Dr. Alessandro Valeri tries to trace his family's tangled ancestry and finds love. There is an inextricable connection between the past and the present, but it is not so easy to detect. His guiding star is the precious snuff box given by Napoleon to the gypsy girl Saulina. But there is no clue in the past - the curtain is only slightly lifted on the secret life and love of the delightful Saulina, the beloved of the famous robber Ribaldo, Napoleon's mistress... Traces are lost in the past. Faces double, masks become faces... Who is who... - it’s not so easy to figure this out two hundred years later.