalty to the current regime: the safe passage he thus obtains helps, albeit inadvertently, the partisans on several occasions. Then the Allies arrive, accuse him of being a collaborator, and arrest him. His friend comes to his rescue.