Jean Picard is a criminal, who can escape his execution, as the prison in Paris is destroyed during a bombing in 1943. Near Bordeaux he is caught again by Marcel Bonet, who has been hunting Picard for 15 years. Bonet wants to take him back to Paris, but their journey is interrupted when they come to a village where a act of sabotage killed several Germans of the occupying force. The Gestapo now wants to kill hundred hostages, if the saboteur does not turn himself. Picard wants to pretend being this saboteur to die as an honest man. Bonet does not know what to do, but finally he sets Picard free, telling he has shot him during a flight, as he sees the suffering people in the village. Picard, now a free man, begins a romance with Marianne, only three days before the end of the ultimatum, but he gets affected when he learns that Marianne's brother is also among the hostages. Gendarms arrest the true saboteur, but Bonet and Picard can free him. In the meantime the people of the village have decided to turn in Picard to the Nazis, but he can be rescued by Marianne. Bonet goes back to Paris, when suddenly Picard arrives at his door with one last question.