Paris The Novel

Chapter Twenty-six




• 1940 •


When Marie looked back, she wished that she could have done more herself, but she understood that she could not. And she wished that Charlie had not hurt his father—though she knew he never meant to.

But what was the use of wishing? It was a time of trial, when everything was changed.



It was not that the French had been unprepared for war. The huge Maginot Line of fortified defenses along France’s eastern front was virtually impregnable. Six years ago, whatever Hitler’s grandiose plans, the French army had outnumbered and outgunned him. Had he attacked even three years ago, she thought, he might still have been crushed.

Back in 1936, when Hitler occupied part of the Rhineland, and the Western powers had agreed to it, Marie had told herself it was for the best. In 1938, when he’d taken a bite out of poor Czechoslovakia—and France and Britain, despite their treaties with the Czechs, had accepted Hitler’s assurances at Munich that he meant only peace—she had felt uneasy.

But it was meeting an Englishman at a cocktail party in Paris soon afterward that had really alarmed her. He was a ramrod-straight, somewhat peppery British officer, on secondment from the British army to the French Staff College, where he was teaching military intelligence. Was he worried about the situation with Hitler? she asked him.

“Of course I am, madame.” He spoke excellent French.

“People always say that it would take Germany twenty years to be ready for war,” Marie suggested.

“Yes, madame. That is the received wisdom. And the original estimate was probably accurate. Unfortunately, it was made just after the Great War—nearly twenty years ago.”

“You do not think Hitler’s intentions are peaceful?”

“Why should I, when Mein Kampf says explicitly that he wants war, and when he is rearming Germany at a fantastic rate?”

“Is this a widespread belief?”

“My brother-in-law is the military attaché in Poland. He tells me that everyone in Eastern Europe knows exactly what Hitler is up to. Our air attaché in Berlin told London that all the new commercial and private airports Hitler is building in Germany could be converted to military airfields in days. He was recalled home in disgrace for saying it.”

“I lived for years in England, you know, and I always follow the British Parliament. Mr. Churchill makes the same warnings about rearmament, but he seems to be almost a lone voice.”

“He’s only saying what the whole diplomatic corps and military intelligence know to be true. The conference at Munich was a farce.”

“It’s hard to believe that anyone would want another war.”

“Hitler does.”

“The French defenses are still strong.”

“The Maginot Line is magnificent, madame, but the cost of building it has been so great that it doesn’t go all the way north to the sea. The Germans could come across the north, and if we mass our armies there, that still leaves a convenient gap between the Maginot Line and the northern plain.”

“But that’s the Ardennes. It’s all mountain and impenetrable forest.”

“ ‘Impenetrable’ is a big word, madame. Come through the Ardennes and you’re in the open fields of Champagne with a clear run to Paris.”

“Our army is still large.”

“It is, madame, and your men are brave. Moreover, you actually have more tanks than the Germans. But the tanks are scattered all over the place, whereas the Germans have a large, concentrated force of tanks with the proper air cover which can advance with devastating speed. There’s a thoughtful officer in the French army who advocates tank formations like the German ones. His name’s de Gaulle, and you’ve probably never heard of him. He’s not senior enough to get the general staff to listen to him. But he’s absolutely correct.”

Marie told Roland about the conversation afterward.

“I’ve never heard of de Gaulle either,” he said, “but your Englishman may be right.”



For Marie and Roland, the rest of 1938 and the first half of 1939 passed quietly. Charlie was spending the month of August with them at the château when the news that stupefied all Europe arrived.

“Russia and Germany have made a pact?” cried Marie. “I can’t believe it. They’re sworn enemies. They hate each other. How can they be allies?”

Roland had little doubt.

“It must mean war,” he said. “The logic is inescapable: Stalin has seen that his Western allies are too weak to help him against Germany, so he’s done a deal with Hitler. And why’s Hitler done it? Russia has raw materials he needs. But above all he wants to neutralize the Soviets while he attacks the West. He doesn’t want a war on two fronts.”

“You think he’ll attack soon?” asked Charlie.

“Probably.”

“I’d better get ready to fight, then.”



August had scarcely ended when it came. And with a speed that was breathtaking.

Blitzkrieg. Hitler’s armored columns swept through Poland and crushed it. France and Britain declared war and began a naval blockade of German shipping. But they were powerless to save poor Poland, which Germany soon divided up with her new ally, Russia.

As for Charlie, he didn’t even wait for the call. He went straight to Paris to offer himself to the army.

It was a sunny day when he departed. As he was leaving his Voisin at the château, Marie and Roland saw him off at the train station.

How handsome he looked, waiting on the platform. It seemed to her that she felt just the same pride, and secret fear, as if he’d been her own. Then the little steam engine puffed and clanked its way up the line toward them, and the railway cars slowed to a halt, and he prepared to swing himself up.

“One small thing, mon fils,” his father said. And he reached into his pocket. “This little lighter, as you know, was made for me by a trooper in the Great War. It’s nothing much to look at, but it brought me luck. Take it, and perhaps it will do the same for you.”

Charlie looked at the little shell casing, slipped it into his coat pocket and grinned.

“I shall keep it with me at all times.” He embraced his father. After stepping into the carriage, he turned to look out the open window. As the train moved off, he waved to his father and blew a kiss to Marie. She and Roland stayed on the platform until he was out of sight.

“I’m sure he’ll be all right,” she said.



The months that followed were a strange time. The French army was deployed. A large British force had come to northern France. Yet nothing seemed to happen. Hitler made no further western move. October and November passed. Then Christmas. Still nothing. “The phony war,” the British called it. The funny sort of war, said the French: la drôle de guerre.

As usual, they spent most of the months of winter and spring in Paris. And during this time Marie was interested to observe a new mood setting in. By year end, their friends were starting to talk about what they might do in the summer. In January, a fashionable neighbor who also had a son in the army remarked that it was high time her boy had some leave. “I dare say this war will fizzle out soon enough,” her neighbor concluded. “The Germans won’t dare attack France.” It seemed to be the general view.

Marie couldn’t share it. To her clear mind, this attitude was evidence of how quickly human nature will take a temporary reprieve from disaster as a sign that the threat can be discounted.

Yet as it turned out, the development that would change everything for the family was one she hadn’t foreseen at all. It happened late in March.

She had just returned to the rue Bonaparte from a visit to her brother Marc when a telegram came from Charlie. It was addressed to her, rather than his father. It told her his leg was badly broken, and ended with the single plea: HELP ME.

“Why the devil did he send it to you and not me?” asked Roland, puzzled rather than angry.

Marie didn’t tell him, but she had guessed at once.

In Roland’s aristocratic world, a man might have the best of everything, but when it came to being injured at war, then you took whatever the army doctors offered and you didn’t complain. Charlie hadn’t actually been wounded in battle, but he’d fallen and been struck by a tank during maneuvers, and broken his leg in several places.

“The military doctors know what they’re doing,” Roland told her. “If he walks with a limp, he walks with a limp. No dishonor in that.”

Marie said nothing. She went straight to the telephone. Within an hour, she’d discovered the best surgeon for that kind of injury in Paris, spoken to his office and made all the arrangements. She’d even spoken to Charlie’s colonel in person. Using the combination of her rank and wealth, and the skills she had developed running Joséphine, she both intimidated and charmed the colonel. By that evening, somewhat sedated and strapped to splints, Charlie was being whisked in a private ambulance to Paris. Having discovered that the surgeon operated not only at one of the great Parisian hospitals, but also at the American Hospital at Neuilly, she had also gotten the surgeon to admit him there.

“Charlie will be more comfortable at Neuilly,” she said firmly.

“Women shouldn’t interfere in these things,” Roland grumbled, though Marie suspected he was secretly amused.



The spring of 1940 was beautiful and surprisingly warm. Each day, on her way to see Charlie at the hospital, Marie would tell the chauffeur to take a route through the quiet boulevards and avenues of Neuilly—boulevard d’Inkermann was her favorite—so that she could see the soft lines of horse chestnuts putting on their leaves and breaking, early, into their white blossoms.

The operation had been a great success. With luck, and careful treatment, Charlie would be able to walk quite normally. “But you must be patient,” the doctor told him. “This will take time.” By mid-April, it was agreed that, rather than go to a convalescent home, he should return to the apartment on the rue Bonaparte where Marie made arrangements for a private nurse to be in attendance.

A string of friends came to see him, and he seemed to be constantly on the telephone. His father would read the paper with him each day and discuss the news. Marie would play cards with him. He seemed to be cheerful enough. Only one thing irked him.

It started as a joke. One of his friends pretended to believe that his injury was a skiing accident. Within a day, the idea had gone around all his friends in Paris. It was meant as a harmless bit of teasing, yet it had to be confessed that behind it lay the perception that Charlie was the rich, athletic aristocrat who could do anything he liked.

And Charlie would probably have taken it in good part if it hadn’t been for the circumstances.

For in April, Hitler had been on the move again. Scandinavia this time: Denmark and Norway both fell, their monarchs unwillingly forced to acknowledge a German overlord. In England, the more pugnacious Churchill replaced Chamberlain as prime minister.

“I should be back on duty, ready to fight,” he moaned. “And everyone is going to say I wasn’t there because of a stupid skiing accident.”

“No one seems to believe that France will even have to go to war,” Marie said to comfort him. And it was perfectly true. Even now, as the warm days of May began, Parisians were starting to sit outside the bistros and cafés to enjoy the sunshine as if Hitler and his armies belonged in another universe.

“But you think we’re going to war, don’t you?” Charlie replied. And she couldn’t deny it.

To Roland she confessed: “I’m just relieved he isn’t on the front line.”

Roland, of course, would never admit to such a thing.

“The boy can’t fight on crutches,” he muttered, “and that’s all there is to say.”



It came on the eighth day of May. Blitzkrieg. Straight through Belgium, the Netherlands, tiny Luxembourg and the Ardennes. The German armored divisions poured through between the end of the Maginot Line and the French and British forces guarding the northern coastal plain.

It happened so fast that, in later years, people would say that the French collapsed and gave up in face of the onslaught. It was not so at all. The French fought heroically. But, just as had happened in the Great War before, the high command had not adapted to the latest modern warfare. That essential combination of tanks operating with air cover, on a large scale, was lacking. Even the tank division bravely commanded by Colonel de Gaulle was forced to retire in the face of overwhelming air attack from German Stukas.

In the space of days, France lost a hundred thousand men—not casualties, but killed.

By early June, the British forces, together with a hundred thousand French troops, were trapped against the coast at Dunkirk, while Paris lay open before the German divisions.

In Paris, Charlie was beside himself.

“I’m sitting here doing nothing to defend my country,” he cried.

But his father was more realistic.

“There is nothing useful you could have done,” he told him grimly. “The war is already over. The British are about to be annihilated at Dunkirk, and that’s it.”

He was right—and, miraculously, wrong. Hitler, having just won the war, didn’t realize it. Fearful that his lines were overextended—they were, but the Allies had no armor to throw at them—and trusting mistakenly in the Luftwaffe to finish the British army on the huge beaches of Dunkirk, he hesitated. And thanks to this God-given but astounding military error, Paris learned days later that nearly a third of a million British and French troops had been ferried across the English Channel to safety.

But France itself could not be saved. France was lost. By the tenth of June, people were evacuating. Roland told Marie and Charlie that they must all go down to the château. “The Germans will occupy Paris,” he said. “If they take over the apartment, so be it. But at all costs we must try to save the château.”

They set off at dawn, but the lines of people along the roads were so great that they did not reach the château until nightfall. The following day, they heard that Paris had been declared an open city, rather than have the Germans perhaps destroy it. Five days later, the elderly General Pétain, the hero of the Great War who had secretly brought the mutiny to an end, took over as premier of France.

“That’s good,” Roland declared. “Pétain has judgment. He’s a man one can trust.” And when, the very next day, Pétain declared an armistice with the Germans, Roland only shrugged and remarked that he didn’t see what else the old man could do.

It had always been a source of some amusement to Roland and Charlie that Marie insisted on listening to the BBC on her wireless. The signal was not strong, but she could still pick it up at the château.

“You spent too many years in England,” Roland would tell her with an affectionate kiss. “You believe that only the English news can be trusted.”

But it was thanks to Marie’s prejudice that the family listened to a broadcast, arranged at short notice, that very few people in France ever heard.

It was late afternoon on the very day after Pétain had announced the armistice that Marie called to Roland to come to the wireless at once. Charlie was already in the room, sitting with his leg stretched out on a stool.

“There’s going to be a statement from a French officer, who has just flown to London,” she told him urgently.

“About what?”

“I have no idea.”

The voice that came across the airwaves was deep, sonorous and firm. It announced, in total defiance of Pétain, that France had not fallen, that France would never surrender, but that Frenchmen outside France, in England and in France’s colonies, with the help of others including the Americans across the ocean, would restore France. And it urged all men under arms who were able to do so to join him as quickly as possible.

The message was startling. The language in which it was delivered was as magisterial as it was simple. The voice declared that, in the meantime, though he had only just been promoted to the rank of general, he was declaring himself the legitimate government of France, in exile, and that he would broadcast again from London the following day.

The name of the general was de Gaulle. “That’s the man who wanted more tanks,” Marie said. “The one that the English officer told me about after Munich.”

“He’s mad, but magnificent,” Roland remarked.

Charlie said nothing.

But the next day, he told Roland and Marie what he proposed to do. And Marie’s heart sank.



History gives no precise date for when the French Resistance began. In his three broadcasts of June 1940—on the eighteenth and nineteenth, and a longer broadcast, heard by many more people, on the twenty-second—de Gaulle called all military forces to the aid of their country, but made no mention of any internal resistance movement. Little of significance seems to have happened before 1941.

But there was one man in France who believed he could say precisely when, and where, the Resistance began. And that was Thomas Gascon.

Because he started it.

Thomas Gascon’s defiance of Hitler and his regime began on the morning of Saturday, the twenty-second day of June, 1940. Hitler himself was hardly thirty miles to the north of Paris that day, at Compiègne, signing the new armistice in the very same railway carriage that had been used to sign the old armistice of 1918, so humiliating to Germany, that ended the Great War.

“He will come to Paris,” Thomas remarked to Luc as they sat at a table outside the little bar near the Moulin Rouge.

“We don’t know that.”

“Of course we do. He’s just won the war. Paris is at his feet. Obviously he’ll come.”

“Perhaps. But when?”

“Tomorrow.” Thomas looked at Luc as if his brother was foolish. “He’s a busy man. He’s here. He’ll come tomorrow.”

“And what of it?”

“He’ll want to go up the Eiffel Tower.”

“Probably.” Luc took out a Gauloise and lit it. “Most people do.”

“Well, he’s not going up. He may have kicked our asses, but he’s not going to look down on Paris as if he owns it from the top of Monsieur Eiffel’s tower. I won’t allow it.”

“You won’t?” Luc chuckled. “And how are you going to stop him?”

“I’ve been thinking. It can be done. But I’ll need your help. Maybe a few other men too.”

“You want me to attack Hitler?”

“No. But if we can cut the elevator cables, then he can’t go up. Unless he wants to walk up, which would be humiliating, so he won’t do it.”

“You’re nuts.”

“I’m telling you, it can be done.”

“Well, I won’t help you.”

“I helped you once,” said Thomas, quietly.

There was a moment of silence. In almost thirty years, Thomas had never made any reference to that terrible night when they had carried the girl’s body into the hill of Montmartre. Luc gazed at his brother, surprised, a little hurt, but cautious.

“You saved my life, brother,” he answered softly. “It’s true. But why should I repay it by getting you killed?” He reached out and took his brother’s arm. “You’re not young anymore, Thomas. You’re over seventy-five, for God’s sake. If you don’t fall and break your neck, you’ll probably get arrested. And then the Germans will shoot you.”

Thomas shrugged.

“At my age,” remarked Thomas with a shrug, “what does it matter?”

“Think of Édith.”

It was amazing really, Luc thought, how little Thomas and Édith had changed. They both had gray hair, of course—not that Thomas had much hair left, just a few crinkles—and many lines on their faces, and some stiffness in the joints now and then, but his sturdy brother still took a two- or three-mile walk every day and insisted on managing the little bar, which he still did so well. Édith had given up running the restaurant some years ago, but with ten grandchildren to keep her busy, she was always on the go. She relied on Thomas though, in every way.

Luc could imagine Thomas climbing the tower. He’d probably get some way up before he tired, or something went wrong. And he was quite sure his brother was entirely serious about his harebrained scheme. But he certainly wasn’t going to encourage him.

“Even if there were time to organize such a thing, I’d say forget it,” he told him. “The answer’s no.”

He went indoors for a few minutes. When he came back, Thomas had gone.



It was quite a while since Thomas had walked into the Maquis. The whole of Montmartre had become more and more built up. Many of the old establishments were still there, even little bars like au Lapin Agile. But more and more they were turning into curiosities for visiting tourists. A little while ago, some enterprising fellows had taken a vacant lot on the backside of the hill and turned it into a vineyard, to commemorate the ancient vines and winemaking that had graced Montmartre in the centuries before. The wine they made, so far at least, was quite undrinkable. But nobody cared. They had a very jolly time harvesting the grapes each autumn, and celebrating in the usual manner.

Even the Maquis was becoming somewhat respectable. Well, insofar as that was possible when some of the old families still resided there.

As he passed an open window, Thomas heard the unmistakable sound of Édith Piaf’s voice singing, and he smiled. He’d seen her perform in a nightclub once—a tiny, sparrowlike girl, who sang with the accents of the street. He knew she’d made one or two records before the war. But if she wanted to make a living now, she’d have to sing for the Germans.

Well, he thought, the voice of the streets was going to fight back.

He found the collection of shabby little tenements that housed the extended Dalou family, and asked for Bertrand.

He still had a mop of greasy hair, but he walked with difficulty. He’d put his back out years ago, and never recovered. Thomas nodded to him.

“You know who I am?” he asked.

“I know. What do you want?”

“I need help.”

“Go screw yourself.”

“I’m going to kick Hitler in the balls.”

“Go and do it then. I hope he cuts yours off.”

Thomas produced a bottle of brandy he’d taken from the bar.

“Let’s talk,” he said.



“You really think it’s possible?” Bertrand said, ten minutes later.

“I know the tower like the back of my hand,” Thomas replied. “As for the elevators, I understand how they work. Give me a little time and I can disable them all.”

“It’s the shortest night of the year.”

“There’s enough time. But I need help.”

“What about your own family?”

“My son’s missing a leg. As for Luc … He thinks it’s a bad idea.”

“He’s a rat.” Bertrand Dalou shrugged. “Why come to me?”

“I need a tough son of a bitch. You came into my mind.”

This answer seemed to please Dalou.

“I’m no good since my back gave out. But I’ve a couple of grandsons.” He turned and called out: “Jacquôt! Michel! Come here.” And a moment later two swarthy and disreputable-looking young men appeared. “You’re going out tonight,” he commanded them.



There were five of them in the end. Michel had a friend called Georges, a small, wiry man who was a steeplejack. That was helpful. Georges had brought his mate.

“We’re going to need a couple of big cable cutters,” Thomas had told them. “The biggest we can get.” A supplier called Gautier, at the bottom of the hill, had them, he explained, but Gautier closed at lunchtime on Saturdays, and he hadn’t been able to get in.

An hour later, Michel and Jacquôt had returned with the very cable cutters he needed. He didn’t ask how they got them.

They decided to approach separately and rendezvous beneath the tower at midnight. There were thin, high clouds in the night sky that obscured some of the stars, but it was only two days since the full moon, and they had all the light they needed. The great tower was deserted. A solitary policeman patrolled under it from time to time, before descending to the quays along the river and making his slow round again.

While he was out of sight, they climbed over the barrier and into the stairwell. Thomas needed a little help from Michel and Jacquôt, but he was pleased to find that he could manage pretty well.

The first task was to place a lookout. Since Jacquôt wasn’t sure about his head for heights, Georges the steeplejack took him up to a vantage point about sixty feet up, from which he had a good view in both directions. His signal was a low call like an owl’s hoot.

In the tower’s early years, there had been elevator systems in all four of its legs, but the elevators, operated by huge hydraulic pumps below, were just in the east and west legs now. It took only a few minutes for the men to climb up and get out onto the tracks above the car in the western leg. Six stout wire cables ran up there. They had to be careful as the greased tracks were slippery. The cables, grouped three and three, were easy enough to see in the moonlight, as they ran up the great, curving tracks, passing guiding sheaves here and there, until they disappeared into the soaring tunnel of girders in the sky.

“The pump below powers it,” Thomas whispered. “These metal cable ropes go from the pump all the way up to the big block, which is like a great wheel, about four hundred feet up there, above the second platform, then down to the car, which gets lifted. So, cut through the cables and it’s disabled.”

The cables were thick, though. He could only just get the big cutters around them. He checked to see that the cables were well greased. They were. That would make the job easier and quieter. But it was still going to be hard work. Taking one of the two cable cutters, he showed them all how to cut through a cable.

“It’s just like scissors or wire cutters,” he explained, “but you have to work at it. The cable is spun from a lot of wire strands. But it’s big. Very big. So you’ll just have to keep on working and cutting until you can take a final bite at the central core. Be patient. Take turns.”

It took him ten minutes to get through the first cable, while they all watched. After that, he kept Michel with him and sent Georges the steeplejack and his mate across to the eastern leg, while he and Michel worked on the rest of the cables. “After you’ve finished,” he told Georges, “go up the stairs to the second floor. We’ll meet up there.”

They had just started on the third cable when a low hoot from Jacquôt above them warned that the policeman was approaching. Thomas motioned Michel to press himself against the girders by the track. They kept very still. He hoped that Georges had heard the signal too.

The policeman passed under the tower. They waited. He disappeared from view. A low whistle from Jacquôt signaled the all clear.

When they were done, he and Michel clambered across into the stairwell. Thomas gave Michel the cable cutter to carry, and they started up the stairs.

It was a long climb. At the first platform, Thomas rested a little. Then they continued on up toward the second platform. Halfway up this section, Thomas had to rest again. His legs were aching and he felt a little short of breath. He saw Michel looking at him nervously.

“How’s your head for heights?” he suddenly asked the younger man.

“Fine.”

“Good. It’ll need to be,” he added gruffly. That made him feel better.

When they got up to the second platform, they had to wait only a couple of minutes for Georges and his mate to appear.

“All done,” Georges said with a nod. “No problem.”

“This is where it gets more interesting,” Thomas told them.

The elevator system in the top section of the tower was quite different. There were two passenger elevators, linked by cables over the usual pulley wheels up above the third platform, so that they hung, counterbalancing each other. That reduced the amount of extra power needed to raise and lower them. A pair of hydraulic rams under the elevators provided power, raising each car halfway up the ascent. The passengers then got out, walked across a gangway, and entered the other car for the final ride to the top. It was an efficient system, making use of gravity to do much of the work.

There was a little service elevator as well. Georges quickly climbed on top of it and cut the cables. Then he and Thomas had a quick conference.

“I want to make sure they can’t repair this without replacing the entire length of the cables,” Thomas told him. “So I’m going up to the gangplank halfway up. I don’t want to cut right through the cables, or they’ll fall down two hundred feet and make a hell of a noise. But I’m going to weaken them. It’ll be easier for me to fray them if they’re tense. So can you cut almost through the cables on top of the car at this level, but don’t make the final cut until I’ve finished up above?”

“Understood. No problem,” Georges replied.

To reach the highest level they had to mount a narrow spiral staircase. It was hard to carry the long-armed cable cutters for two hundred feet up the metal stairs’ thirty-inch spiral. But eventually Thomas and Michel came out onto the gangway. Looking up, through the soaring girders, they could see the dark square of the topmost platform two hundred feet above them.

They walked across to the closed elevator doors, behind which lay the empty shaft. Two hundred feet below them they could just hear the faint scraping sound of Georges working on the cables above the elevator car.

“We’ve got to climb into the shaft,” said Thomas quietly. They had plenty of light from the moon up there, but it took them a couple of minutes to work out the best way of climbing over the caging that fenced in the gangway. Once over that, they had to ease their way carefully along a girder until they came to the edge of the big open drop of the shaft. The car cables hung in the middle, just out of reach.

“Now what do we do?” asked Michel.

Thomas looked for an upright metal strut.

“Get your leg around that, and one arm too,” he said. “Can you do that?” After a few moments of fumbling, Michel did it. “Now,” said Thomas, “with your free arm, grab hold of my leather belt, right in the middle of my backside. Got a good grip?”

“I reckon so.”

“I’m going to lean out over the shaft, so I need you to hold on.”

“All right.”

Thomas leaned out. Stretching the heavy cutters at arm’s length, he could just get the cutter blades around the first cable. He knew his arms would be aching soon, but he could make a start. Carefully, he clamped the cutters tight and started to work them, sawing and cutting at the cable. After a minute, he paused.

“You all right, Michel?”

“I need a rest.” Michel pulled on his belt, Thomas returned to the vertical, and he took a step back. Just then, a soft owl hoot from far below told them the policeman was coming.

Five minutes later, they began again.

“It’s funny,” Thomas remarked as he leaned out, “I was hanging just like this the first time I saw my wife. From a balcony on the Champs-Élysées.”

“Eh?” said Michel.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Thomas. “Just hold on.”

He spent five minutes on the next cable. Rested a bit. Then the same on the third.

“We’ll have to move around to the other side for me to reach the others,” he said.

That took another five minutes. Far below, the scratching sounds ceased. Obviously Georges had done his work. But Thomas was determined to finish his self-appointed task up here. He was just about to start when another hoot from Jacquôt told him to wait.

This time, when they were ready to start again, Michel had a question.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“What?”

“You know what you said about the two elevator cars balancing each other?”

“Yes.”

“So these cables we’re sawing at, they go right up to the top, over a drum, and down to the roof of the car on the other side.”

“Right.”

“So if you keep weakening the cables, they might give way, and if they do, then won’t the other car fall down?”

“Go on.”

“Well, if the other car falls all the way to the bottom and smashes, it’ll make a hell of a racket.”

“Go on.”

“People all around will be calling the police. We’ll get arrested.”

“Could get shot, I reckon, if you’re right.”

“Then this isn’t a good idea.”

“At my age,” Thomas told him with a shrug, “I don’t care.”

“But I’m not your age.”

“I know. But I’m not worried, because I don’t care if you get shot either. Hold tight.” And Thomas leaned out again.

“Salaud,” said Michel.

Fifteen minutes later, after Thomas had cut more than halfway through all the cables, while Michel watched in the greatest misery, they were back on the gangway again. They paused for a moment. Thomas pointed up to the platform high above them.

“Can you make out the bottom of the elevator car hanging up there?”

“I think so.”

“Well, ever since the American Monsieur Otis invented this kind of elevator, nearly a century ago, they’ve had automatic brakes. They can’t fall.”

“Oh.”

The view from the gangway was truly wonderful. They could see all Paris bathed in the moonlight below. Thomas gazed up at the moon, gleaming against the backdrop of stars.

“You know what?” he said. “If Hitler wants to go up this tower, he’s buggered.”

Down on the second platform, they found Georges and his mate waiting patiently on top of the elevator car.

“All ready,” said Thomas.

They heard the cable cutters snap—once, twice … six times—and it was done. The elevator was disabled.

The descent from the second platform took twenty minutes. Five of those were a welcome rest while the policeman passed underneath. As they climbed out onto firm ground and Jacquôt joined them, they all shook hands and decided to split up into three groups. Thomas and Michel proceeded together toward the river, taking the cable cutters with them. The bridge was empty. As they walked across, they tossed the wire cutters over the parapet and heard them make two soft splashes, like a pair of divers, in the waters of the Seine below.

“Can I ask you something?” said Michel, when this was done.

“Of course.”

“You know up there you told me the elevator couldn’t fall because it had safety brakes?”

“Yes.”

“When Georges was cutting the cables finally, I saw you staring up toward the top elevator, and when he cut the final cable, I saw you flinch.”

“Did I?” Thomas nodded. “I was pretty certain,” he admitted, “but”—he shrugged—“I could have been wrong.”



For Louise, the second half of 1940 was a strange time. In the first place, after the beautiful spring and the sudden, terrifying month of war, everything seemed normal.

France still had a French government: Marshal Pétain himself, military hero, in his eighties now, but with all his faculties. France had fought bravely and lost a hundred thousand men. Like Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, she had been unable to withstand the German blitzkrieg. If Marshal Pétain addressed them as Frenchmen and told them to cooperate with the German occupiers, who needed to argue? It wasn’t as if there was an alternative.

True, the lone voice of de Gaulle spoke from London. But in practical terms, he had nothing to offer. The British army had completely collapsed when they tried to fight the Germans, and been sent scurrying back home. Only the narrow waters of the English Channel had saved the British from being overrun at the same time as France. Their turn would come soon enough.

Meanwhile, the Germans had left France with her honor. Pétain’s French government was still in charge.

Well, more or less. Pétain himself was based in the south, in the town of Vichy, whose pure waters made it such a pleasant spa. The Mediterranean coast, Provence, the Midi, the deep central countryside of Limousin and the huge open hills of Auvergne were all in the Vichy zone. But the north of France, roughly from the Loire valley to the English Channel, was under German military occupation, for which the French government had to pay. So was the western, Atlantic seaboard, from the Spanish border up through Bordeaux, the mouth of the Loire and into Brittany. Within these northern and western occupied zones, the Pétain government was technically in control, and French police maintained law and order, but the presence of German troops reminded everyone that France still had a German overlord whose will would prevail.

Yet Louise had to admit that, so far at least, the Germans had behaved politely. They had occupied certain buildings, of course. The Luftwaffe had taken over the charming Luxembourg Palace. Göring himself liked to live at the Ritz where, Louise soon heard, he liked to wear jewelry, and dress up in silk and satin dresses—though his tastes, it was soon confirmed, were not for men but for women, with whom he was regularly supplied. Other German generals were looking for mansions they could use. It was clear that the orders of the day for the German occupiers were simple: Don’t annoy the natives, and enjoy yourselves.

As for the Parisians, after the initial exodus, the city was filling up again. Life had to go on. Pétain the patriot had told them so. For many on the old military, monarchist right wing, and some of the bourgeoisie too—who, like Pétain himself, had never been so enamored of democracy in the first place—the new regime was not so bad. On the left, the communists had been ordered by Moscow to collaborate with the Germans because, since the new pact, Hitler was now Russia’s ally.

True, Hitler had come to Paris for a few hours on a Sunday in June and found that he couldn’t go up the Eiffel Tower because the elevator cables had been cut. But no one knew for sure who’d done it. The rumor was that some fellows from the Montmartre Maquis area had been behind it. But the old shantytown had a vow of silence. No one would ever get to the bottom of that business.

The question for Louise had been, what should she do?

She had formed her plan even before the baby was born. She didn’t want to bring the child up inside a brothel. So she had taken a modest but pleasant apartment not far away, opposite the Musée des Arts et Métiers. She engaged a nanny, and here the baby slept. She spent as much time in the new apartment as she could, but continued to use her apartment in the rue de Montmorency house to supervise that establishment.

By the time the little boy was ten, she estimated that she would have paid off all her debts and accumulated enough money to retire from business and eventually leave him a good little inheritance. That was the plan.

She had named him Esmé, the old French name meaning “Beloved.” He was going to have everything that she had been denied. She had deliberately brought him into the world, she was never going to desert him and he was going to know that he was loved.

When she had first told Charlie she was pregnant, Louise had explained very frankly what she’d done.

“I chose you to be his father,” she said, “but I want him for myself. You’re free. I can look after him.” It was her pride that she could say this. And it was her absolute determination that no one, not even Charlie, was ever going to part them.

She also made one other stipulation.

“I don’t want you to tell your father or your stepmother about Esmé. That’s going to be a secret between you and me. I want you to promise me that.”

Charlie thought this second stipulation rather strange, but he’d agreed. The rest he accepted easily enough. Though she had never told him the story of who she really was, he could see that it was important to her. Most men in his situation, he supposed, would have been grateful to escape responsibility for an illegitimate child. But he still wanted to do something for his baby son. He knew this wasn’t virtue on his part. It was easy to be generous if you were rich.

“Come and see us,” she said. “Just don’t ever try to take him away.”

But she hadn’t foreseen the German occupation.

What was she to do now? She had no wish to provide the hospitality of L’Invitation au Voyage to Hitler’s henchmen. Could she afford to retire? Could she even sell the business in the middle of the occupation?

Before the end of July, the situation was made even worse for her when, to her surprise, she received a telephone call from Coco Chanel. Some years ago, the great mistress of fashion had decided to live in a luxurious suite at the Ritz, and she was calling from there.

“I just wanted you to know, Louise,” she said, “that the Ritz is simply swarming with the German High Command. I’ve told them all that you’re my friend, and that L’Invitation au Voyage is the place to visit in Paris.”

“Oh.”

“They all have masses of money, you know.”

“I know.” It was already a sore point with the French that the money they had to pay for the support of the occupying Germans was calculated in German marks, using an exchange rate that hugely favored them. As a result, the Germans could afford anything they wanted in Paris.

“I told them they can trust you,” Coco continued. “Don’t let me down.” Then she rang off.

Louise was still struggling with her conscience a day later when Charlie came to call.



When Charlie had told his father and Marie what he wanted, Roland had been doubtful.

“There’s no network to join,” he pointed out.

“Then I’ll have to build one.”

“It’s a pity we’ve lost so many men,” his father said.

It wasn’t just the loss of a hundred thousand, killed in May and June. By the time the fighting was over, the Germans had taken a million French troops as prisoners of war. Sadly, even the French troops evacuated at Dunkirk had been sent back to France by the British, who probably didn’t know what to do with them, and most of those had finished up in German prisoner-of-war camps too.

“As far as I can tell,” Marie had remarked, “most of the people of our sort would rather follow Pétain anyway.”

“That’s exactly why I’m not likely to be suspected,” Charlie told her. “And you can help me by providing cover. If we just act the part of conservative aristocrats, the Germans will suppose we’re on their side.”

The opportunity had come only two weeks later, when a large car with two outriders had drawn up at the château, and a smartly dressed German colonel and two young staff officers had alighted. At the door he had politely introduced himself as Colonel Walter, and explained that he was looking at châteaus which might be requisitioned for army use.

He spoke excellent French, and Charlie suspected that he might be taking a look at the occupants of the château as well as the building itself. When Marie asked if he could stay to lunch with his staff, he readily accepted.

As they toured the house, it was quickly established that both the German and Roland de Cygne came from military families. Charlie was still walking with a stick and the colonel asked if this was a wound.

“No, mon colonel. I broke my leg quite badly in an accident. So I missed the fighting.”

“You had good doctors, I hope.”

“Very. At the American Hospital.”

The colonel nodded, and Charlie supposed that the information would probably be checked. Colonel Walter’s attitude was made apparent, however, when he turned to Roland and remarked: “The French army fought with gallantry, monsieur. But your High Command did not prepare correctly.”

“That is what I think,” Roland answered. “It is gracious of you to say it.”

But the defining moment came a few minutes later. They were in the old hall where the lovely tapestry of the unicorn hung on the wall, and they all stopped to admire it.

“Truly beautiful,” Colonel Walter remarked. “A jewel in a perfect setting. Has it always been here?”

And then Roland, remembering the circumstances of his father’s purchase, had an inspiration.

“As it happens,” he replied, quickly rearranging the facts to suit, “it was my father who bought this tapestry. The price was a little high, but he discovered that if he didn’t buy it at that price, it was going to be acquired by a Jew. So he paid.” He gave the colonel a glance, accompanied by a faint shrug. “We felt that it belonged here.”

“Ah.” Colonel Walter inclined his head. “A good deed.” Charlie could see the two staff officers visibly relax.

The lunch was pleasant. The German officers were correct in their behavior, but it was clear that, as far as they were concerned, the family of de Cygne were just the kind of people they wanted to encourage.

As they were leaving, Roland did murmur to Colonel Walter that, should the army need to requisition the château, he hoped he might receive a little notice.

“Of course,” Walter replied, and smiled. “Look after that tapestry.” Charlie was pretty sure that his family would not be troubled further.



He was still walking with a stick, but looking otherwise well, on the Sunday afternoon when he turned up to see Louise. It was the first time he had been to her apartment since the previous autumn, and although she had come to the hospital once, she had been reluctant, because of her fear of meeting his family.

Under his arm, so that anyone could see it, he was carrying a book by Céline, the darling of French reactionaries, whose anti-Semitism left even the Nazis awestruck.

As he approached, Charlie wondered what would happen between them. Thanks to the war, it had been a year since he and Louise had been alone together. She had the child she wanted, and she had made her desire for independence very clear. Would she still want to continue the affair? And did he want to continue it himself? He didn’t really know. He thought he probably did, but he decided he’d just have to see how things developed when they met.

In the meantime, he realized that he was quite excited to see his little son.



They stood in the salon of her apartment opposite the museum.

“We should celebrate your return,” she said. “Champagne?”

They were face-to-face, just a little apart.

“I’m still a cripple,” he said.

“So I see.” She smiled.

How wonderfully attractive she was. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all. He was about to take her in his arms when she gently held him back.

“Wait. You have somebody to see first.”

She led him across the small hall and into the second bedroom, which was arranged as a nursery.

How quickly little children grow, he thought. The baby he remembered had turned into a little boy. Only two years old, but a child who walked, and talked—and who resembled him. He picked Esmé up and held him so that the little fellow looked straight into his eyes. He smiled.

“Do you know who I am?”

“My papa.”

“Yes. Your papa.”

“Will you stay here?”

“Not all the time.”

“Maman belongs to me.”

“I know. But I shall see her sometimes. Whenever I see you.”

The tiny boy gazed at him thoughtfully.

“You are my papa.”

“Yes.”

And then Charlie suddenly had an urge to stay with this woman and with his son. And he hardly cared that she was much older than he was, and that she owned a brothel, and that he was the future Vicomte de Cygne. And he wanted to marry Louise, even though he knew that he would not.

He stayed half an hour with his son, playing with him. Then the nanny came in to take Esmé for a walk, and Charlie and Louise retired to her bedroom and made love.

It was early evening when she told him about her dilemma. Should she keep L’Invitation au Voyage open—in which case she’d have to cater to the occupying German officers—or should she try to close the place down?

“You dislike the Germans?” Charlie asked.

“Occupation is occupation.” She shrugged. “But perhaps you like them, Charlie. Most of the fashionable people seem to. And you turned up here with a book by Céline under your arm.”

“A German colonel and his staff paid us a visit at the château. They are well satisfied that the Vicomte de Cygne and his family share their views on life. That suits me very well, and I mean to keep it that way.”

“Are you telling me to do the same?”

“Tell me,” said Charlie after a pause, “what’s the most important priority in your life?”

“To protect Esmé.”

“Then do so. Carry on as normal. Entertain the Germans. What else can you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“France is occupied, Louise,” he said earnestly. “De Gaulle sets up his headquarters in London, and hopes that the French colonies and the Americans may drive Hitler out. But it’s just a dream. More likely, London itself will fall.” He paused. “However, just suppose that one day things were to change, that there was a real chance that Hitler could be driven out.” He gave her a steady look. “If, in those circumstances, you had senior German officers spending their time here, you might hear all sorts of things that could be useful, if you wanted to pass them on.”

“I see.” She gave him a curious look. “Are you up to something, Charlie?”

“Absolutely not.” It was a lie, and meant to be seen as such. “I’m cooperating like everybody else. I have passages of Céline by heart already,” he added cheerfully. “By the way, may I come and see you and Esmé next Sunday?”

“Of course,” she said.



It was at the end of September that Louise received a visit from Jacob. He came to the door of L’Invitation au Voyage without any forewarning and asked to see her. She took him straight up to her office, and asked what she could do for him.

“I have a favor to ask,” he said. “Have you seen the new ordinances for the Jews?”

Louise knew that the community had been swollen by Jews fleeing the harsh German rule in the east. Now the Germans were cracking down on the Jews in France as well.

“I haven’t read them,” she confessed.

“We all have to register with the authorities, both our families and our businesses, so they know exactly where to find us. If there are food shortages—and that always happens in time of war—we aren’t allowed to stand in the food lines. We can’t even use public telephones.” He shook his head. “But the word is that they’re going to start taking over our property.”

“I’m sorry,” said Louise. In truth she was disgusted, but she didn’t want to say it. “But why have you come to me?”

“Would you store some of my pictures?” He looked at her earnestly. “You see, Madame Louise, you already have quite a few. No one would have any reason to doubt you if you said that they belonged to you.”

“You know that the German officers are starting to come here?”

“Yes. I think that makes it even safer. The last place they’d suspect would be right under their noses. Some you could put on the walls, some you could store …”

She hesitated. She imagined it was illegal. On the other hand, there was no reason for anyone to know. She could put some in the bedrooms, whose decorations were always changing. Others could go into the apartment nearby.

“Twenty,” she said. “More than that might attract attention.”

He looked disappointed.

“Could you manage twenty-five? And some drawings?”

“All right. But not more. Perhaps you can find other people to help you. But one thing, Monsieur Jacob. Nothing in writing. You will have to trust me.”

“I trust you, madame,” he said gratefully.

After he had gone, Louise shook her head. It seemed that, unexpectedly, her private resistance to the occupation had just begun.



As Marie looked out at the world, she couldn’t help being glad that her daughter was in America. From the BBC broadcasts she was able to gather news that was fairly reliable. In the late summer and autumn of 1940, she had listened day after day as the Luftwaffe tried to destroy the Royal Air Force. Miraculously, by the end of October, it was clear that Hitler had not succeeded. Germany was mighty, but not invincible. For another half a year Hitler had tried to bomb the British into submission, but by May 1941 he’d had to give up. In other theaters too, Britain was pushing back against the fascist enemy. In Africa, Hitler’s Italian allies had retreated under British attack, and Hitler had been forced to send German troops there to hold the line.

And France herself was still fighting. Admittedly, the Vichy government was supplying troops to the German side. But the Free French Naval Forces had brought fifty ships and nearly four thousand men to serve with the British navy. And if there had been Polish airmen in the Battle of Britain, there were soon French pilots flying Spitfires too.

In London, de Gaulle’s government in exile had taken the great, double-barred Cross of Lorraine—the region from which Joan of Arc herself had come—as its symbol; and as de Gaulle had hoped, French colonies like the Cameroons, French Equatorial East Africa and New Caledonia had sided with him, with others likely to follow. In the Middle East, Free French Forces had joined the fight in Syria and Lebanon.

In Paris, however, life had continued quietly. The de Cygnes and the Blanchard families were not troubled at all. Indeed, the German authorities seemed positively anxious to court them. Marie saw an example of this early in the new year.



Since the German occupation, Marc had retreated into private life. He still turned up for cultural events from time to time, but mostly lived in dignified isolation. She doubted whether the Germans thought that a liberal intellectual like Marc was a supporter of the authoritarian government; but he was getting too old, and was too self-centered to give them any trouble.

In fact, it was the Germans who tried to coax him into more activity. Marie became aware of it one evening in February.

It had been months since Marc had invited them to a social gathering at his apartment, so she and Roland both went, and took Charlie with them. There was a crowd of people there, mostly from the world of the arts, but she was surprised to see a couple of German officers in uniform. A moment later, all was explained, as Marc signaled them to join him.

“Allow me to present my sister and her husband, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Cygne, and her stepson, Charles—the German ambassador.”

Whatever one might think of Hitler and his inner circle, they could be clever when they wanted. The appointment of an ambassador to France at all was a well-calculated gesture to preserve the fiction that France was still a sovereign state ruling herself—with a little help from her German friends. But their choice of ambassador was inspired. Otto Abetz was urbane and cultivated, and he had a French wife. His job was to reassure the French and help them accept German rule.

Abetz was quite young, only in his late thirties. He was immaculately tailored, and might have stepped straight from a Parisian salon. With his appreciative bow and greeting to Roland and his son, he conveyed in an instant that he was well aware of who they were, and that they were considered as aristocratic friends of the regime who shared its values and, still more important where trust is concerned, its prejudices. To Marie, he then turned with practiced charm.

“Madame, I hope you will help me persuade your brother to take a more active role in Paris life again. We all need him. He was good enough to accept an invitation to the embassy”—as if he could refuse, she thought—“and I begged him to let me come to see his wonderful collection of pictures. My wife has already read two of his monographs, which she says are as elegant as they are scholarly, and I have them by my bedside to read myself.”

Marie could tell that even Marc, who had seen more winters than most in the art world, was not entirely immune to this flattery.

“It has not been easy to persuade him from his retirement for a number of years,” she offered, “but I always tell him that if he does not take exercise, he will grow old.”

“Voilà!” The German turned to Marc with a broad smile. “I do not ask you to listen to me, my friend, but you should listen to your sister, who is wiser than either of us.”

The following month, Marc was seen again at a reception Abetz gave for the cultural and academic elite of the city. He still didn’t go out much, but no doubt Abetz was content that he served the German purpose well enough.

Despite the ambassador’s charm, there were still plenty of reminders that an iron fist lay behind the velvet glove. German street signs directed one to all the new German buildings. Even the Hôtel de Crillon on Place de la Concorde was now the huge and threatening offices of the security services. Cars with loudspeakers circulated to remind everyone that troublemakers would not be tolerated. There was a strict curfew at night. Food rationing began in earnest.

“It’s all right for us,” Charlie remarked. “We only have to go to the château and there is food. I can always go out into the woods and shoot a pigeon. But the poor people of Paris are not so lucky.”

And what was Charlie up to himself? Marie had been able to do one great thing for him, in the autumn of 1940. But once that was done, she had been careful not to interfere. Sometimes he would disappear for days at a time. She never asked him where he had been or what he was doing. She was fairly sure he had a woman somewhere, and it would have been strange if he had not. But as to his other, perhaps more dangerous, activities, she could only guess.

If there were resistance groups forming, it was still hard to see at present what they could usefully do, since the German control of northwestern Europe appeared to be complete.

But as the summer of 1941 began, two events gave a hint that the German supremacy might begin to falter. For in May, Germany’s mighty battleship the Bismarck was sunk. And then, at the end of June, came the astonishing news that Hitler had suddenly turned on his new friend Stalin, and invaded Russia.

“He must be mad,” Roland remarked. “Doesn’t he know what happened to Napoléon when he invaded Russia back in 1812?” He shook his head. “Perhaps Hitler thinks he’s a better general.”

“And what do you think?” Marie asked Charlie.

“I think,” said Charlie, “that this changes everything.”



For Max Le Sourd, it brought relief. The last year had been especially difficult for him.

With the French Communist Party joined in lockstep with Moscow, the journalists at L’Humanité had been obliged to follow the party line.

“We have to advocate collaboration with the Germans,” he told his father. By the end of 1940, he was adding: “I’m not sure how much longer I can do it, and nor are many of my communist friends.”

But his father had never made any comment at all.

Since Max’s return from the Spanish Civil War, the relationship between them had been perfectly friendly. Both regretted equally that Franco and his right-wing army had prevailed, and that Spain, for all its Catholic trappings, was really a fascist regime. His father accepted that Max had fought bravely and that his heart was in the right place.

“But he doesn’t trust me,” Max said sadly to his mother.

“You mustn’t take it personally,” his mother told him. “But with the communists on the Germans’ side … he can’t.”

Was his father in a resistance movement of some kind? As the months went by, Max often wondered. His father was well into his seventies, but with his tall, lean frame he seemed hardly changed. He’d still walk from Belleville to the Bois de Boulogne without seeming tired.

It was no use asking him. Once, in the spring of 1941, Max told him frankly that he was ready to start working against the Germans. But his father made no comment at all, and never referred to the subject again. Max understood, though he still found it hurtful.

Only at the end of June, when Hitler invaded Russia, did the situation change.

“We’re organizing a communist resistance movement,” Max told the older Le Sourd. “I don’t know details yet, but I shall join it, of course.” He gave his father a careful look. “Unless you have any other suggestions.”

And this time, though his father didn’t say anything, he put his arm around Max’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. A few days later, on a warm day in July, he suggested: “As it’s a beautiful day, let’s go for a picnic, you and I.”

“As you like. Where do you want to go?”

“The Bois de Vincennes,” said his father. “We can bicycle out there, together.”



Max hadn’t been there for years. Not that it was so far away. He’d forgotten how delightful the old forest was.

For if Parisians could enjoy the open spaces of the Bois de Boulogne on the western side of the city, on the eastern side the Bois de Vincennes was just as fine. The old royal forest still contained an ancient château that kings had used until the days of Louis XIV, but people mostly came to walk in the woods.

They found a pleasant, deserted spot and set out their little meal of bread, pâté and cheese. Max had provided a bottle of vin ordinaire, and as he looked at his father stretched out so comfortably on the grass, he felt a great wave of affection. They ate and drank for a little while before his father broached the subject that was on his mind.

“You were serious about working in the Resistance?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to tell you something about it?”

“I do.”

His father nodded thoughtfully.

“You know that, as a socialist, I’ve always believed it’s of paramount importance to be organized. Random acts of violence are useless. The thing is to have an organization well prepared so that, when the time comes, one is ready to seize the initiative. It’s the same with any resistance movement. Especially when you are dealing with a ruthless enemy like Hitler.”

“That makes sense.”

“Now that there’s an eastern front, we could make enough trouble to tie up troops here. That might cause Hitler some difficulties. One day, perhaps, if America comes into the war, it may even be possible to liberate France. A big Resistance network could be crucial in providing information and sabotage prior to an invasion.”

“You’ll need good links with de Gaulle in London, then.”

“Up to a point, yes. But don’t forget the bigger picture. In the event that French and Allied troops can liberate France, we need to be completely organized so that the France they liberate belongs to us. By the time they get to Paris, it will be a Commune.”

“The old dream.”

“It’s a hundred and fifty years since the French Revolution and we still haven’t made good its ideals. But maybe this time it can be done.”

“That’s what you’re fighting for?”

“Yes. I want the Nazis out, of course. But my ultimate goal is to complete the Revolution, for France to reach her true destiny. And I hope it may be your goal as well.”

For the next ten minutes he gave Max some details of the networks as they were emerging. It was evident to Max that his father was telling him far less than he knew, but it was clear that, both in Vichy France and in the occupied north, they were extensive.

“The cells are linked, but also separate. Only a few key individuals know much outside their own cell. That’s for security.”

“What will your role be?”

“Propaganda. I’m getting a little old to run around blowing things up. But we need a newspaper. We may revive Le Populaire, which was suppressed. Underground of course. I’ll be helping with that.”

“I want to do something more active. My time in the Spanish Civil War taught me a good deal.”

“I know. And that’s the point. I’ve gathered together a bunch of boys, and I think I should turn them over to you and your friends. They all want action.” He grinned. “Do you know, I even found the fellow who cut the elevator cables in the Eiffel Tower? He’s about the same age as me, but he’s still going strong. And we have some villains from the Maquis. In fact, I have all sorts of fellows. Are you interested?”

“Absolutely,” said Max.

His father drank a little more wine and stared through the trees. He seemed to see something that caused him to nod, but when Max glanced around, he saw nothing.

A couple of minutes later, a tall, handsome man suddenly came into the little clearing where they were, hesitated, and apologized for disturbing them. To Max’s surprise, his father turned to the stranger and remarked: “You are not disturbing us at all, my friend. This is my son, Max.”

The stranger, who was in his late twenties and had a decidedly aristocratic air, bowed and said that he was delighted to meet him.

“Max,” his father continued, “this is my good friend, who is known as Monsieur Bon Ami. Please remember his face so that you will know him when you meet again.”

The two younger men gazed at each other and smiled. Then Monsieur Bon Ami slipped away through the trees as quietly as he had come.

“Who the devil was that?” asked Max.



At first, when Charlie had thought about how to make himself useful to de Gaulle, there had been one great obstacle. Who to talk to, and how to find them? So many of his own contemporaries had been among the million prisoners of war taken into the German work camps. Others might have been amenable to doing something, but they had no idea how to make contact with the Free French across the water.

Of his father’s generation, even the most patriotic military men all seemed to be following Pétain.

It was Marie who made a clever suggestion. After a few telephone calls, she found an instructor in the Staff College who’d been close to the English officer she had met before the war. Her approach to him was subtle. Was there any way that he was ever in contact with the Englishman, she inquired?

“I doubt that such a thing is possible, madame,” he replied. But she noticed that he did not say that it was out of the question.

“I should be grateful if you would not mention this to anyone, because my husband and his son are ardently for Pétain, and would not wish me to have any contact with the Englishman at all, but before he left Paris, he left some prints with me and asked if I could dispose of them for him. I did so, and I have the proceeds. If you ever think of a way of my discreetly letting him have his money, I should be glad. That is all.”

“It will probably have to wait until the cessation of hostilities, madame,” he told her. “But I will make inquiries.”

A month passed. Charlie kept busy. For a start, he got a list of all the officers who used Louise’s brothel on a regular basis, found out their duties, everything he could about them. He also constructed a list of people who, if they could be persuaded to help the cause, might be useful. Given his social position, and his family’s reputation as German sympathizers, he was often a guest at the receptions that German generals were giving in the mansions they had requisitioned.

“It’s remarkable,” he said to Marie once, “apart from a German host and a sprinkling of German officers, I seem to see just the same people at all these parties as I did before the war.”

But it meant that he could gather information quite easily. The question was, would he be able to make use of all this activity?



It was dusk, one evening in November, when the butler announced to Marie that there was an elderly French art dealer at the door of the apartment, who had been told she might have some military prints for sale. She at once told him to usher the gentleman in.

The disguise was excellent. Shuffling in, with a low bow, came a man apparently in his seventies. Only when they were alone did he look up sharply, and she saw the face of the English officer.

“Your message was very clever, madame,” he remarked. “What can I do for you?”

“How did you get here?” she cried.

“I am a parachutiste, Madame la Vicomtesse,” he answered with a smile.

She explained quickly that it was Charlie who was anxious to make himself useful, and that it would be best if the two of them met alone. He immediately suggested a spot in the Parc Monceau the following day and departed.

When Charlie met him, and explained what he had to offer, the English officer was impressed, and told him that he’d soon be contacted. “You’re just the sort of man Colonel Rémy needs,” he said.

“Colonel Rémy?” The name meant nothing to Charlie.

“Code name. Safer,” said the Englishman, and left.

Within a week he’d received his first instructions from Colonel Rémy. A list of information needed, and the address of a safe drop where he could leave his reports.

Soon Charlie was making careful notes on all the barracks, the road and rail transport used by the Germans, the places where ammunition and explosives were kept, any information that might come in useful later for sabotage.

It was useful information. He could see that. But he wanted to do more. He was told to be patient. But Charlie wasn’t very good at being patient. “I want the chance of some action,” he confessed to his father. And it was after some weeks of this frustration that his father finally gave him the name of a man who might be able to help him.

“I have no idea if he is in any Resistance movement,” his father said, “but I have made some inquiries about him. He is a socialist, and I am sure he is not pro-German. He might be able to put you in touch with people. But tell him nothing about your business with Colonel Rémy. Keep the two activities totally separate, or you could compromise security.”



A few days later, the elder Le Sourd had been surprised when, soon after he had left his home in Belleville, an athletic young man, almost as tall as his son, fell into step beside him.

“Monsieur Le Sourd?”

“Perhaps.”

“I am Charlie de Cygne. My father sent me. May we speak alone?”

“Why?”

“My father told me I could trust you.”

“He did? Why?”

“I don’t know. He said you were comrades in the Great War.”

“He said that?” Le Sourd considered. “How do I know you are his son, and that he sent you?”

“He told me that, if he had been killed, he had asked you to send something to me.” Charlie pulled out the little lighter made from a cartridge shell and showed it to Le Sourd.

“What else did he say?”

“That we should not shoot each other until France is liberated.”

Le Sourd nodded slowly.

“There is a little bar along the street, young man,” he said. “We can talk there.”

When they had finished their talk, Le Sourd had told him that it would be best that he had an operational alias, and asked him what he would choose. After hesitating for a moment, Charlie smiled.

“Call me Monsieur Bon Ami,” he said. A good name, he thought. For that’s what he’d like to be: a Good Friend.

When Luc Gascon first met Schmid, he thought the young German wasn’t so bad—for a Gestapo man.

It had been an icy day in early December of 1941. News had just come from Russia that the Germans had suffered their first reverse. At first, they had swept through south Russia and taken the city of Kiev. But now, up in the north, they had met such furious resistance in the suburbs of Moscow that they had turned back.

In the Gascon bar that morning, the news had been greeted with pleasure. If the emperor Napoléon himself had been forced to retreat from Moscow, it would have been galling if Hitler had done better. And one of the regulars at the bar had just remarked, “Hitler’s buggered,” when a young man in a black Gestapo uniform entered the bar and ordered a drink.

Luc had happened to be in the bar just then, and he’d moved quickly as an awkward silence fell. Explaining that he was the owner of both the bar and the restaurant next door, he welcomed the Gestapo man with discreet politeness. Skillfully showing the young German respect, it hadn’t taken him long to engage him in conversation. He soon let it be clear both that he was solid for Pétain, and that he might be a useful mine of information about the city. He also learned that the German was named Schmid, that his family were farmers, that he had a married sister and that he worked in the Gestapo headquarters.

Karl Schmid was unremarkable to look at. Were it not for his black uniform, he would be the kind of figure who is immediately lost in any crowd. Medium height, mousy hair. Only his pale blue eyes were at all memorable.

After the German had left, one of the regulars remarked sourly to Luc that he’d been nice to the German. Luc only shrugged.

“Who needs to annoy the Gestapo? I want them to leave us alone.”

But in fact, he had already decided that this young Gestapo officer might be useful to him.



Luc always found ways to make a living. His first task was to ensure there were provisions for the restaurant. Using the black market he managed to keep the restaurant going, despite the wartime food shortages.

But his income was down. Though he could still obtain a little cocaine, many of his clients had left, and the high-ranking German officers who used the drug had their own suppliers. He never saw Louise now, but it enraged him that she must be making a fortune at L’Invitation au Voyage, and was paying him nothing. There wasn’t much he could do; but he still vowed that one day he’d make her wish she hadn’t treated him like that.

In the meantime, however, he knew how to live by his wits. And it was natural that he had been wondering for some time how he should profit from the German occupation. People like Marc Blanchard and Louise met Germans at the highest levels. He did not. But young Karl Schmid the Gestapo officer might be just the sort of contact he needed.

Two days later, he went to his office.



Karl Schmid sat behind his desk and considered the world. He was twenty-eight years old and remarkably fortunate.

For a start, he was in Paris—a city he’d always wanted to visit, and never dreamed he would live in.

Not only that, his office was spectacular. Not his own, personal office exactly, since that was quite a small room. But the building was spacious and situated on one of the noblest avenues in the world.

After the Great War, the wide, stately avenue that ran down from the Arc de Triomphe to the Bois de Boulogne had been renamed after one of the war’s great French generals: avenue Foch. And the Gestapo had chosen well when they took over three houses at the avenue’s lower end. “My office,” he had written to his parents with satisfaction, “is on the Avenue Foch, which is a very good address.”

He was not entirely surprised when Luc appeared to see him. When he had first encountered him, it had seemed to Schmid that, by his demeanor, the fellow might be a potential informer, and he had been thinking of going by the bar again someday.

He was pleased that Luc didn’t waste any time.

“I could not speak in public, Lieutenant Schmid,” Luc said politely, “but I know many corners of Paris. If I can ever be of service to you …”

“Do you expect to be paid?” Schmid asked.

“If my services are useful. One has to live.”

Schmid had no intention of paying without results. It was a good sign that the man wasn’t asking for that.

“I can pay a little.” Schmid looked at Luc thoughtfully. “If you hear of any illegal activity, any terrorist plans …”

“I avoid that world myself,” Luc said carefully. “But I sometimes hear things.” He paused. “Is there anything else you need?”

“The Wehrmacht has already confiscated some art, as you will be aware, I am sure. But there is so much art in Paris, often in criminal hands. Paintings especially. I take a personal interest in such matters.”

“I understand. The owners have to be arrested. But then the work may be confiscated.” Luc nodded. “A valuable business.”

“I have said you will be paid.”

Luc inclined his head politely.

“I shall make inquiries,” he said. “They may take time.”

“Come to see me at the start of every month,” Schmid ordered. “Meanwhile, I know where to find you.”

Time would tell whether this smooth Frenchman of the streets would produce anything of value.



As Luc went about his business in the months that followed, one thing seemed very clear: his self-interest lay with the Germans.

True, only days after he had first met Schmid, news came that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and America had entered the conflict. People were saying that the tide of war would change. It might be so. It might not. But any such change was far over the horizon.

By June 1942, the British were starting to bomb German cities. But that wasn’t stopping the Germans from launching a new offensive in Russia that was sweeping toward the mighty River Volga.

And in France, in Paris especially, the German grip was total.

All the same, Luc didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the Resistance. Successful or not, the Dalou boys and their friends could be dangerous. He’d be better keeping in with them. Besides, the more he knew about their activities, the more opportunities there might be, if he was careful, to sell information to Schmid.

More than once he’d said to Thomas, “I was wrong not to have come out with you when you did the job on the Eiffel Tower. Tell the Dalou boys I’d be glad to come another time.”

It was a dangerous line to walk. But he thought he could manage it.

He hadn’t yet been able to find an art collector for the German. He’d thought of Marc, naturally. But in the first place, Marc was a longtime customer—and Luc always looked after his customers. Besides, Marc was in high favor with the Germans, and he doubted very much that Marc was involved in any way with any Resistance groups.

But he’d been able to make himself useful to the Gestapo nonetheless. When Schmid had asked him to watch a French engineer who he thought might be running several wireless operators, he had done so, and the engineer had been arrested. Luc had been paid something after that. Once, when he overheard the Dalou boys planning a raid to steal explosives from a store down in Boulogne-Billancourt, he’d waited to make sure that Thomas was not involved, and then gave Schmid the tip-off. The next time he saw Schmid, the Gestapo man remarked: “We ignored that tip you gave us about the explosives.”

“And?”

“They stole them. Can you tell me who they were?”

Luc threw up his hands.

“Unfortunately no,” he lied. “It was two men I overheard, but I’d never seen them before. If I see them again, I’ll tell you.”

“Well,” Schmid said, “I shall listen to you next time. By the way,” he added, “there is something else I want. If you can find me some.”

“What is that?”

“Jews. But not just any Jews. I want French Jews. Find me a French Jew whom I can arrest, my friend, and I will pay you well.”



It was a hot day that July when Luc Gascon walked along the bank of the Seine past the Eiffel Tower.

He was going there because he made a point of seeing everything that was going on in the city. And this was certainly an unusual occurrence. He was going to take a look at what was going on at the large building that lay just a short distance downstream from the Eiffel Tower.

The old indoor bicycle stadium which had proved such a useful venue for the boxing matches during the ’24 Olympics was still in use. The Vélodrome d’hiver, the winter bicycle track, remained its official name. But everyone called it the Vel d’hiv. And for the last few days, the French police had found another use for the old place. It was a holding station for a large number of undesirables they had just rounded up. Several thousand of them. Jews: foreign Jews, mostly.

When Luc got there, he could see a number of police vans outside the stadium, but there didn’t seem to be any people going in or out. All the doors of the stadium were closed. In the strange silence, under the harsh sun, the scene reminded him of one of those surrealist paintings he had seen, as though he had walked in upon a dream. But as he got closer, something else struck him that wasn’t like a dream at all. It was the smell. Not just a smell, a stink, a terrible, sickening stench of latrines overflowing, of excrement warmed and putrefied. He pulled out a handkerchief and held it over his nose.

Luc didn’t especially like or dislike Jews. People who had strong beliefs said they were capitalist bloodsuckers, or Marxist revolutionaries. And they’d crucified Christ, of course. Personally, Luc never went to church and didn’t care whether they’d crucified Christ or not.

Most of the Jews he’d met weren’t so bad. He supposed they were mainly French Jews, and they might be rather different from all the foreign Jews who’d been flooding into Paris in the last few years.

And it was the foreign Jews that the police had been rounding up.

He stared at the building with its terrible stench. Whoever those poor devils were inside, he considered, this was a terrible way to treat them.

He’d been standing there for a little while when he noticed another figure, a small, neatly dressed man, also watching the Vel d’hiv from a street corner. The fellow looked vaguely familiar, and he searched his mind, trying to remember where he’d seen him. He saw the man turn and look at him, then walk toward him.



When Jacob had told his wife he was going to see what was going on at the Vel d’hiv, he had felt a secret sense of dread, but he had not told her that. Now, as the art dealer gazed at the big building, he understood exactly what he saw.

The logic was simple: If they would pen all these people up in conditions like this—if they would treat them worse than animals being prepared for slaughter—then there was nothing they would not do.

Perhaps, if he had not known the long history of his people, he might have remained like so many in the Jewish community who refused to believe that a French government could be so evil. Perhaps, if he had not spent all his life in the company of works of art, and known their stories and the characters, sometimes, of the very men who commissioned such beauty, he might have been less keenly aware of the terrible possibilities that lie within the human spirit.

But Jacob knew these things, and foresaw what was to come, and knew he must get out, if he could.

Ever since he had given some of his paintings to Louise, Jacob had been preparing for the worst. If he could have, he’d have gone to England. But escape across the Channel was almost impossible. A few months ago, however, a friend named Abraham had told him of a new opening.

“We’re going to organize a route across the Pyrenees into Spain,” Abraham had told him. “It’s not in place yet, and it’ll be risky, of course; but we’re getting our people together.” He’d promised to keep Jacob informed. Jacob had told his wife about the conversation, and between themselves they referred to this option as “visiting Cousin Hélène.”

Abraham lived in Montparnasse. If Abraham could just get them to a safe house of some kind out of Paris, Jacob thought, that at least would be a start. He still had money to invest in the enterprise.

And he was so shaken by what he had just seen at the Vel d’hiv, so afraid that any delay might put his little family in danger, that he resolved to go straight to Abraham and, if possible, to flee at once.

He just needed to get a message to his wife. A couple of hundred yards away he could see a telephone kiosk. He glanced toward the police vans. A couple of policemen were standing beside one of them, watching him idly. That was a nuisance. As a Jew, he wasn’t allowed to use the public telephones. It would be ridiculous to get arrested for some tiny infraction like that.

But there was another fellow standing not far from the telephone. Perhaps he could be of help. It was worth a try.



Luc gazed down at Jacob. He remembered him now. Their meeting had been very brief. He’d called to see Marc Blanchard at his apartment, a few years ago, just as Jacob was leaving. Marc had introduced him as his dealer. They’d spoken for only a few moments before Jacob had to go.

Evidently Jacob didn’t remember him, and he was just debating whether to introduce himself, or whether it might be a bore, when the dealer started speaking.

“A terrible business,” Jacob said, nodding toward the stadium. He looked distressed, and agitated.

“I believe they’re all foreign Jews,” said Luc.

“Ah. Yes. Perhaps,” Jacob replied absently. “I wonder if you could do me a small favor,” he said suddenly. “I should like to tell my wife that I shall be home late. But you know I can’t use the phone over there. If I gave you a number …”

“But of course,” Luc spread his hands. “No problem.”

“Well then, my wife’s name is Sarina. If you could just tell her that I am delayed until this evening, but that I have not forgotten we are going to see her cousin Hélène in the morning.” He smiled. “She thinks I forget everything.”

“All wives think their husbands are forgetful.”

“You are very kind. Here is the number.” Jacob wrote it on a scrap of paper. “And the price of the call.”

“No payment, monsieur. It’s a pleasure. I’ll do it right away. If you stand over by that street corner, the police won’t see you, but you’ll be able to see me make the call.” He smiled.

“You are very kind, monsieur.”

Luc made the call.

“Am I speaking to Sarina?”

“Yes.” The voice sounded cautious.

“Your husband was just here, by the Vel d’hiv. He can’t use the public telephone, you understand? He asked me to give you a message.”

“I see.” She still sounded a little doubtful.

“He is delayed. He won’t be back until this evening.”

“This evening?” She sounded very surprised.

“That’s what he said. And something else. He said to tell you that he hasn’t forgotten he is going with you to see your cousin Hélène in the morning.”

“Our cousin Hélène? He said Hélène?”

“Oui, madame.”

“Oh my God.” Her voice sounded terrified. “Oh my God.”

“Madame?”

“Nothing. Thank you.” She hung up.

Luc glanced toward Jacob and nodded. He saw the Jew give a grateful nod in return, and hurry away.

Now what, Luc wondered, was that all about?



Sometimes Schmid despaired of the Vichy French. Not that the government of France was being uncooperative. Far from it. Pétain was a splendid figurehead. The respect he’d earned in the Great War meant that the French were glad to follow the old warrior. And it was evident that, as a realist, Pétain had decided the only way to save his country was to become a German satellite. The French police were keen to do Germany’s will. Almost too keen, sometimes.

Yet they kept missing the point.

Karl Schmid leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and sighed. “It’s partly our own fault,” he murmured to himself. “We didn’t have a proper plan for the Jews.”

Nobody wanted them in Germany, of course. They were kicked out of there. But there was so much to accomplish that the problem of what to do with them had been rather shelved. And since they had been fleeing there from Eastern Europe anyway, France had, rather by default, become a dumping ground for the Jews of the Third Reich.

But now it was time to tidy things up. At the start of that year, Schmid knew, a final solution to the Jewish question had been secretly agreed, and this very summer the methodology was being perfected. Officially however, the Jews were to be sent as workers to the East, or kept in labor camps.

There was only one problem. The French did not understand the Jewish question. It had been glaringly apparent at the meeting the French police came to in the Gestapo offices here on the avenue Foch just a couple of weeks ago. Though he was only a junior fellow, they had allowed him to sit in on the meeting, and he had watched with fascination.

“We shall conduct the roundup, but we have two stipulations,” the senior Frenchman said.

The first was that they should wait until after the fourteenth of the month. To conduct the roundup on Bastille Day would seem unfortunate. This was easily agreed to. But the second stipulation was more tiresome.

They wanted to round up only foreign Jews. No French ones.

“It might provoke bad feeling in the city,” the French police chief said. “Stir up trouble. Just what we don’t need.”

“But why?” one of the SS men asked him. “This is not just a question of rounding up troublesome Gypsies who don’t belong here. That of course we understand. But the Third Reich does not make a distinction because a man is a German Jew as opposed to a Polish one. That is not the point. What matters is that he is a Jew.”

“We have no objection to the statutes that rightly make Jews into second-class citizens,” the Frenchman answered. “Eventually, I dare say they may all be removed. But we should at least start with the foreign ones.”

“We make no distinction.”

“In France”—the police chief spread his hands—“when a man is a Frenchman, even a Jew …” It was clear that somehow the French, even now, were so proud of their nationhood that they considered it could somehow mitigate the most fundamental facts about a man.

His boss had turned to Karl.

“What is our capacity at present, Schmid?”

“We could take in a little over thirteen thousand.”

“Good.” The German turned to the French police chief. “We want thirteen thousand, whoever they are. And no children. Remember, these people are all going east as laborers.”

“Understood.”

But of course, though the French policemen had started at dawn and moved with commendable efficiency, they’d brought in all the children as well. Some people said it was because they couldn’t bear to part the children from the parents. It might be so. Schmid suspected it was so they wouldn’t have to deal with all these inconvenient children themselves.

Thousands of them were in the Vel d’hiv at this moment. It must be like an oven in there, he thought. Soon they’d be transferred to other holding camps. And then in due course, sent east.

But admirable as this was, it still did nothing to address the question of the French Jews. Some had been arrested, of course. Blum, the former prime minister, was being kept in detention—but a comfortable one. Jew or not, it would be foolish to treat a former prime minister of France without some show of respect. His brother, however, was in a holding camp already.

Patience, thought Schmid, patience would eventually do the rest. When they’d worked through all the foreigners, the French police would be obliged to start rounding up the Jews they so foolishly considered as their own.

In the meantime, any French Jew who broke a regulation or stepped out of line could be taken instantly.

He was just considering this when an orderly told him that Luc Gascon had come to see him.



The Frenchman’s face was a mask, but Schmid sensed that he was quite excited.

“You have something for me?”

“I am not sure. I have a French Jew. He is an art dealer, so I assume he owns a quantity of paintings. Whether he has broken the law, or is planning to, I am not sure. But let me tell you what happened.”

Schmid listened carefully as Luc described what had taken place at the Vel d’Hiv. When Luc had finished, Schmid asked him what conclusion he drew.

“I think it’s possible that Jacob was so shocked by what he saw that he is going to try to escape from Paris, maybe from France. When I used the words ‘Cousin Hélène,’ his wife sounded so frightened that I think it may be a code word between them.”

“I agree.” Schmid nodded. “It is possible. If so, there may be an escape route we know nothing about; and this Jew could lead us to it.”

“Can you arrest him?”

“I can pull him in on suspicion. After that, we shall question him. See what he says.” He smiled. “Give me the telephone number and leave the rest to me. You have done well.”



The two plainclothesmen waited outside Jacob’s house the next morning. Schmid’s instructions to them were simple: they were to observe where the family went.

Early in the morning they saw Jacob leave the apartment block where he lived on the rue La Fayette. One of the men followed him to his small gallery, where he remained until the end of the morning. Meanwhile, his wife went out shopping, and returned home. Late in the afternoon, Jacob returned home. Nothing else happened. “Watch again tomorrow morning,” Schmid instructed. “If he goes to the office again, pick him up and bring him in.”

At noon the next day, they brought Jacob in. They didn’t take him to the avenue Foch, however, but to a house on the rue des Saussaies, just behind the Élysée Palace. It was well equipped for such encounters.

Schmid conducted the interrogation. As he looked at the small, neatly dressed art dealer, he felt no particular emotion. He asked his questions gently. He could always use other methods if he chose.

So he learned at once that Jacob had a wife and a single child, a little girl. That was easy. What was his business? Jacob explained that he was an art dealer. Schmid asked for the keys to the gallery. Reluctantly, Jacob gave them. Had he any other family?

Not much. He had a cousin named Hélène.

The first setback. Hélène was not an invention. She might still be a code word, of course. He asked for her address, so that he could check the story. How often did he see her? Quite often. He had planned to go around to her house with his family yesterday, but then changed his mind.

Where had he been two days ago? To the Vel d’hiv. Why? To see what was happening. Was he afraid? Yes. Where did he go afterward? Into Montparnasse. Why? He had a friend whom he hadn’t seen for a while named Abraham. He’d been concerned he might have been rounded up and taken to the Vel d’hiv. And had he?

“I don’t know,” Jacob said simply. “When I got to his place, they told me he’d moved a couple of months ago. That’s all I could discover. So I went home.”

Schmid guessed that some of this story was probably true. But was it the whole truth? He took Abraham’s address.

“We shall talk again,” he told Jacob, and sent him back to a holding cell.

By evening his stories had been checked out. Cousin Hélène turned out to be a plump middle-aged woman of no account. Abraham had moved, but not registered his new address. He might be of interest.

Meanwhile, Schmid had gone to the gallery himself. Its contents were quite intriguing.

If the Third Reich confiscated art collections—especially Jewish ones—Schmid had started acquiring art as well. He believed he was developing an eye. He found many things in Jacob’s gallery—some of it degenerate art, which would have to be burned, of course—but many good things as well. No doubt there would be more in Jacob’s house. It seemed likely that Jacob’s art inventory was of far more interest than was Jacob himself. He stayed there until dusk. Before he left, he took a small sketch by Degas, rolled it carefully and put it in his briefcase. It would never be missed.

On the way back, he called in again at the rue des Saussaies. He had them bring Jacob to an interrogation room and strap him in a chair.

He explained to Jacob that he believed there was an escape route out of France, and he wanted to know about it.

Jacob said that if there was one, he didn’t know it.

Then Schmid took a pair of pliers and pulled out one of Jacob’s fingernails, which made him scream, and Schmid said: “It is painful, you see.” He asked him: “Did your friend Abraham know an escape route? Isn’t that why you were looking for him?” Jacob said no. So then Schmid did what he had done before, and Jacob screamed again. And as he was sobbing, Jacob looked up wretchedly and said: “If I could have escaped, do you think I’d be here now?”

Then Schmid told them to take the art dealer back to his cell and to arrest Jacob’s wife for questioning the next morning.



Laïla Jacob was seven years old and a bright little girl. When her father didn’t come home from the gallery, her mother went to look for him and came back very frightened. At first she wouldn’t tell Laïla what had happened, but then she changed her mind.

A Gestapo man had been in the gallery when she got there, she told Laïla, so she had not gone in. But the people in the store next door said that her husband had been arrested.

“They are coming to take us away to prison,” her mother told her. “All of us. No Jewish house is safe.” Then she hugged Laïla very close, but she didn’t say what they could do about it.

The next day was fine, and Laïla wondered if maybe her father would reappear and everything would be normal again. But at nine in the morning, they heard heavy steps coming up the stairs to the landing where their apartment was, and her mother suddenly told her to hide and not to make a sound.

“Wait a little while. Then go to your cousin Hélène,” she said. “She’ll look after you until I get back.”

So Laïla ran and hid in a closet. She heard the door open and heard the men take her mother away with them. And then there was only silence.

For about an hour, Laïla waited in the apartment. When she opened the door and looked out, the landing was empty. She went down the stairs and out into the rue La Fayette.

She started walking up the street toward the Gare du Nord, because Cousin Hélène lived on a street behind the station. But before she reached the Gare du Nord, she passed a little square with a church, and a few benches; and she sat on one of these and considered what she was about to do.

Although she was only seven, Laïla always thought for herself. She had a logical and practical intelligence. And the more she thought about it, the more the little girl wondered if her mother’s instructions were right. If no Jewish house was safe, she reasoned, then Cousin Hélène’s house wasn’t safe either. The only place she might be safe was a house that was not Jewish. And she tried to think of someone she knew who wasn’t Jewish.

Then she remembered, a little while ago, her father pointing out a house to her and telling her: “There’s a very nice lady who lives in there. She’s keeping some things for me.”

“Why?” she had asked.

“Because I can trust her. She’ll keep them safe. Just remember that. You can always go there to get our things, one day.”

She hadn’t known why he said this, but she had remembered the house.

Now she wondered: Was the lady Jewish? Laïla had a feeling that she wasn’t.



When the little girl turned up on the doorstep of L’Invitation au Voyage just before noon, Louise was quite astonished. She was just going up to her own apartment nearby to have lunch with Esmé. The little girl said who she was, and did she know her father. Yes, Louise said, she did. Then the child wanted to know if she was Jewish. No, Louise said, she wasn’t.

Then Laïla told her what had happened.

Louise had to think quickly, then. Her first impulse had been to take the girl up to have lunch with little Esmé. But Esmé was with his nanny. The fewer people who knew about Laïla the better. So she took the little girl up to her office at the top of the house and closed the door.

She quickly telephoned the nanny to say she’d been delayed, gave Laïla something to eat and sat down to think. After ten minutes, she telephoned Charlie. Fortunately he was in Paris. She asked him to come around. Then she told Laïla to stay where she was and not make a sound, and that she’d be back in an hour. Locking the door behind her, she made her way downstairs and went to see Esmé.



“You can’t keep her here, the place is full of Germans,” said Charlie decisively. “If the parents show up, there’s no problem. But …”—he made a sad face—“they may not.”

“I can’t keep going around to the parents’ apartment or even the gallery. It’ll look suspicious,” Louise remarked.

“Don’t worry. I have men who can take care of that.” He smiled. Whomever he worked with in the Resistance, he never gave Louise any details. “If the parents appear, they’ll be told she’s safe, and I’ll get her back to them. If it’s what they want.”

“But where will she go in the meantime?” asked Louise.

“Oh”—Charlie grinned—“that’s the easy bit. Some country air will do her good. The last place anyone’s ever going to look for a little Jewish girl is my father’s château on the Loire.”

“But will he agree?”

“He’ll do it for me.” Charlie paused. “I’m busy tonight, though. I can have an alibi all ready by this time tomorrow, and I’ll drive her down in the car. But can you keep her until then?”

“I wonder where.”

Charlie considered, made a suggestion and departed.



That evening, Schmid decided to celebrate. The Jacob woman had been panic-stricken. Though she didn’t exactly contradict her husband, she became so confused when he cross-questioned her about her cousin Hélène that the truth was obvious. Luc Gascon was right. Jacob had clearly used her name as a code. He’d been terrified by what he saw at the Vel d’hiv, decided that all the Jews were in danger, gone to a fellow who might, or might not, be able to provide an escape route and been unable to find him. The Jacobs didn’t know where this Abraham fellow was. Schmid was sure of it. They were of no further interest, therefore.

But they could certainly be sent to Drancy. The big holding camp on the northern outskirts of Paris already contained all sorts of Jews, including some of the ones who’d been herded into the Vel d’hiv. From Drancy, in due course they could be sent on to meet their fate. He didn’t have to concern himself with that. There was a daughter too. He didn’t care about her either. But the Paris police had been informed that they should pick her up.

Meanwhile, his chief had been delighted by the art haul. A few more neat operations like this, Schmid thought, and he might be in for a promotion. He also had a Degas sketch now, of his own.

So he decided to pay a visit to L’Invitation au Voyage. He’d always heard so much about it.



Schmid was not entirely pleased by the little interview with Madame Louise in her upstairs office. To be asked such questions was intolerable.

“Do not interrogate me, madame,” he said sharply. He was the interrogator, he thought, not this brothel keeper in an occupied country.

But his anger did not seem to faze her in the least.

“Forgive me,” she replied calmly, “if I remind you that the Parisian establishments like this are the cleanest in the world, and many senior German officers regard my house as—how shall we say—a second home. Our clientele is very select. We take great care. People trust each other. If by any chance you had some little problem which were to be passed on, causing senior officers discomfort, or worse … Well, I’m sure you would not wish such a thing.” She paused. “Nor to be suspected by them as being the culprit.”

He saw the point of course, at once. He could just imagine a very angry general, and the speedy end of his career. But he hated being obliged to answer to this cursed woman.

“There are no problems,” he said furiously.

He was also staggered by the amount of money she calmly demanded. It was more than a week of his pay. No wonder it was only senior officers who came here. No doubt that was how this infernal woman had been able to acquire the artworks he had noticed on the walls.

Well, he thought, at least he was seeing how the game of life was played. He was more glad than ever that he had taken the Degas sketch from Jacob’s gallery. He should have taken more.

An hour later, having enjoyed some refreshments and champagne with a most delightful young woman, and having also caught sight of some very senior officers, he felt somewhat mollified. This was an exclusive club. There was a softness, a scented luxury about the place that he had never experienced before. Whatever the irritations of his introduction, these were the prizes for those who rose high. Schmid had always been ambitious for success, but this was the first time he had ever smelled the fruits. And he knew that he wanted them. He wanted them badly.

It was on the landing that the little incident occurred. His companion was conducting him to a room toward the back of the house. He had asked her about some of the various themed rooms, and passing a door he had asked her what was in there.

“That’s the Babylon Room,” she answered.

“I should like to see it,” he said.

“I’m afraid it’s closed.”

He would not have given the matter a second thought had he not seen Madame Louise coming up the stairs with an officer he recognized as Colonel Walter.

A chance, perhaps, to put the woman in her place. Bowing politely to the colonel, he addressed Madame Louise.

“I should be interested to see the Babylon Room, madame. I hear it is closed, but perhaps I might be allowed to view it.”

“Ah, that room is a work of art,” Colonel Walter remarked, with a smile.

But Schmid had noticed something else. Had he just seen a tiny flash of fear cross the woman’s face? It was gone in an instant, but he could have sworn he had detected it. Schmid already knew a lot about fear. Louise turned to Colonel Walter.

“I thank you for the compliment, mon colonel,” she said. “But I am preparing a new room in there.”

“Really?” Schmid cut in. “Will you tell me what? It would be interesting to see the work in preparation.”

Again, the woman turned to the colonel.

“You surely would not wish to ruin my surprise?”

Colonel Walter stepped forward gallantly, and took Schmid’s arm.

“My dear young man,” he said kindly, but with a trace of admonition, “one does not interrupt a great artist in the middle of their work.” He turned back to Madame Louise. “We shall look forward to seeing your next, astounding creation when it is ready.”

So Schmid allowed himself to be conducted along the passage, and soon had other things to think about.

And Louise wondered what on earth she was going to do with that room now.

And, unaware of what had passed outside the door, little Laïla Jacob slept in Babylon that night.

The following day, just after noon, Charlie de Cygne swept up to the guard post in his big car. The guards recognized him at once. Not many Frenchmen had such a car, or a pass to drive up and down from their family château, nor could they possibly get the fuel to put in the car to make the drive.

But this aristocrat, whose family were such firm supporters of the regime, had all these things.

As he pulled up, they noticed a small girl, swaddled in a blanket, huddled in the back of the car. She looked pale.

“Our housekeeper’s granddaughter,” Charlie announced calmly, and waved a letter from a fashionable French doctor in front of them. “Taking her down to the country.”

The young officer glanced at the letter, which Charlie had procured that morning.

“No doubt the country air will do her good,” he remarked politely.

Charlie looked him straight in the eye and made a face the little girl could not see.

“We hope so,” he said quietly.

The officer waved them through.



It wasn’t long before the reports came to Charlie. The police had been looking for Laïla. Schmid and his men had taken all the work from Jacob’s gallery. The Jacob apartment had been let to someone else. Clearly they weren’t coming back.

For a small payment to one of the guards, one of Charlie’s men was able to ascertain that the Jacob parents were being held at the big camp at Drancy. Since they were French, they hadn’t been shipped east yet, although trainloads of foreign Jews had already gone that way.

Meanwhile, though Roland de Cygne was a little astonished to find a little Jewish girl living at the château, he and Marie kept up the story that she was a granddaughter of the old housekeeper in Paris, and no one was any the wiser. To be on the safe side, she was called Lucie. As for the little girl herself, she understood very well what she must do.

“Have they killed my parents?” she asked Marie, who told her no, not yet.

“Shall we pray for them each night, just you and I?” Marie asked her, and Laïla nodded.

She read with her each day, and Roland would take her for walks and taught her to fish in the stream.

She was an enchanting child: small, very pretty. If she was a little reserved and watchful at first, that was only to be expected, but it was clear that once she learned to trust the inhabitants of the château, she was full of life.

Charlie found a little bicycle he’d had when he was her age, cleaned it up and asked if she knew how to ride it.

“Oh yes,” she told him. “Mama and Papa liked to ride together on a Sunday afternoon, all the way to the Bois de Boulogne. I haven’t been there yet, but they taught me to ride in the park near where we lived.” And she had taken great pleasure in riding on the paths around the château.

It had taken some time before Charlie had learned for certain, but as winter began, he confided to Marie that the Jacobs were no longer in the holding camp at Drancy. They’d been put on a train that would take them east, along with many others, including the brother of Léon Blum, the former prime minister. When did it happen and where were they sent? Marie had asked.

“September. To Auschwitz.”

The three de Cygnes had discussed for some time whether they should tell Laïla. In the end, no one wanted to.

“Let’s wait and see what happens,” said Marie.



The rescue of Laïla had one other, unforeseen effect. Charlie started worrying about his son.

Right at the start, when he had first suggested to Louise that she might pass on information about her German customers, he had realized that there was a risk. Like many operatives, she had taken a code name. “Let them call me Corinne,” she had said. But in the early months, the sort of material she had been able to give him, though useful, was not sensitive. He knew all the officers who came to her establishment, their duties, and sometimes more. It was all excellent background for the future, and he passed it on to Colonel Rémy’s network. Occasionally she had come up with something which could be used locally—for attacks on Germans, or the sabotage of a goods train here and there. This information he passed on to Max Le Sourd and his boys. He did not think any of this information could have been traced to her.

In hiding a Jewish child, however, Louise had crossed a line. Had she been discovered, she would have been arrested. And what would have happened to little Esmé then? Would he have been able to claim him? Perhaps. But doing so, at such a moment, would have invited suspicion. Sooner or later, Louise might place herself in danger again. Despite her earlier insistence on keeping Esmé all to herself, Charlie felt he had to challenge her.

“Don’t you think it’s time we told my father he has a grandson, and sent Esmé down to the château where he would be safe?” he suggested. But she still wouldn’t hear of it.

“I’m not giving away my child,” she told him. “Never.” And no arguments, however reasonable, would sway her.

Meanwhile, very gradually, news came through that brought hope. Soon after the rescue of little Laïla, a brave Canadian and British force attacked the coastal town of Dieppe in northern France. The attack was a disaster, yet Charlie took comfort from it for two reasons.

“In the first place,” he remarked to his father, “it proves that the Allies can strike back and rescue France. And secondly, the fact that the hidden German gun emplacements caught them unawares at Dieppe proves to Churchill and de Gaulle that the French Resistance, not just the Free French Forces outside the country, but the fellows here on the ground will be critical to their success.”

In the east, as the weeks went by, word came that the Germans were held at Stalingrad. Then in November, from North Africa, came the wonderful news that Montgomery had smashed the German Afrika Korps at El Alamein, and chased them all the way back to Tunisia. In the Pacific, the Americans had already decisively defeated the Japanese fleet at Midway back in June. By the end of 1942, therefore, on every major front, there seemed to be signs that the tide of war could be turning.

In Paris, Charlie had plenty to occupy his mind. The Resistance movement was growing. In the southern Vichy zone, people were referring to the Resistance as the Maquis—since that was the wild bush terrain in the mountains where the guerrilla groups were forming—and soon Resistance fighters all over France were being called maquisards. But what really mattered now, Charlie thought, was that they were being properly organized.

In the spring of 1943, soon after the joyful news that the Germans had finally surrendered at Stalingrad, another important development occurred.

“There’s been a big meeting in Paris,” Charlie told his father. “De Gaulle’s right-hand man, Jean Moulin, was there. People came from all over France. They’ve coordinated all the Resistance networks, and they’ve pledged allegiance to de Gaulle.” He smiled. “When, eventually, the Allies come to rescue France, we shall have an entire Resistance army ready to help them.” He grinned. “You will be glad to know that the network set up by Colonel Rémy took the name the Confrérie Notre-Dame. As good Catholics, we place ourselves under the protection of the Virgin.”

His father smiled.

“I shall pray to the Blessed Virgin to keep watch over you when you are out with our communist friends as well,” he remarked.

“Please do, Father.”



Charlie was always grateful that Max Le Sourd let him take part in his operations. He hated to be doing nothing, and the communist Resistance didn’t mind accepting help from any political quarter.

“I’ve made you an honorary communist,” Max had told him wryly.

Max’s men were a loose-knit group, drawn from several parts of the city. Charlie never knew exactly how many men there were. There were the Dalou boys from up on Montmartre. Sometimes old Thomas Gascon came out with them, especially if there was any work that required dismantling bridges or railway couplings. Once or twice he’d brought his brother, Luc.

Twice, agent Corinne had provided information that had led to action. She had heard of a troop train coming in from Reims, and Max and his group had taken part in a successful attack on it. Another such tip had led, through Colonel Rémy’s network, to a train being bombed by British planes.

Charlie had taken part in attacks on guard posts, and a successful raid on an explosives store. But by the summer of 1943, Max and his men had been ordered to hold back a bit.

“We don’t want to lose you just now,” Max was told. Radio operators were getting caught all the time because the Germans could track their signals. The large and vicious German reprisals on whole communities where outrages occurred might be having some effect. “What we need is for you to build up a larger force to prepare for the really big operations in the future,” they promised him.

For it wasn’t as if Paris was short of Resistance activity. The group that the Germans feared most was led by a poet.

“They say that poets and intellectuals are the best terrorists,” Roland had remarked to his son. “I don’t know why.”

And certainly there was no one better than the poet Manouchian.

He was Armenian. A few of his group were French, but most were Polish, Armenian, Hungarian, Italian or Spanish, and half of those Jewish. By the late spring of 1943, he and his group had swung into a frenzy of action. All through that summer and into the autumn, the Germans in Paris had been terrorized by Manouchian. Once, thanks to a tip from Louise, Roland had been able to get some information to Manouchian that allowed him to take out one of the most senior Wehrmacht officers in France.

It was fascinating to see the nervousness of German officers and men in the street, after that. Now they know what it feels like to be terrorized, Charlie thought. Anything that was bad for German morale.



Yet, for all these hopeful signs for the future, Charlie’s daily life was gradually getting more restricted.

Food had been rationed since early in the occupation, but wood for fuel was hard to find now, and legally one needed a permit to buy it. The cold winters were bleak for Parisians, therefore. And by the summer of 1943, it was almost impossible even for Charlie to get fuel for his car. He had to take a train to reach the château.

Down in the south in the Vichy zone, a force of French-grown Gestapo, the Milice, seemed to be everywhere, eager to arrest enemies of the regime. There had been betrayals within the Resistance, too. Once, when he and Max’s men were meeting a couple of new recruits, brave Spanish boys, they found the Germans waiting for them. They’d lost both recruits. They decided in the end that a careless word from one of the recruits might have tipped the Germans off. But one could never be quite sure. “It’s an uncomfortable feeling,” Charlie confessed to Max, who nodded.

“It’s the worst part of the job,” he said.



And then, in November, the terrible blow had fallen. Manouchian and his group were arrested. Was it treachery, Charlie wondered?

“No,” said Max. “Just good police legwork. The Germans know the French police will always be able to do better than they can. After all, they’re French, they know the people and the territory. Their special brigade’s been tailing a lot of people they suspected. In the end, if you do that long enough, you discover patterns. And they did.” He looked grim. “They’ll all be shot, of course, but not before they’ve been tortured for information. Let’s hope they don’t give away too much.”

It was this salutary reminder that caused Charlie to go to see Louise the following day and beg her to let little Esmé stay with his parents.

“We’re neither of us safe now, you and I,” he pointed out. “For the sake of the child, I beg you.”

But still she wouldn’t budge. Christmas passed. As the new year of 1944 began, he pressed her again. To no avail.



By the start of February 1944, Luc Gascon was getting worried, and with good reason.

When he’d started working with Schmid, the Allied threats to Germany’s grip on Europe had been so distant they could almost be discounted: trumpets unheard, over the horizon.

And so Luc had been able to live the way he’d always preferred, never pinned down, the fixer who was friends with everybody, the wheeler-dealer in the street who balanced risk, operating in the shadowy territory between German masters and French Resistance men, taking profit where he could. But even the cat who walks alone can find fear in the alley.

For gradually, month after month, the gathering Allies had been advancing until they had appeared on the horizon, as Hitler’s armies were slowly beaten back—worn down in Russia the year before, kicked out of Africa, and now the Italian army had surrendered, taking heavy losses in Italy as the Allies advanced, slowly but inexorably, northward toward Rome.

Increasingly Hitler looked like a man in a huge trap. He was still mightily dangerous. But as Luc Gascon calculated the odds, the landscape of his own, personal world looked very different.

What would happen, if and when the Germans lost?

In Paris, he suspected, the revenge on those who had cooperated with them would be unpleasant.

Did anyone guess about his cooperation with Schmid? Luc didn’t think so. But who knew what there might be in the German files? Or who might guess? Or who might talk? He needed to put more distance between himself and the Gestapo man.

At the same time, as things got worse for them, the Germans would be getting jumpy. Being an informer is not a healthy occupation. Schmid probably didn’t trust him either.

It was with these worries in his mind that, on a cold February day, Luc went to the avenue Foch for his usual meeting.

But he found the Gestapo man rather cheerful.

“Have you heard the news, my dear Gascon?” he asked. And seeing Luc uncertain: “Those Manouchian gangsters have just been sentenced, an hour ago.”

“Ah.”

“They will all be shot. At once. Except the woman. She will be handed over to you French. Women are not shot in the Reich.”

“What will happen to her, then?”

“She will be beheaded.” Schmid seemed to find that quite amusing. “Which would you prefer, to be shot or beheaded?”

“Shot, I think.”

“Perhaps you will get your wish.” Schmid laughed at this too, watching Luc as he laughed. “Are you loyal, Gascon, or are you a double agent?”

“My information has been correct. I gave you Jacob. And I gave you those two Spanish lads.”

Two unfortunate Spanish communists, coming to a meeting with the friends of Thomas and the Dalou boys. He’d picked his spot carefully where he knew at least one of the Dalou boys would be watching. The shots that rang out had cut down the two Spaniards at once. He’d asked Schmid to make sure that some shots came in his direction, so that it looked as if he were a target too. Two shots whizzed past him, one right between his feet, the other actually grazing his cap. He suspected that Schmid had ordered this for his private amusement. But it seemed to have kept the suspicion off him, as he’d run down an alley and shown his cap to his brother and his friends.

“True.” Schmid stared at him. “You have done well, Gascon. But not quite enough to convince me. So I am giving you another task to prove your loyalty.” He looked down at a piece of paper. “During a recent interrogation, a name came up. A person who is well connected and who passes information. The name appeared in the files once before, but that is all.” He looked pensive. “A woman’s name. Of course, it may be a man using a female name as his alias, but I suspect it’s a woman. Now if you can find out who this is, I would pay you well, Gascon. I might even trust you.”

“Just a name? Nothing else?”

“She has access to people in high places.”

“What name?”

“Corinne.”

The name meant nothing to Luc. Maybe he could find something out. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

But as he left, he reflected bleakly: he might want to put distance between himself and the Gestapo man, but it was not going to be so easy to do.



On a misty day in early April, no one would have thought anything of the two old men engaged in a game of boules in the little square on Montmartre. One was tall, one short, and neither of them could have been under seventy-five.

After finishing their game, they enjoyed a coffee together and a little cognac. Another man joined them. It seemed he was the tall man’s son, who perhaps had come to take his father home.

All three men made their way slowly across to Sacré Coeur basilica and stood in front of it gazing over the city. The mist was lifting. The gray bulk of Notre Dame, like a stern old ark moored in the Seine, loomed reassuringly in the distance. Across to the right, some miles away, the Eiffel Tower rose gracefully into the sky, as though she were the guardian of the city’s spirit. The three men stared at it.

“They still haven’t fixed the cables,” Thomas Gascon remarked with satisfaction. He nodded. “I’ll go up and attach the Tricolor to the top of it before long.”

Nobody contradicted him.

Max Le Sourd looked at the two old men affectionately. Despite their age, they were both useful. His father’s work on Le Populaire had helped drive the illegal paper’s circulation to amazing heights. As for Thomas, the indefatigable old man had insisted on coming on sabotage missions whenever it had been physically possible. It was he who had pointed out that instead of blowing up railway lines with explosives, it was far more effective to take the plates off and pry the rails apart where they were joined. He’d invented a simple way of doing it, and it had worked brilliantly.

But now, at last, the day of which they’d all been dreaming was coming. No one knew the day exactly—unless General Eisenhower did—and no one knew the place. But it was coming soon. A huge invasion of Allied troops from the island of Britain. Liberation.

All over France, the networks so long prepared were getting ready. A massive program of disruption would take place. German troops would find their trains unable to move, electric wires would be down, while a huge bombing of every kind of military target would come from the air. And in Paris, barricades, mayhem, guerrilla warfare.

And something else.

“The timing will be critical,” Max said quietly. “As the Germans are driven out, we shall need a fait accompli, but it can be done.”

“A commune. The workers will take over Paris.” His father smiled.

The National Council of the Resistance had already agreed, in mid-March, that the new French state would be a very different place from the France before the war. The workers and unions would be given power. Women should have equal rights, welfare be hugely increased.

The commune was only a step further, a way to make sure that, this time, the revolution was fixed immutably in place.

“I like it,” said old Thomas.

“But is the FTP solid for this?” Le Sourd inquired. The Franc-Tireurs et Partisans, the communist resistance, Max’s boys. In the last two years, it was they who had taken the lead in most of the guerrilla attacks on Germans. Their numbers were large.

“Moscow is against our plan,” Max said. “If Stalin wanted to please Hitler before, now he wants to please Churchill. Who knows? But I don’t give a damn. We’ll have a commune.”

He paused. There was just one other subject he had to bring up. It was awkward.

“The numbers in the Resistance are swelling dramatically,” he remarked.

“Naturally,” said his father. “People can see which way the wind’s blowing. The rats will start leaving the sinking German ship.”

“True,” Max continued. “And the Germans are making it worse for themselves. They’re so short of manpower that they’re trying to force the boys in the countryside into uniform to fight for them. Sooner than get caught in that trap, the country boys are running off into the woods to join the partisans.”

“That’s good,” said old Thomas.

“Yes,” Max agreed, “but there’s a danger. We never quite know what we’re getting. It’s easier for the Germans to plant spies and stooges in the Resistance now. We need to be very careful about who has information.” He had come to the point now. He glanced at his father.

The older Le Sourd took over. Taking Thomas gently by the arm, he said softly: “Are you sure about your brother, Luc?”

It was an instinct. Just a degree of uncertainty about his character. The Dalou boys didn’t trust him. There had been something not quite right, Max had always felt, about the way those two Spanish lads had been killed and Luc had escaped. Nothing one could pin down. But a concern …

“He’s all right,” said Thomas.

But he said it without the conviction for which Max was listening. Max knew he would trust old Thomas with his life. No question. But did Thomas feel the same way about his own brother? Max suspected he did not.

“Don’t tell him anything,” he said. It was an order.

Thomas nodded. He did not say a word.



The previous winter had been a strange time for Marie. Normally, she and Roland would have spent the darkest months in Paris, but this year they had preferred to remain in the quiet of the château.

It was very peaceful. Indeed, with the increasing difficulty of getting gasoline, it was like returning to an earlier time. They walked or rode, or used an old pony trap that had been kept in the stables. Roland would go out into the woods with his gun and return cheerfully with a brace of pheasant, or pigeons, or a rabbit or two. He also enjoyed the gentle exercise of splitting logs, and as winter set in, they would sit in front of the fire, well supplied with firewood from the estate, and taste the pâté that Marie and the cook had made together, with a fine Burgundy that Roland had retrieved from the cellars—“For we may as well drink them while we are here,” as he charmingly put it—and they would read to each other.

In the depth of winter, the old château looked like a medieval scene in the snow.

She missed her daughter. Claire had two children now, both girls, and Marie wished she could see them. While her husband continued his teaching, and she looked after her children, Claire had taken up studying again. In particular, she was studying the history of art, taking courses when she could. Her teachers were impressed with her essays. She might even try to write a monograph one day, she confessed. When the children were older.

Was she happy with her husband? Marie wasn’t quite sure. One of her letters, while it had still been possible to receive them, had been slightly ambiguous.

Being Mrs. Hadley isn’t so bad, I have to say. I wouldn’t want to be married to a man I shared everything with, I don’t think. I guess we complement each other. The girls are a delight. We share them at least.

But Marie had another little girl to look after now, in any case. Little Lucie, as they called Laïla. She seemed to regard the château as her home now. She especially liked the old hall where the unicorn tapestry hung. The tapestry itself seemed to fascinate her.

Marie and her husband were sitting by the big fire and gazing at the tapestry one evening shortly before Christmas, when Roland quietly asked Marie if she remembered the day when Colonel Walter had come. She said that of course she did.

“And I told him that my father had bought that tapestry to stop it being bought by a Jew.” Roland nodded thoughtfully. “It was quite untrue.” He was silent.

“It satisfied our visitor.”

“Yes. But you see, the point is that I had no difficulty saying it. None. It came quite naturally.” He paused. “And now, with this little girl here.” He shrugged. “I don’t feel the same way.”

“Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t put her parents on that train.”

“No. But I could have. Perhaps I would have.”

“What matters is what you did do. You saved Laïla.”

“I? I did nothing. I did it because Charlie asked.”

“Are you glad she’s here?”

He nodded, but did not speak.



As winter drew to an end, however, Marie could not help feeling a new emotion: impatience. She hadn’t enough to do.

She had the château to run, of course, but she had long ago discovered all its mysteries, and the place now ran itself beautifully. The little girl was learning everything the cook and the housekeeper could teach her, and Marie did lessons with her for a couple of hours most afternoons. She looked after her husband, she took exercise. And she liked to read.

Ever since her marriage to Roland, Marc would come down to join them at the château once or twice a year, always bringing something interesting to read. Soon after the arrival of Laïla, he had arrived with various books that had passed the censor, but also an illegal item—a slim volume titled Le Silence de la mer.

“It’s by a French patriot who has taken the name Vercors,” he explained. “It’s about an old man and his niece who make the German in their house understand the true nature of the occupation by maintaining total silence all the time. Hence the title, Silence of the Sea. It’s clandestine literature, of course. But it’s being read all over France.”

Of all the books she had, Marie found this novella the most moving, and she read it many times.

But there was the problem. Vercors, Charlie, all kinds of brave people were doing something for Free France. As the spring of 1944 began, with Charlie’s whereabouts frequently unknown, she could sense that the preparations were becoming large, and urgent. And what was she doing?

Her frustration came to a head in early April. She and Charlie were at the château, walking in the park.

“Why can’t you give me something to do?” she demanded crossly. “Because I’m a woman? If I could run a department store I’m quite sure I’m capable of helping. Are you going to tell me there are no women in the Resistance?”

“Surprisingly few, as it happens,” he replied. “Even the communists of France are quite conservative when it comes to women.” He looked at her and smiled. “Of course, they haven’t met you.”

“Well then.”

“You’re already helping by sheltering a Jewish girl. Remember that. And incurring serious risk by doing so.”

“I doubt anyone’s looking for her now,” Marie countered with a shrug.

“You have too much energy,” he said with a shake of the head. “Truly, the most important thing you can do at the moment is help me maintain my cover. It may not satisfy you, but it’s important. I’ll let you know if I think of anything else,” he added to pacify her.

But she saw what he was doing, which only made her crosser.



Luc had thought hard about the conundrum of who Corinne could be. His first thought had been that it might be Coco Chanel. She was friendly with the top circles of the German regime. She could be acting for the Resistance as well. That would be clever. Living in the Ritz, she could pass on messages to so many people, from a barman to a friend passing through. But there was no way that he could find out.

Several of the senior officers had mistresses. There was the great actress Arletty, for instance. But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed likely to Luc that Corinne was not a woman at all, but a man. And the first name he thought of was Marc Blanchard.

Marc didn’t seem to go out so much, but when he did, he mixed with the highest German circles. With his huge network of contacts, he could be collecting information from dozens of sources.

In the end, Luc made a short list of half a dozen names he thought possible, and gave them to Schmid, who looked them over and nodded briefly, but didn’t seem much impressed.

“I need information, not guesses,” he said curtly.

After that, Luc gave up on the idea of getting anything from Schmid and concentrated on a matter that was daily becoming more urgent.

How to save himself.

For there was no doubt about which way the wind was blowing now. On every front, the Germans seemed to be in retreat. People were saying that it was only a matter of time before the Allies invaded France. That would mean a huge battle. The Germans might even win it. But with the vast resources of America behind the Allies in Europe now, it could only be a question of time before France was liberated. And what then?

He had few doubts about that. One had only to listen to the muttered conversations at any bar. The open collaborators, in the Milice for instance, would be lucky not to be shot. Even lesser collaborators would be in danger.

Did anyone know about his visits to Schmid? What if someone had seen him? They could have. What if his name was on a list? He shuddered to think of it.

He needed to strengthen his links with the Resistance. Then, even if some person denounced him, he’d be able to claim that any contacts he had with the Germans were only to gather information. He needed to go out on some more missions with them, fast.

“You know, you should tell your friends to make more use of me,” he told his brother, Thomas. “With all the people I know, maybe I can find things out for them. And when are we going out on another operation? They know I’m not afraid. I already got shot at. They should ask me more.”

But Thomas only shook his head.

“They’ve got younger people than us,” he said.

Luc was sure his brother was still operating with the FTP boys. Clearly Thomas was keeping him at a distance from their operations. It hurt Luc that his brother didn’t trust him. But worse than that, it frightened him. If Thomas didn’t trust him, the others didn’t either. That suggested some ugly consequences.

Thomas will protect me, he told himself. Hadn’t his big brother always protected him? But if his name was on a list of German collaborators, even Thomas mightn’t be able to save him.

The month of May arrived. The rumors of an Allied invasion were growing stronger every day. Luc turned many things over in his mind. Should he bluff it out? Should he hide? Was there some way to escape for a while, and if so, who might know of it?

It was in the third week of the month that he went to see Louise.

She received him in her office at L’Invitation au Voyage. She was surprised to see him, but she asked him how he was, and what she could do for him.

“I was thinking about you.” He smiled. “Perhaps I was worrying about you a little.” He shrugged. “Whatever may have happened, we are still old friends.”

She made no comment.

“Louise,” he went on with a little show of urgency, “I make no comment about how you live. Who am I to do so? But I worry because if the Germans are kicked out, I think you could be in danger. Everyone says that half the German senior staff come here. They will call you a collaborator. Then things could get ugly.”

“They find women here. Nothing else.”

“I know that. But down in the street, I can tell you, people may not make such a distinction.” He smiled. “You are living in a rather protected world, my dear.”

And a rich one, he thought. God knows how much money she must have put by over the years. If anyone had an escape planned and paid for, it must surely be this woman. The question was, if he showed enough concern for her welfare, would she be prepared to save him too?

She nodded thoughtfully.

“I think you may be right. Have you an escape to offer me, Luc?”

“I hoped you might have gotten one already. I’m sure yours would be better, and safer than anything I can offer.”

“I have no escape route, Luc.”

A silence fell.

Was she playing with him? He had a faint but uncomfortable sense that she was. He stood up, and gazed around the room.

“I shall have to find one then,” he said absently.

“For me, Luc, or for yourself?”

He started, but quickly controlled himself. She was sharp. She knew him too well.

“I was thinking of you,” he answered quietly.

Why was she so calm, though? Did she not understand her danger? Or was there some other reason? Had she already gotten the protection that he had tried to get for himself? Did she have friends in the Resistance?

He gazed at the portrait that graced the main wall. It wasn’t Louise, of course, but it looked quite like her. Clever to have the two sketches for the painting as well. A nice touch. She was rich all right. He was struck by a pang of jealousy.

He stared at the sketches, noticed the name in the corner of one of them, looked more closely.

Corinne.

“Do you know something, Luc?” her voice came from behind him. “You have never in your life done anything that was not for yourself. Therefore, if you are here now speaking about an escape route, it is because you need one, and you are wondering if I can provide it.”

“Actually, you are wrong,” he said evenly. “There is no reason for me to escape.”

“Then that is fortunate. Because I am going to let you in on a little secret. I wish you no harm, Luc, none at all. But if I had an escape route, I wouldn’t tell you. Because I don’t trust you.”

He felt a spasm of rage pass through him. How dare she not believe him? Not only that, she was treating him with scorn—the same scorn she’d used when she had thrown him out before. And though he had kept his resentment most carefully in check when he had arrived at her door, the memory of that event, of his humiliation and impotence, now hit him again, suddenly, with the force of a wave.

She had gone too far. He’d made her what she was, yet she dared to treat him with contempt. Very well. She was going to find out how dangerous that was. This time he would punish her. He would teach her a final lesson, the last she would ever learn.

“If this is how you treat your friends,” he said, in a voice so quiet it was little more than a whisper, “I shall leave you, Louise.”



One hour later, Schmid was surprised to receive a visit from Luc. And still more so when, as soon as he was seated, the Frenchman calmly announced: “I have news that may interest you. I think I’ve found Corinne.”

It did not take the Frenchman long to tell his story. After he had finished, Schmid nodded slowly.

“It is possible you are right. I know this woman and her place.”

“She has some good pictures.”

“Yes.”

“You said you would pay well.”

“Oh yes, I will pay.”

“Can you go there and look for yourself? It would preserve my cover.”

“Come back in three days,” said Schmid.



Louise was irritated, two evenings later, that the Gestapo man Schmid had announced that he would pay one of his rare visits. The girls didn’t like him. But for all her connections with senior Germans, Louise knew it would be highly unwise to annoy a Gestapo officer.

She had one satisfactory memory of him, however. And that had been his second visit.

She had not forgotten his attempt to see the Babylon room when little Laïla was hiding there. And she had racked her brains for a satisfactory theme for the redecoration of the room that had been forced upon her.

Just as she’d expected, when he had come again, he had insisted on seeing the room, and she had watched his face as he had done so.

For she had turned it into her Nazi room.

She had been subtle. There was nothing for him to complain of. Nothing crude, no hints of viciousness. The carpet was black, the big bed spotless white, with a swastika in the middle of the cover and on the corners of the pillowcases. Everything was simple, geometric, the furniture in a simplified Bauhaus style. On the walls, a painting of Austrian woods and mountains, a portrait of the führer, two prints derived from Leni Riefenstahl’s film of the Nuremberg rally and one of a happy group of blond and athletic Aryan women at a holiday camp, showing a tantalizing amount of flesh.

Schmid had stared at it, half-admiring, half-disappointed not to have caught her out.

“Very good, madame,” he’d said.

But this evening, when he’d come, he’d been surprisingly charming. Quite meek, and friendly with the girls. She might have guessed something was up. Sure enough, before going up with the blond girl he’d selected, he asked very politely if he might have a word with her in her office.

He came straight to the point.

“Madame, your establishment has no equal in Paris. That is why so many senior officers come here. And although a promotion has come my way, I am sure you know that a junior officer like myself can scarcely afford to come here.” He made a sad gesture. “The trouble is, once he has been here, no man could wish to come anywhere else.”

She gracefully inclined her head at the compliment. What else could she do?

“How can I help you?” she asked.

“I am embarrassed to have to ask, but I confess, madame, that if you could offer me a discount, it would make my life easier.”

She tensed and eyed him coldly. He was going to try to rob her.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked.

“I could manage two thirds of the normal rate.” He paused. “I think you know that this is true.”

She’d been expecting something much steeper. He’d still find it expensive. She didn’t like it, but thought it wisest to yield.

“I should be glad to accommodate you,” she said. “But this is for yourself alone.”

“Of course. I thank you, madame.” He stood up, then looked around the room. “You have wonderful taste. The pictures here are very fine. Can this be one of yourself?”

“No, but people often say it’s like me.”

He nodded appreciatively, glanced at a small landscape on another wall intently, and then retired.

The visit could have been worse, she supposed.



Marie always liked to spend the month of May in Paris. She loved to see the tree blossoms on the boulevards and avenues.

She was almost at the end of her stay at the rue Bonaparte when, one morning, she was told that a lady and her son had called to see her. The name on the lady’s card was not familiar, but Marie had them shown in all the same.

The lady who entered was about forty, very elegantly dressed, and accompanied by a boy of five. Marie had an idea that she had met the woman before somewhere, but she had met so many people when she was running Joséphine that she couldn’t possibly remember them all.

But when she saw the little boy, she started.



Louise had hesitated for so long. Strangely enough, though she had little respect for him, it was Luc who had decided her to come.

If the Germans were driven from Paris, she had no fear of being tried as a collaborator. The Resistance leaders knew Corinne, and what she was doing for them. I’m more likely to get a medal, she thought.

But the final conflict might be quite a different matter. There might be a siege, and bombardment. There could be extensive fighting in the streets. Not a good place for little Esmé to be. And then, assuming that the Germans were driven out, a period of confusion. That, she now realized, was the greatest danger of all. Luc was right. Ordinary people, if they were in a lynching mood, would see the favorite brothel of the German High Command and its madame as a natural target. They might drag her out into the street, stone her … There was no knowing.

She knew very well that the time of invasion was approaching. She couldn’t put off the decision about Esmé forever. And perhaps the obvious panic that lay behind Luc’s visit affected her too.

She would have liked to talk to Charlie, but he had disappeared at the moment, and when he was away on a Resistance mission, there was no way of knowing when he would surface again.

So she had decided it was time to take Esmé to his grandparents. She knew already from Charlie that they would be in Paris for the month of May. Better do it straightaway, therefore, before they went back to the valley of the Loire.

And she’d thought carefully about exactly what she must say.

At her request now, Esmé was taken out of the room to spend a little time with the housekeeper, and she began.

“I see that you noticed something about my son, madame,” she began quietly. “He looks just like Charlie. That is because Charlie is his father.” She paused. “You did not know of his existence?”

“No.”

“That was at my request. I had my reasons, though I can assure you that I had no objections to Charlie’s father, nor to you, madame. Quite the contrary, in fact. But Charlie is very anxious that Esmé should be taken to a place of safety, and I can no longer deny that he is right. Charlie is engaged in dangerous activities himself, as we both know. And I too run certain risks.”

“Ah.” Marie looked at her. A woman in the Resistance. She had no doubt that Louise was telling her the truth.

“I have brought you documents.” Louise handed across the registration of Esmé’s birth. “As you will see, Charlie is named as the father. As soon as he reappears, he will be able to confirm all this.”

“Why did you avoid us? Because the child is illegitimate?”

“You would have insisted that Charlie take my son away from me. And he is all I have.”

“Why would we have done that?”

“Because I run the best brothel in Paris.”

Marie nodded. “You are right.”

Louise paused for a few moments.

“There is something else, madame. A secret that even Charlie does not know.” Louise paused for a few moments. “If anything were to happen to me, I should like to be sure that Esmé has all the love and care that is possible. I have no doubt of your kindness, madame, but there is a particular circumstance that may cause you to take an interest in my son.” She handed Marie a sealed envelope. “These papers concern my mother. Her name was Corinne Petit. My father, I finally discovered, was Marc. Your brother, madame. He knows nothing about me, and it’s better that way. But I wish you to know that Esmé is your nephew.”

Marie stared at her.

“Why did you not tell Marc?”

“I was too embarrassed.” She shrugged. “I met him once. In professional circumstances.”

“He came to your establishment?”

“No. I went to his house.”

Marie frowned, then understood.

“Oh my God.”

“It could have been worse. For that’s where I discovered. I saw the photographs of your wedding, and I recognized your husband. He was my English parents’ lawyer. He’d arranged my adoption.”

She and Marie gazed at each other.

“Do you mean that you and Marc …”

“No,” said Louise. “Thank God. I was able to leave, before …”

“And after that, you felt you couldn’t tell him.”

“I was always proud of my independence, madame, if not of the way I achieved it.” She smiled. “By the way, I admired the way you ran Joséphine. I tried to model my establishment on it, in a slightly different way, of course.”

“My husband is out, but he will be back in an hour or two. I wonder what he will say.”

“Esmé is his grandson. I think he will take care of him. It should be quite possible for you to check the truth of everything I have told you.”

“I do not disbelieve you.”

“If it were not true, madame, I would hardly be giving you the only treasure I possess.”



As Schmid considered his situation, he felt quite hopeful. On the one hand, of course, things had been going badly for the Wehrmacht. Allied bombing was increasing, so were the Resistance activities. Attacks on guard posts, factories sabotaged, trains derailed. The French, clearly, believed that an invasion was coming soon, and that France would rise up as General Patton led a huge assault across the channel.

But where? Some said the Allies might land in Normandy, or farther west. But Schmid didn’t believe that, nor did intelligence support that idea. The Allies would strike across the narrowest point of the Channel, between Dover and Calais. Why would they do anything else?

And when they did? That would be the test. No one should underestimate the genius of the führer, or of the Wehrmacht. For wherever they struck, the Allies would find the Germans ready for them. The assault would fail. The Allies would be massacred. Eisenhower would lose his command. Quite possibly the Americans would lose heart and give up, and then where would the Allies be?

Europe would belong to Germany.

That, Schmid told himself, as he waited for Luc Gascon to arrive, was how it would be.

It was destiny. It could not be otherwise.



Luc had passed three bad days. Now and then, he had felt remorse for what he had done. But his remorse was not great. Whatever relationship they had once had, Louise had scorned him. Indeed, when she’d said that even if she had an escape route, she wouldn’t tell him, it was quite clear that she’d happily leave him to his death. No, he thought, he owed her nothing at all. Nothing. He was just repaying her in kind.

What worried him was something far worse. He had just put himself in greater danger.

What if she told one of her Resistance friends about his visit and their quarrel? And that she already suspected he was a collaborator? When something happened to her, who was going to be at the top of their list of suspects? The fact that Schmid had also been there might provide a partial cover, but it wasn’t enough. He should have thought the whole thing through more carefully before he went to see the Gestapo man.

He’d let his feelings get in the way of his judgment—not something he would ever do normally. But he had this time, and he cursed his folly.

Even more than before, it seemed to Luc, he needed a place of safety. A place, at least, where he could hide for a while without being found. A place nobody knew.

He could think of only one. True, his brother, Thomas, knew of it. But nobody else. And Thomas, thank God, was the one person in the world whom he could trust.

There’d be work to do, of course. He’d have to stock it with food and water. Not an easy thing to do with rationing. But he could take canned food, smoked ham, other things that would keep, a little at a time from the restaurant. He told Édith he needed them for a customer, and she only shrugged. After all, it was his restaurant. He’d begun the process the evening after he’d seen Schmid.

And now, here he was again, back in Schmid’s office, and Schmid was smiling.

“I looked at the sketch,” the German said pleasantly, “and I agree with you. I have just given the order that she is to be watched day and night, and followed wherever she goes. With luck, she may lead us to something.” He passed a small wad of francs across the desk to Luc. “You have earned this. If our suspicion is correct, there will be more.”

“And if she doesn’t lead you to anyone?”

Schmid smiled.

“We shall set a trap.”



How peaceful it was at the château. If massive preparations were in motion, across the English Channel, for the greatest amphibious invasion in history, down in the Loire valley there was not a hint of it. Unless, perhaps, one counted the occasional Allied bomber, driven off course after bombing the railway yards around Paris, that droned across the sky.

But Marie had plenty to occupy her mind. She had little Esmé to think about.

There was no doubt about who he was. Within two hours after Louise left, Marc had arrived at the rue Bonaparte. Five minutes of explanation and he confirmed the truth of everything.

“Take a quick look at your grandson,” she commanded. “Don’t try to see Louise. She doesn’t want it, and you must respect that. Then go.”

Roland, however, was quite another matter.

She’d never seen him so excited.

“I have a grandson? Let me look at him. Mon Dieu, but he’s like Charlie.”

“He’s illegitimate, of course,” she gently reminded him. She didn’t want him to get too happy, and then suffer a reaction, and take against the child. But she needn’t have worried.

“Oh, that’s nothing.” He shrugged. “Some of the greatest generals and statesmen, the noblest families in France, descend from the illegitimate children of kings.”

“True.” Marie thought she’d better get everything out of the way, at once. “But I must tell you that his mother—though she looks and behaves like one of us—is nonetheless the madam of a brothel, and was once a courtesan herself.”

This didn’t interest Roland either.

“Ma chérie, many of the royal mistresses were little better. It’s the same in other countries too. At least one of the English dukes is descended from a prostitute.” He thought for a moment. “You say she’s charming?”

“Yes.”

“Voilà. That’s all that matters.” He glanced at her. “For a mistress, of course. Not for a wife.”

“So you’ll be kind to him?”

“Of course I’ll be kind to him. He’s my grandson. The only one I have—unless Charlie has others we don’t know about.”

“That also would please you.”

“One welcomes proof of the family’s vigor.”

And he could hardly be separated from the little boy, took him on his knee, even carried him on his shoulders when they went outside.

The only person needed to complete the family circle was Charlie himself. But of Charlie, so far, there was no sign.

He’d been away so long, Marie wondered if the invasion might be imminent. The first days of June passed. The weather turned poor. Farther north, up by the coast, the seas were stormy. Whenever the Allies were coming, she thought, it clearly wouldn’t be just now.



It was mid-morning on the eighth of June when Charlie took the train from the station at Montparnasse. He hadn’t wanted to go. He’d been having such an interesting time with Max Le Sourd and his boys to the east of Paris that he hadn’t even been back to the apartment for more than two weeks. But this was an emergency.

The last three days had been dramatic. Seizing a small break in the bad weather, the Allies’ massive D-day invasion of Normandy had caught the Germans completely by surprise.

But not unprepared. Despite the heavy bombings, the huge bombardment from the sea and the vast sabotage efforts of the coordinated Resistance networks, the beaches had been stoutly defended. The Allies were establishing their beachhead, but the fighting was intense. The Allied advance would be neither easy nor swift. Even assuming all went well, it might be weeks before they could reach Paris.

And the fever of Resistance activity—derailing trains carrying troops to the new front, blowing up arms depots, cutting off German fuel and power—also included one lesser but important task.

Saving Allied airmen.

The message had gotten to Charlie early that morning, brought by one of his friends in the Confrérie Notre-Dame.

“There’s a Canadian airman. One of a bomber crew. They came down in the Loire valley. The rest of them didn’t make it, but he got lucky. Our boys down there have got him, but they need help.”

“Can’t they send him south?” asked Charlie.

That was the usual procedure. The Resistance had set up quite a good escape route. Passed from group to group, airmen were being smuggled across the Pyrenees into Spain.

“We’ve just had word of several airmen being betrayed. Some of the southern groups must have been infiltrated.”

This was the trouble with the rapid enlargement of the networks, Charlie thought. Inevitable perhaps, but it still sickened him.

“What do you want me to do?”

“We may have an alternative. Couriers we think we can trust. But we need a week. And a new safe house.”

“Where is he?”

“About three hours’ walk from your family’s château.”



When Roland de Cygne heard a light tap at his bedroom door in the middle of the night and found Charlie there, he was overjoyed to see him. It took only a brief whispered conversation to discover what was up.

“We came by bicycle,” Charlie told him. “It’s lucky I know all the roads so well. We came here without using any lights.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the old stable. Where I keep the car. If he’s discovered, you and Marie can always say you didn’t know he was there.”

By now, Marie had joined them. Charlie turned to her.

“You said you wanted to help,” he told her wryly. “Now you have your wish.”

There was one other thing he had to caution them both about. Security.

“It’s best if you don’t see him. But if you do, remember that he was brought here at night. He has no idea where he is. Above all, he knows me only by my code name: Monsieur Bon Ami.”

“It sounds very cloak and dagger,” Marie remarked.

“Yes,” Charlie replied, “but if the airman gets caught, the less he knows about us the better.”



The Canadian’s name was Richard Bennett. The arrangements for hiding him worked out well. Nobody went to the old garage where Charlie’s beloved Voisin was kept under lock and key, except for Charlie himself; and so there was no need for anyone but the three de Cygnes even to know the airman was there.

“I’ve always wanted to sleep in a Voisin,” Richard told his host cheerfully. He swore he was perfectly comfortable, and though Charlie had produced two traveling rugs for blankets, he said he hardly needed them during those June nights.

He was certainly well fed. Charlie put far more food on his plate than he really meant to eat, and slipped it into a container when no one was looking. Marie gave Charlie small items from the larder and Roland added an extra bottle from the wine cellar. With these items secreted in a bag, Charlie would go down to the old stable, ostensibly to tinker with his car. No one suspected a thing.

As for keeping himself clean, the Canadian used the hose already in the stable for washing the car. The water was cold, but it was summer. Charlie brought him some of his old clothes to wear. They were a little big on him, but they served well enough. As for his other requirements, Charlie dealt with the chamber pot after dark.

They also made a hiding place. Against one wall in the stable, there was a long, deep stone trough which was used for storage now. With some planks, they made a shelf that fitted over the bottom of the trough, leaving enough space for the Canadian to slide underneath it. Above the shelf, Charlie piled drums of oil, tubing, wrenches and all sorts of mechanical odds and ends. Once Richard was inside, he could pull down a pile of oily rags over the end of the shelf and it was quite impossible to guess that a person was hidden in there.

Charlie would give him the newspaper to read. Sometimes they’d pass the time playing chess together. Charlie was pretty certain that every other game, the Canadian was letting him win.



Roland’s feelings were mixed. They must hide the airman, of course. But all the same, he wished the fellow were not there—not so much for his own safety, or even that of Marie, but for that of little Esmé. If the police came looking for the airman and found him, Charlie’s story that no one knew he was there might work, but Roland doubted it. More likely, the whole family would be arrested. And what would happen to his grandson then?

With luck, he hoped, the family’s conservative reputation would protect them from suspicion. The second day after Charlie’s arrival, he decided to walk down to the village. Seeing a police van in the little square, he went over to chat with the officers.

They were friendly enough, and soon told him that an enemy plane had come down a few days ago.

“Ah?” Roland feigned surprise. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Non, Monsieur de Cygne. It was about twenty kilometers away.”

“That would explain it. Any survivors?”

“There might be one or two. But we don’t think so.”

“So long as they don’t poach my rabbits.”

The policemen laughed.

“Don’t worry, Monsieur de Cygne. If the Maquis find any airmen, they won’t bring them this way. They take them south, to Spain.”

“So I’ve heard.” Roland shrugged. “It’s a long way.” And after chatting a few more minutes, he moved on.

So far, so good.

Now he could give his full attention to Charlie and his grandson.



Charlie had been so delighted and relieved when he had discovered that Louise had brought Esmé to them. “I had no idea,” he explained. “I hadn’t spoken to Louise, because I’ve hardly been in Paris for three weeks.” He’d smiled at Roland. “I have wanted Esmé to know his grandfather for a long time.”

They were wonderful days. Strange, but wonderful. Two hundred miles away, day after day, wave after wave of Allied troops were being landed on the secured beaches of Normandy, where huge artificial harbors were being floated in. “They’ll probably bring a million men over before the big breakout,” Charlie told his father.

The Germans were fighting back furiously. Crack panzer divisions were determined to hold the old Norman town of Caen. Still unwilling to believe that the main invasion would not be up at the Strait of Dover, Hitler was only reluctantly being persuaded to send forces from there to Normandy. “It’s going to be an enormous fight,” Roland judged.

Yet here at the château, everything was so quiet that one could almost forget there was a war taking place at all. It couldn’t last, of course. Once the Canadian was safely on his way, Charlie would want to go back to Paris, where there was so much work to be done. Whatever form the battle for Paris took—assuming the Allies succeeded and Paris was in contention—Charlie de Cygne certainly wasn’t going to miss it.

“So I suppose,” Roland remarked to Marie, “I should be grateful to the Canadian for keeping Charlie here.”

What a joy it was to walk in the sun with Charlie and the little boy. Roland realized with a pang that three generations of de Cygnes had never been together since sometime before the French Revolution. Dieudonné, born back in those terrible days, had never even seen his father, and had died before Roland was born. His own father had not lived to see Charlie. But now at last, after almost two centuries, a grandfather, son and grandson could all be together. Perhaps it might have been better if the little fellow had been legitimate, he admitted to himself, but one must thank the good Lord for what He gave.

Marie took a photograph of each man standing with Esmé, and then one of the three of them standing in front of the château together. Being of the old school, Roland was reluctant to smile into the camera, but Charlie cracked a joke and Marie caught all three of them smiling in a way that was charming.

Only one thing, like a small dark cloud in an azure sky, briefly caused irritation to Roland de Cygne. They were discussing the Canadian.

“He speaks perfect French, you know,” Charlie told them. “Occasionally he’ll use an expression I’m not familiar with, but the interesting thing is his accent. It’s more nasal than mine.”

“What you are hearing,” Roland told him, “is an accent trapped in time. They say that in Quebec one hears French as it was spoken back in the time of Louis XIV. Curious, but interesting.”

“He told me that’s where his mother’s family come from. Their name is Dessigne.” He smiled. “Do you suppose it could be a corruption of de Cygne? I mustn’t tell him my name, of course. He knows me only as Monsieur Bon Ami. But perhaps we’re related. He says his mother’s family is quite numerous.”

Roland was silent. That letter of long ago, and Marie’s later discovery. Once again he felt a sense of guilt. He’d behaved badly. But there was nothing to be done about it now.

“It’s possible, I suppose,” he said. “Though any link would be centuries old.”

“Well,” Charlie said cheerfully, “he’s a good fellow in any case, and a brave man.”

And that, Roland comforted himself, was the most important thing, in a world whose secrets no living creature knows.

So he thanked fate for sending this kinsman, if kinsman he was, to grant him these precious days with his son, and which were over all too soon.

Each evening a little after dusk, Charlie walked out on a farm track that led through a wood on the edge of the estate. He had been there a week when, from behind one of the trees, a voice gently called to him: “Monsieur Bon Ami.”

“Who are you?”

“Gauloise.”

“Where are you going tonight?”

“Toronto.” The password.

“Is it safe now?”

“God knows. The police have picked up dozens of men, all over the place. English, Canadian, airmen from New Zealand. It’s a huge mess. But we have a new route now. Men we can trust.”

“I hope he makes it. He’s a good fellow.”

“They’re all good fellows.”

“Wait here. I’ll get him.”

It was a quarter of an hour before Charlie came back with Richard Bennett.

“Good luck, mon vieux,” he said, as he embraced the Canadian. “Monsieur Gauloise will get you to Spain.” He fumbled in his pocket. “Take this.” He handed him the little lighter his father had given him. “It brings luck. You can return it to me after the war’s over.”

“I can never thank you enough.”

“Go safely.”

Moments later, like shadows, the Canadian and his guide had disappeared into the night.

The next morning, after saying good-bye to his family, Charlie returned to Paris.



It was a pity, Louise thought, that both Colonel Walter and Schmid should be coming. It was the second week of June.

The girls liked Colonel Walter. He was uncomplicated. His needs were those of any normal man, and his manners were excellent. She was a little surprised he didn’t keep a mistress. Did he feel it was too time-consuming? Or perhaps he preferred the amusement and variety the establishment could offer. In any case, he was always welcome.

When Schmid turned up, however, even when he was trying to be agreeable, there was tension in the air. She was pretty sure that Colonel Walter didn’t like him, either.

But nothing could have prepared her for the scene that took place that evening.

They both of them came rather early, as it happened. She greeted them herself, and joined them in the salon. Two of the girls came in and one, called Catherine, started talking to Schmid. But it seemed that she displeased him in some way, and he told her rudely to go away and send him someone better-looking. The girls were used to handling all kinds of behavior, but it was obvious that Catherine was offended; and Louise was about to ask Schmid to be a little nicer when Colonel Walter intervened.

“My dear Schmid”—his voice was silky soft, but the rebuke in it was clear—“I know you have many things on your mind, but you will find it easier to relax if you make an effort to be pleasant.”

“I always have things on my mind, Colonel Walter.”

It was apparently intended to close the conversation, but Walter went on, quite unperturbed.

“My dear Schmid, the word is that you have the honor of conducting a certain visitor to the theater tomorrow night.” He shrugged. “Though what our friend Müller will make of Antigone, I cannot imagine. But if I were you, I would go home now and get a good night’s sleep, rather than exhausting yourself here tonight.”

Müller? Louise’s face did not move a muscle. It was a common German name. There were several senior figures in the Reich who bore the name. But the effect on Schmid was remarkable.

“May I ask where you heard this, Colonel?” His voice was icy.

“At least two people said it to me when I was in headquarters today.” For the first time, she caught a hint of nervousness in the colonel’s voice.

“I believe you, Colonel, because we are aware that someone has started this rumor. But I can tell you that it is entirely untrue.”

“I understand.”

“I hope you do, Colonel Walter. Because rumors can be dangerous.” Schmid’s voice rose. “Dangerous also for those who spread them.”

“You are the only person to whom I have said it, I assure you.”

“I hope so for your sake.”

And then the mask dropped. The look that Schmid gave Walter was venomous. Gone was the deference to his rank. The Gestapo man looked like a snake about to strike. And Walter shrank with fear.

Schmid stood up.

“I think Colonel Walter is right. I am not good company tonight. I shall return another evening.” He made for the door. A moment later Colonel Walter hurried after him. Standing discreetly in the hall, as the two men went out the door, Louise heard Schmid hiss to the colonel: “Are you mad?”

The door closed behind them. There was a long pause. So she did not hear Schmid turn to the colonel when they were twenty yards down the street and remark in a very different tone: “Thank you. That was perfect. Only one sad duty remains for you, if you would be kind enough.”

When Colonel Walter returned to the house, he looked a little shaken, and asked for a whisky, rather than the usual champagne. A little while later he went upstairs with Chantal, one of the girls he liked best. But it was only half an hour before he came down again and quietly left.

Chantal came down soon after.

“Something’s bothering him,” she said. “He couldn’t keep it up tonight, no matter what I did.”



It was ten o’clock the following morning when Charlie reached Max Le Sourd.

“We have a message from Corinne. It came by the usual route this morning.”

The note would be neatly stuck between two banknotes which Catherine, the girl Louise trusted most, would take to her home early in the morning. A little later, going out to her local market, she would use the notes to pay a flower-seller. Within an hour, placed in an envelope, the notes would be dropped through the letter box of a safe house.

“This could be Heinrich Müller himself,” Max said, after reading the message. Heinrich “Gestapo” Müller, the second most important man in the entire Gestapo. “It’s the first we’ve ever heard of him coming to France,” he continued, “but with the Normandy landings, it would be natural for him to pay a visit to Paris. The Germans will be dreading an uprising here.”

“If he were to come,” Charlie took up the theme, “security would be high. I imagine it would be a secret. But someone like Colonel Walter might hear of it.”

“If it is Gestapo Müller, I’d hate to let him slip through our fingers.” Max considered. “It might be a trap.”

“Only if Corinne is compromised in some way. We’ve no reason to think she is.”

“What about the play? What do you make of that?”

“The theater’s always suspect. Anouilh’s Antigone got through the censors and the Germans have been watching it happily enough, but some people think it’s covert anti-German propaganda. He might want to see it for that reason.”

“We haven’t much time to get organized,” said Max. “And it’s risky. But I think we have to try.”

“Try what?”

“To kill him, of course.”



Luc told himself that he was worrying unduly. But he couldn’t help it. His last visit to Schmid had been very unsatisfactory. When he’d asked whether there was any news about Corinne, the Gestapo man had remarked that she had not led them to anyone yet. Then he had smiled.

“But I am still confident.”

“You had said you would trap her.”

“Perhaps.”

“May I ask how?”

“No. But I will tell you if the outcome is satisfactory.”

It would be a trap then. But what sort of trap? A likely method would be to feed her false information. Information she would pass on to the Resistance and incriminate herself. But what sort of information? Impossible to know. But a false lead of some kind. Something that would lead Resistance men into a trap.

It needn’t concern him. Except for one circumstance. What if his brother were caught in the trap?

He knew Thomas was still going out on operations. He was indefatigable. Indeed, it seemed to have given him a new lease on life. Thomas mightn’t be as fast as the younger men, but he still had a good eye, and he was reliable.

And every time he did so, of course, Thomas put himself at risk. Common sense told Luc he shouldn’t worry about it. That was Thomas’s choice, and his own business.

Yet the thought that his informing on Louise could cause his brother’s death, or worse, his arrest and torture, preyed upon his mind. Was there some way he could persuade him not to go out anymore? Could he warn him off?

He started to spend more time at the restaurant. As the days went by, Thomas seemed quite content minding the bar. The two of them would chat for an hour or two. There was no hint of any other activity.

He was in the restaurant soon after noon one day when he noticed two of the young Dalou men approach the bar and start talking to Thomas. He might not have paid much attention if he hadn’t caught sight of Édith. As she stared across at her husband and the two Dalous, her face froze. Lines of anxiety suddenly appeared. Luc went over to her.

“Are you all right? Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Yes. No. It’s nothing.”

After a few minutes, the two Dalou men left and he saw Édith go over to Thomas immediately afterward. She was saying something urgent to him. He was listening, but it was clear that she wasn’t getting anywhere. Luc saw Édith take Thomas by the arm, and saw Thomas shake his head.

When Édith came back, he could see she was close to tears.

Luc wondered what to do. He’d like to have intervened, told Thomas some story that he’d heard from one of his contacts that the Germans were going to set up traps to catch Resistance groups. But he couldn’t do that. It would have invited further questions, awkward ones. They might ask him, “How do you know?” Besides, if this was Schmid’s trap, and the Resistance failed to take the bait, then Schmid would surely conclude that the leak must have come from him.

No, he couldn’t do that. But at least he could try to dissuade his brother from going.

He called to Édith.

“I saw what you saw. The Dalou boys. There’s no need to say anything, Édith. Thomas doesn’t tell me about what he does, and I accept it. But I’m not a fool.” He paused. “Do you know why I’ve been around so much lately? Because I started having nightmares. I don’t know why. I never had them before. But I started having nightmares about my brother being caught. They won’t go away. I’m afraid for him.”

“Tell him,” she said urgently. “You have to tell him at once.”

“All right.” He got up. “He won’t thank me, but I’ll do it.”

And he did. He told him about the dream that kept returning, and begged his brother: “I don’t want to know what you’re up to. That’s not my business. But don’t go out with the Dalou boys or anyone else. Just enjoy your old age and keep your wife company. She’s worried sick about you.”

Thomas looked across to where Édith was standing and nodded thoughtfully.

“You may be right, Luc,” he said. “Perhaps I should stop.” He shrugged. “But when one has made commitments, you know …”

Luc stared at his brother sadly. Whatever he had agreed to with the Dalous, he was going to do. That was clear.

“Listen,” said Luc. “I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve been worried about you. Do you remember a certain place that we went to years ago? A secret place, under the ground, that nobody knows?”

The cave under Montmartre. Thomas didn’t look pleased to be reminded of the incident.

“What of it?” he said.

“I’ve put provisions in there for you. If ever you need to hide, you could stay in there quite a while.” He might have prepared it for himself, Luc thought, but who should he share it with if not with his brother? “Don’t tell anyone, not the Dalou boys, or any of your friends, or even Édith. If nobody knows, nobody can tell. No one comes by my house, as you know, so I won’t lock the door. But if ever you need it, go there at once.”

“All right,” said Thomas.



Schmid was pleased with his arrangements. The key to a successful operation was simplicity. The object of the mission was to discover if Louise and Corinne were one and the same. Everything, therefore, was subordinate to that.

There were three cars, all full of Gestapo men. In the middle car were three men dressed in the uniform of senior Gestapo officers, one as a general. All three were prisoners, due to be shot. They had been told that if they played their parts well, their lives would be spared. The one dressed as a general looked very like Müller.

There would be some police around, of course, but not too many. This was supposed to be a discreet private visit. And he wished to provide the Resistance men with a tempting target. He didn’t want to put them off. They must be allowed to make the attempt on the man they thought was Müller. If they did, then he knew the identity of Corinne. He would arrest her. And then he would see what she could tell him.

The efforts of the police were entirely secondary. Only after the attempt was made were they allowed to move. If they could catch some Resistance men, that was a bonus.

“Try to take at least one of them alive,” he instructed. “I may be able to identify a corpse,” he told the senior police officer, “but a man we can interrogate is worth a hundred corpses.”

The bait was in the trap. Now all he had to do was see if the bait was taken.



The Théâtre de l’Atelier lay in the section of the city just below the steep slope of the park that led up to the great white basilica of Sacré Coeur upon Montmartre.

It was a modest, rectangular building, suitable for an artistic and intellectual audience rather than the fashionable beau monde. At its western end was a three-door entrance under a small columned porch, and in front of that, a cobbled area not even a hundred feet long, dotted with small trees.

Max had been thorough. He and Charlie would stand in the hallway of an apartment building beside the little café just to the north of the theater entrance. He’d already spent two hours carefully exploring the small gardens and alleyways behind the building. With windows carefully unlatched, they would be able to run through this little maze and emerge into the next parallel street to the north, which gave directly onto the steep park. From there they could run through the trees and into the tangle of streets on the eastern side of the hill.

At six different vantage points on the streets approaching the theater, he had a man stationed. The two young Dalous, three other men of his own, and on the street nearest the park, old Thomas Gascon.

There was no question, the old man was very game.

“It’s funny how they call us the Maquis these days,” he remarked. “And they say that’s the countryside down in the south of France. But the real Maquis is right here, where these boys and I come from.” He gave the Dalou boys a grin. “The Maquis up on the hill of Montmartre.”

For all the old man’s cheerful resilience, Max was still concerned that Thomas might be too slow. But he’d surprised Max by running down the street and back quite swiftly, and since Max hadn’t time to find more men, he’d said a prayer and retained Thomas where he was. Since his station was right beside the park, he should be able to vanish into the trees before any pursuers even reached that street.

Each of these men had a whistle that made a piercing sound. If they saw anything that looked like an ambush, they were to blow hard on their whistle, and vanish.

The Dalous and the other three men had also prepared some rather interesting distractions that might keep the enemy busy.

But all the same, Max was worried. There were several things about this business that he did not like. The short notice. The high risk—for he told Charlie that he thought there was a good chance they’d both be shot when they made the attack—and the complete uncertainty about how Müller would be guarded.

“If at the last moment Charlie and I see that the thing can’t be done,” he told the team, “then we stand down. You hear no shots, and you all vanish.”

One big question had been whether to make the attempt as Müller arrived at the theater, or when he left. Since it would still be broad daylight when he came, it was decided to try as he departed.

“He’ll probably come out before the rest of the audience. That means that we’ll be visible, but have a clear shot. If not, then we’ll just have to mingle with the crowd and take a shot if we can,” Max said to Charlie. “It’ll be more complex. Frankly,” he confessed, “if this were for a lesser target than Müller himself, I wouldn’t attempt it.”

Charlie carried a small pistol, Max a large Welrod with a silencer. Between them, they also had a Sten gun.

As the time of the theater opening approached, the audience began to gather on the cobbles among the trees. Gradually they filtered through the doors. There was no sign of any official presence until, just as the last of the audience went through the doors, a police truck rolled up and halted at the end of the cobbles. A dozen police got out, but remained surveying the scene by the bus. A couple of minutes later, three cars drew swiftly into the street on the other side of the theater. Two Gestapo men got out of the first, another two from the last. The middle vehicle was a larger staff car. Three obviously high-ranking Gestapo officers stepped out. The general in the center was a dark-haired, middle-aged man with a clear-cut, rather sour-looking face.

“That certainly looks like Müller,” Max whispered. The first two Gestapo men swiftly entered the theater, presumably to make sure the way was clear. Then the others, moving in a posse with the general in the center, walked straight in through the doors. The police stayed where they were. After this, there was silence.

Charlie and Max waited over an hour. Charlie wondered if there would be an interval, but as nobody came out through the doors, he assumed not. Dusk fell. The policemen remained by their bus.

“There’s only one thing to do,” Max said. “You’ll have to open up on the police with the Sten gun. That’ll give me cover, and the noise will alert the others. Give me your pistol. I’ll make a dash for the general with that and the Welrod. If I get back, we leave as planned. If I go down, you leave alone. Don’t hang about.”

Another half hour passed. It was getting quite dark. They inched the door of the building just ajar and listened carefully for any whistle from the surrounding streets. There was nothing.

And then it all started to happen.

The first two Gestapo men appeared at the theater doors. Moving swiftly, they went over to the staff car while the driver leaped to open the door. The policemen gazed placidly from in front of their bus. The two Gestapo men looked around to make sure the streets were clear.

And then Müller and his two companions stepped out.

“Now,” said Max.

It happened so fast that the men in front of the theater hardly knew what hit them. Charlie raked the policemen with the Sten gun and the air filled with noise. He saw half a dozen of them go down. Others were trying to take cover and return his fire. They hardly even noticed Max, his hat pulled down over his face, sprinting toward the Gestapo general.

Before Charlie’s first burst of fire was completed, an uproar arose from the streets all around. There were shots, explosions, huge flashes. This was the Dalou boys and their friends putting on a show.

Both the police and the Gestapo men were totally distracted now. Max was face-to-face with Müller.

And then Müller screamed.

“We’re French. It’s a trap!” And his two companions were shouting as well. And Charlie saw Max stare at them and then swivel, bob his head down and double back toward him. As he came closer, Charlie saw one of the two Gestapo men still in the theater run around the theater door and take aim at Max, but he managed to bring the Sten gun around and got him with a short burst.

Then Max was crashing through the doorway, and Charlie smacked it shut and locked it behind him, and then both ran down the passage and out through the window at the back. And they kept running into the narrow alleyway, and got over a garden wall, and burst into the building beyond.

Max was panting as they reached the doorway that gave out into the street beyond. They looked out. There was nobody there except the small form of Thomas Gascon, at the edge of the trees, a hundred yards away, signaling to them that the coast was clear.

They had just caught up with him, and were running up the slope when they heard the sound of boots in the street behind them. Four or five police were on the roadway. They were taking aim. Charlie heard a rattle of fire, felt something thud into him. The next moment he felt Max pulling the Sten gun out of his hands. The Sten gun chattered into life. He heard a scream. Max’s arm was under his left arm, Thomas Gascon’s under his right. The old man was amazingly strong. He felt himself stumbling forward. Max glanced back.

“They won’t follow,” he said. “But within the hour, they’ll be searching house to house. We’ve got to get Charlie somewhere safe. Can you walk a bit, Charlie, if we help you?”

“I think so.”

“Well,” said Max to Thomas, “do you know a place we can hide around here?”

“Yes,” said Thomas, “I do.”



When Luc saw Thomas and his companions at his door, he was horrified.

“We’ve got to get him out of sight,” Thomas whispered.

“What do you mean?” Luc whispered back.

“You know.” Thomas turned to Max. “We’re going into the garden at the back.”

Luc seized Thomas by the arm and pulled him to one side.

“Are you insane?” he hissed urgently. “That’s my hiding place. That’s just for you and me.”

“It was a trap. He’s been shot. We have to hide him,” Thomas answered.

Luc moaned.

“You don’t understand. They’ll know my hiding place.”

“Not if we’re quick. We left them back at the bottom of the hill. They’ve hardly started searching yet. Open the back door, for God’s sake.”

“Oh, brother, you’ve just killed me,” Luc told him.

But Thomas took no further notice.

“We’ll need a lamp,” he said.



It was a long night. At about midnight, the police rapped on the door of the house. Luc, half asleep, opened the door. He seemed puzzled, and asked them what it was all about. They searched the house, went into the garden at the back, opened the shed. But Luc had done a good job. There was no sign of people hiding or of any disturbance to the place at all. After searching the other buildings nearby, the police abruptly left.



For Thomas and Max, alone with Charlie in the cave, the hours passed slowly. They hadn’t taken Charlie all the way down to the chamber at the end, but found a place around the first bend where there was enough room for him to lie comfortably. Some of the food supplies that Luc had stored were stacked just a few feet away.

Max had looked carefully at the wound in Charlie’s back. Charlie was shivering a little.

“Can we get a doctor?” Thomas asked.

“Difficult now. Maybe in the morning,” said Max.

“I just thought …”

“I was in the war in Spain,” said Max quietly. “I saw a lot of people get hit. Just trust me.”

A little after midnight, Charlie’s mind seemed to wander. He started murmuring. He said the name of Louise. Then Esmé. Then he grew quiet. He was breathing with difficulty.

“Mon ami,” said Max, “you know who I am?”

“Yes, Max,” said Charlie.

“We were betrayed tonight. Could it have been Corinne?”

“Never. She would never …”

“One can never be sure, Charlie. What if the Gestapo threatened her family?”

“She came from England. She’s no family here, except for her son, Esmé.”

“Where’s he?”

“Down in the country with his grandparents. The Germans think they’re Vichy.” He paused. “Max, I’d better tell you I’m his father.”

“Ah.” Max considered. “She wouldn’t betray the father of her son. No, I don’t believe that. But if she didn’t betray us deliberately, then she must have been used. Someone planted the information on her.” He nodded. “I have to warn her, Charlie. I’d better do it fast.”

“Yes. Don’t be seen.”

“I’ll take care. But remember, Charlie, Corinne’s your contact. We just get the messages at the safe house. You’ll have to tell me who she really is.”

“Madame Louise. She owns L’Invitation au Voyage.”

“Ah. I know of it, of course. It might have been one of her girls, then.”

“Perhaps … Or someone else.”

“Maybe I can find out if I talk to her.”

“Maybe. Can you protect her?”

“Yes, Charlie. I’ll protect her. I promise.”

“That’s important.”

“Don’t worry about a thing.” He gazed at the aristocrat. “How do you feel now?”

“Cold.”

“All right. Nothing to worry about.”

There was a long pause. Charlie looked strangely gray.

“Max.”

“Yes, Charlie.”

“Would you hold my hand.”

Max took it. A minute later, Charlie gave a shudder, and his head fell to one side. Then Max closed his eyes.

“Did you know he was dying?” Thomas asked, after a long pause.

“Yes.”

“Have you any idea who betrayed us?”

“Not yet,” said Max.

Thomas was thoughtful.



It was a little after one in the morning when Schmid began to question Louise. So far, he thought, things had gone very well.

It was unfortunate, of course, that so many policemen had been wounded. One of them was probably going to die. But that was a police problem, not his. Everything else had been entirely satisfactory.

It amused him that the prisoners dressed in Gestapo uniforms had given the game away. No doubt, thinking that they were about to be shot by the Resistance, they had hoped to help their colleagues by giving the game away. In fact, they had done the Gestapo a favor. It was far more discouraging for the Maquis to know they had been betrayed than to think, however mistakenly, that they had shot Müller. He wouldn’t have to keep the three men in prison any longer either. They could all be shot at dawn.

As for the mission, of course, he had already gotten the information he wanted the moment the attempt had been made.

Madame Louise was Corinne.

They had raided the brothel at midnight. The various officers using the place had been politely asked to leave. The girls had been asked for their papers, then sent home.

And now, at one in the morning, Madame Louise was sitting in an interrogation room in the rue des Saussaies.

He began quite politely.

“Madame, let me save you the tiresome and unpleasant business of denying your identity. The little comedy you witnessed between myself and Colonel Walter the other evening was in order to plant false information with you. You passed the information on to your contacts. As a result, an attempt was made tonight on a man pretending to be Müller. Thanks to this, we know for a certainty that you are Corinne.”

Louise said nothing.

“Perhaps you would like to tell me the names of your associates.”

Louise said nothing.

“Let us start with something easier then. How do you pass on the information?”

“There is a drop.”

“Thank you. And where is that?”

“In the River Seine.”

“Ah, madame. I am afraid it will be necessary for me to persuade you to do a little better than that.”

He worked on her for a while until she fainted.

It was time to turn in. If necessary, he could always bring other forces to bear on her. She had a son somewhere, he knew. Any threat to a child will break most parents. But it irked him professionally to have to resort to those means. He would persuade her. It would be a challenge to break her.



Early that morning, Max Le Sourd stopped in the rue de Montmorency and gazed toward L’Invitation au Voyage. There was a van and a Gestapo car in front of it.

He didn’t go any closer, but stopped at a nearby café to ask what had happened.

“They came at midnight last night and arrested Madame Louise,” he was told. “The place is closed. No one knows anything else.”



It was nearly ten in the morning when Schmid returned. But when he did, he received a shock.

“Dead? How? You did not leave a blanket or sheet in the cell?”

“No, Lieutenant.”

“A sharp object?”

The fellow looked embarrassed.

“A knife. When the guard brought her breakfast.”

They showed him. She had slit her wrists, in the correct manner. She had bled to death in minutes.

Schmid cursed and cursed, in fury. Then he ordered a car to take him to her house. That must be closed and sealed. At least he’d have her pictures.



As Thomas sat in his usual place by the bar, he supposed that he should be grateful. Luc hadn’t much wanted to have Charlie’s body in the cave at all, but as Thomas pointed out, it was less likely to be found there than anywhere else they could think of.

After that, he’d made his way home, where Édith had been more than relieved to see him. In the middle of the morning, Michel Dalou had come by to let him know that everyone had gotten back safely from the operation.

“Do you think anyone was identified?” Thomas asked.

“No. We all had face covering of some sort, and before the police recovered from the racket we made, we’d all run off.”

“That’s good.” Thomas didn’t tell him about Charlie. He’d have wanted to know what they’d done with the body.

“I heard we were set up,” said Michel Dalou.

“Maybe. Leave that to Max. He’ll work it out.”

“Are we safe?”

“Yes. Nobody got captured, and you say no one was seen—so the police and the Gestapo have nothing.”

“That’s good,” said Michel Dalou, and left.

But Thomas Gascon was thoughtful. The events of last night were forming a pattern in his mind. And it wasn’t a pattern he liked at all.



Corinne was Louise. He knew Louise: the girl that Luc had set up, long ago. She’d paid his brother too, for years, before they’d had a falling-out.

He remembered also how his brother had been so anxious that he should not go on the mission last night.

And what about the cave? He’d said he’d been preparing it as a hiding place for him. Yet he’d never mentioned the fact until last night. Did that make sense?

Stranger still, now that he thought of it, had been Luc’s reaction when he and Max had arrived with Charlie. At the time Thomas had been so concerned about Charlie that he hadn’t paid much attention. But what had Luc said? “They’ll know my hiding place.” But who? Max; Charlie, if he’d lived. Why was that so terrible? Was he planning to hide from them? And then that final little cry: “Brother, you’ve just killed me.” He wasn’t just planning to hide from the Resistance. He thought that one day they’d kill him.

He remembered how Max had already been suspicious of his brother. And how he himself had made no comment, because, alas, he knew Luc’s character.

Luc had known that last night was a trap.



It was early afternoon when Max stopped at the bar.

“Louise has been arrested. Midnight last night. I think I’ve figured it out. There are two alternatives. They may have used her to lure us into a raid, so that they could capture us. But I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“Because they failed to catch us. They could have had plainclothesmen hidden around the place. They didn’t. So that wasn’t their object.”

“Go on.”

“I believe they set up Louise. Fed her false information that she passed on in good faith. They wanted to know if she was Corinne. By taking the bait, we confirmed it for them, and they arrested her. We just destroyed Louise.”

“So someone must have informed the Gestapo that Louise was Corinne,” Thomas reasoned.

“I think that must be it. One of her girls, perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” said Thomas.

Then he was very sad.



Luc was sitting alone in the room that gave onto his garden when Thomas arrived. He looked up a little anxiously when Thomas came in, and seemed relieved when he saw that his brother was alone. Thomas had a knapsack on his back. He put it down and went to sit beside him.

“I have a message from Max. He says thank you.” Thomas reached into his pocket and pulled out a flask of brandy. “We need a drink.” He poured two glasses. “What shall we drink to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well then: To us.”

They drank. Thomas waited a little while.

“There is one thing more.” He paused. “I need you to tell me something.”

“Whatever you want.”

“I’ve been thinking about last night. I didn’t understand at first. Then I remembered how you had tried to stop me from going. You said you’d been having bad dreams. And you reminded me I could hide in the cave.”

Luc said nothing.

“You were trying to save me,” Thomas continued. “You tried to save your brother. I know it.” He put his arm around Luc. “Do you remember when I fought Bertrand Dalou after they took your balloon?” He held his brother closer. “It’s always just been you and me. And now you tried to save my life. Do you know what that means to me?”

“You’re my brother,” said Luc.

“But you have to tell me one thing. How did you know it was a trap? Who’s your contact? Is it one person, or are there many? I need to know so I can protect you.”

“I don’t think you can.”

“I can. Didn’t I always?”

Luc looked down at the floor. Then he took a deep breath.

“It’s just one man. Schmid. He’s Gestapo. Works out of the avenue Foch offices.” He still didn’t look up.

“Are you with others, or alone?”

“Alone.”

“And Corinne?”

“He asked me who it was. I didn’t know. I just made a list of all the possible people I could think of. Coco Chanel, Marc Blanchard … A whole lot. That was all. He didn’t seem very interested. But then he told me he was setting a trap. That’s all I knew. I didn’t even know if yesterday was the trap, but I thought it might be. So I told you not to go.”

Was it the truth? Perhaps. Probably not the whole truth. But it was enough. Luc had informed. He’d let the others walk into a trap, and made an attempt to save his brother. A feeble one. Not enough to blow his own cover.

“I’ll take care of Schmid,” Thomas said. “You don’t have anything more to worry about.”

“Really?”

Thomas smiled.

“We have to do something now. We need to move Charlie’s body. We can’t use the passage with it lying there. It wouldn’t be too pleasant. We should take it all the way down into the chamber at the end.”

“Now?”

“I think so. Then we’re going to burn it. It won’t smell so bad. I brought some petrol.” He indicated the knapsack. “Enough to get started.”

Luc shrugged.

“As you like.”

So they went into the garden, and Luc carefully opened the entrance into the passageway and lit a lamp, and led Thomas down to where the body was.

Then Thomas put the knapsack down and he took Charlie’s body under the shoulders, and Luc took his feet, and they slowly carried Charlie down to the chamber. They stopped twice to rest on the way. It took them nearly a quarter of an hour. Finally Charlie was laid to rest in the center of the chamber.

“Give me the lamp,” said Thomas, “and I’ll get the petrol.”

He moved swiftly up the passage and found the knapsack. He opened it to check that everything was in order. Then he started back down the passage again.

As he reached the chamber, Luc appeared in the lamplight, looking pale.

Thomas put the lamp down by Charlie’s head, then in the shadow, he squatted over the knapsack and began to open it. He looked up at his brother.

“You needn’t have worried, you know,” Thomas said quietly. “I’d never have let them hurt you.”

Luc nodded.

Thomas smiled.

“I love you, little brother.”

“I know.”

Luc never saw the big Welrod with its silencer in his brother’s hand. Thomas fired once. The shot went straight into Luc’s heart. Thomas stepped over and quickly put a second shot into the back of his head.

The shots made a sound in the cave, but not much. Outside the cave, there was no sound at all.

Fifteen minutes later Thomas met Max and handed him back the knapsack containing the Welrod.

“It was him. It’s done,” he said.

“The contact?”

“Gestapo. Schmid.”



If the Allies had hoped they would sweep across northern France, they had been disappointed. All through June the fighting in Normandy was intense. The western port of Cherbourg was taken on the twenty-first, but the Germans left its deepwater harbor almost inoperable. Reinforced, the panzer divisions at the old city of Caen held out, into July. Even a month after Cherbourg fell, the Allies had been able to take only the heights south of Caen. In the last week of July, the Allied forces in the far west began to swing around below the Germans, but the going was still tough.

Then, early in August, news came that General Patton’s Third Army had joined this forward swing. One of the divisions serving under him was French. Drawn from the Frenchmen who had managed to get abroad, and by troops from Algeria and other parts of North Africa, General Leclerc’s Second Armored Division had just landed, eager to fight for France.

But where would Patton and his Frenchmen go?

One thing seemed almost certain. They wouldn’t be coming to Paris. It made no sense. Eisenhower wouldn’t want one of his armies to get bogged down in weeks, perhaps, of bloody street fighting. He would sweep across to the Rhine and beyond, and deal with Paris later.



Meanwhile, for Schmid there was his regular duty to attend to.

There were still huge stores of pictures in Paris that had not been sent back to Germany. But when it came to the confiscations for which Schmid was responsible, he had impressed his superiors very much. On his own initiative he had contrived to get everything crated and sent back into grateful hands in Berlin, and his zeal had been noticed.

Apart from the drawings he had kept for himself, of course. Those he had sent through the mail to his sister to keep for him, together with a note saying that he had bought them in Paris. When he’d found Jacob’s pictures stored in Louise’s attic he’d done the same thing. That had been a rich personal haul.

And now, on the morning of the nineteenth of August, he stood outside L’Invitation au Voyage and supervised the last of the crates being loaded onto the truck that was to carry them away on their journey eastward.

As the men closed the back of the truck, he signed their papers and the truck left. He watched it to the end of the street, until it turned the corner.

Just then, from somewhere in the distance on his right, he heard a brief rattle of gunfire. Then silence. He wondered what it was.

He turned. A few paces behind him, an old man was standing. Evidently, he’d been curious to watch the truck with its crates of pictures depart. There was a bag of provisions at his feet, and now the old fellow stooped to pick it up. Schmid was just about to walk past him when the old man pulled something out of the bag.

There was a soft thudding sound. Schmid frowned. Something had hit him with huge force in the chest. He stared in surprise. His legs were giving way. The cobbles on the street were rushing at his face in the strangest manner.

Thomas Gascon put the Welrod with its silencer to the back of Schmid’s head and pulled the trigger again. Then he turned. No one had seen him. As he started walking down the street, he heard the sound of more shots. Nearer this time.

The Paris Rising had just begun.



The Paris Rising of August 1944 was not unexpected. They had all been preparing for many months. Yet all the same, when it began, Max was taken by surprise—not by the barricades, and the snipers, and the bombings, or the general strike which paralyzed the city for several days. What astonished him was the numbers of Resistance men who had suddenly materialized.

They were easy to distinguish. The uniform was simple. A black beret was all a sniper needed to show which side he was on. Some Max knew, loyal men who’d been helping the Resistance for a long time, and were only waiting for the moment to come out and fight. Many more had joined during the last twelve months. But large numbers, Max strongly suspected, seeing which way the wind was blowing, had hastily added themselves to the insurgency practically overnight.

The Germans were not overwhelmed. They were still formidable. But they were confused.

Soon the city was split into districts, some under German control, others controlled by the Resistance. The situation was fluid, chaotic. Sometimes the Germans were shooting Resistance men by firing squad only two streets away from an area under Resistance control.

Max was engaged all over the city. His father was busy producing the broadsheets that would be distributed when the moment came—though Max found him cheerfully manning a barricade with the younger men in Belleville more than once. But each evening they met in company with several dozen other committed FTP men, communists and socialists, and reviewed the situation. The excitement was palpable. They were taking ground from the Germans all the time. Soon the Maquis would control the city.

Only one development threatened to throw everything in doubt. The Maquis received an urgent message from General von Choltitz, the commander of the city himself.

“The führer has given orders. If we have to evacuate, I’m to blow up the city.”

Frantically, with the help of the neutral Sweden’s envoy in Paris, the Maquis negotiated with the general. At last the German commander made his choice.

“He’s going to ignore Hitler’s orders,” Max reported to his father. “He knows what’ll happen to him if he obeys them.” Then he smiled. “It seems, Father, that the Paris Commune is about to be reborn.”



And then, on the evening of the sixth day, came the crushing news which put all their calculations at risk and, by the seventh day, destroyed all their hopes.

General Charles de Gaulle arrived to liberate Paris.



To be precise, the advance guard of General Leclerc’s Free French Division arrived at the western gates of the city. When Max first heard it, he couldn’t believe it.

“Impossible!” he cried. “Eisenhower’s not coming to Paris.”

“Eisenhower isn’t,” they told him. “But de Gaulle is.”

Within an hour, the advance guard had raced into the city, straight up its central axis and arrived at the Hôtel de Ville behind the Louvre by nine-thirty that night.

When the two Le Sourds met with their usual committee that night, the story was becoming clear.

“It’s all de Gaulle’s doing. Eisenhower didn’t want to go near Paris at all. But once the Rising began, de Gaulle badgered him, told him that if the Germans massacred us, it would be worse than the tragedy of the Warsaw uprising. In the end Eisenhower gave permission for Leclerc’s division, together with the U.S. Army Fourth Division, to divert up here. Leclerc actually disobeyed orders to wait and just drove straight through to Paris. He’ll enter with his entire force, and the American division as well, in the morning.”

“Then we’re screwed,” said Le Sourd bitterly. “We can’t organize the Commune overnight.”

With an entire division of well-armed and well-trained Frenchmen marching in to liberate Paris, not to mention another division of honest American soldiers to whom the very idea of socialism was anathema, the conservative patriot de Gaulle had not only the moral authority, but the naked power, to take the city over and impose his will.

The obstinate, lone officer who’d refused to give in, and gone to England to raise the Cross of Lorraine, had just shown himself to be a ruthless politician as well.

And so it came about. The following day, Lerclerc and the Americans swept into the city. The German general, probably secretly relieved, surrendered. And the following day, the twenty-sixth of August, a huge parade of troops, Resistance fighters and public men marched down the Champs-Élysées.

But it was one figure upon whom all eyes were fixed. Dressed in his general’s uniform, towering over his companions, the tall, unyielding figure of Charles de Gaulle moved with a stately stride down the center of the great avenue, knowing, as all who saw him knew, that he was the man of destiny that France would follow now.

Paris was liberated. The agony was over.

Max Le Sourd also marched, for old Thomas Gascon, and the Dalou boys, and his other comrades in the march would have been disappointed if he had not.

But his father remained at the side of the Champs-Élysées and grimly watched. And as the tall and lonely statesman strode past, Le Sourd could only shake his head.

“Salaud,” he muttered sadly. “You son of a bitch.”



It was the next morning that Thomas Gascon decided to gather all his family together for a celebration at the restaurant. “At least,” he pointed out, “we have some extra food stored here.”

During the morning, Édith sent him down on an errand into the Second Arrondissement, and at noon he was already returning up the rue de Clichy.

He was less than a mile from home when he saw the small crowd coming toward him. There were about fifty of them, and they were goading a young woman. Her shirt had been ripped, and they were chanting and taunting her for sleeping with Germans.

Thomas frowned. He’d heard that these attacks were starting to happen. They were absurd, of course. If every Frenchwoman who’d slept with a German in the last four years was going to be hounded like this, there would be no end to it. God knew how many thousands of children had been fathered by lonely German troops in Paris alone.

But the ritual rage of a crowd that feels guilty has a special viciousness.

The wretched girl was the same age as one of his own granddaughters.

They had just drawn level when one of the girls in the crowd ran up to the young woman, pointed at her and screamed: “German whore. Shave her head!” And she spat in her face.

“F*ck off!” the woman cried back. But the crowd was encircling them.

“Scissors!” someone cried. “Razors!”

Thomas wasn’t afraid to fight, even at his age, but half of them were women, and he wasn’t used to fighting women. There were too many people anyway. So he did the only thing he could.

“Mes camerades,” he cried, “I am Thomas Gascon from the Maquis of Montmartre, member of the FTP, Resistance fighter. It was I who cut the cables in the Eiffel Tower. Come with me to Montmartre, if you don’t believe me, and I will show you witnesses. Whatever her faults, I ask you to let me take this young woman home, on this day of celebration.”

They looked at him. Could this old man be telling the truth? They decided he was.

“Vivent les FTP!” somebody cried. “Bravo, old man!” And they started to laugh and clap him on the back.

For such is the strange and sudden sense of chivalry of the French mob.

“She’s free. She’s free,” they cried.

So Thomas Gascon took the girl home, before he went to his family celebration.



For Max Le Sourd, however, there was one duty still to be performed. When he explained to his father what it was, his father agreed to help.

Their first trip was to the cemetery. They needed to break some rules. After a little talk to the guardian, the matter was arranged.

So it was the corpse of Charlie de Cygne that was now placed in a simple casket and taken by Max Le Sourd, Thomas and the Dalou boys in a van to the cemetery of Père Lachaise. There the coffin was lowered into a small plot, pleasantly situated near the grave of Chopin.

Over the grave they placed a wooden cross inscribed with Charlie’s name, the description “Patriot,” and the fact that he had died for France.



There were no religious obsequies. “His family can do that,” Max said. But there was something else to be done. “You’re the writer,” Max said to his father. “I’ll give you the information, but you write it.”

The letter was a good one. It made no mention of the betrayal, but stated that Charlie had been wounded in an operation and died without pain. He had shown great bravery and dignity. His compatriots loved and respected him. Before dying he had spoken of his son.

It was simple and respectful.

“Shall we send it in the mail?” asked Max. But his father shook his head.



In early September, Roland de Cygne was surprised to receive a visit from Jacques Le Sourd at the château. Asking to speak with him alone, Le Sourd bowed his head, and told him: “I have the great sorrow, Monsieur le Vicomte, to bring you the news of the death of your son. But he died bravely.” And he handed him the letter.

Roland read the letter slowly.

“When he disappeared, we feared something might have happened. But one always hopes, you know.”

“I trust it meets with your approval, monsieur, but to honor him as best they could, his comrades buried him in Père Lachaise.”

“Père Lachaise? There are some great names there.”

“His grave is close to that of Chopin. For the moment, it is marked with a wooden cross, very simple, with his name. You may wish a priest …”

“Of course.” Roland paused and thought for a moment. “Was he carrying anything?”

“No papers, monsieur. They preferred not to carry identification, on a mission.”

“I understand. There wasn’t perhaps a little lighter, made of a bullet casing?”

“Not that we found, monsieur.”



The letter from Richard Bennett did not arrive until the summer of 1945.

It explained the great difficulties he had encountered in tracing the benefactor he had known only as Monsieur Bon Ami.

But eventually, I was able to discover through a Paris lawyer that the owner of a Voisin C-25 coupe kept at a château in a certain part of the valley of the Loire was a Monsieur Charles de Cygne. I have learned with great sorrow that he died not long after he saved my own life. Please accept my deep condolences for your loss.

More than a hundred and sixty airmen, from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were betrayed or captured, many being sent to the camp at Buchenwald. Thanks to your son, I was one of the lucky ones to escape.

When I parted from your son, he gave me a little lighter, which I enclose, telling me it would bring me luck, which it certainly did. He told me I could return it after the war. Alas, he is not there to receive it himself, but I believe he leaves a son who, perhaps, might like to have it as a memento of a friendship, and with respectful gratitude from a Canadian airman whose life his father saved.

It was a graceful and charming letter.

“You know what’s worst of all,” Roland said. “If Charlie had kept that lighter, it might have brought him luck instead of the Canadian. He might be alive today.”



The next day they went to Père Lachaise. Roland de Cygne showed the little lighter to Esmé and told him that one day he should have it, as his father had before him. Standing together beside Charlie’s gravesite, they let a moment pass in silent remembrance.

CHARLES DE CYGNE

PATRIOTE

MORT POUR LA PATRIE

JUIN 1944





Epilogue




• 1968 •


If Paris in the spring was romantic, Claire thought, there was a beauty about the city in the autumn season that was just as lovely. And it brought new stirrings too. For after the traditional holiday month of August, when the place is strangely quiet, September marks the beginning of a new school and cultural year. And then, in October, comes the wine harvest.

She stepped out of the funicular and began to walk into Montmartre. She had spent all morning trying to come to a decision, but without success. Perhaps, she thought, if I get a little drunk up here, I shall know what to do.



She loved France. She knew that. All the years she’d been living in America, she’d always followed what was going on there. Not all of it had been happy.

After de Gaulle had brought some stability to the nation as it emerged from the war, Claire had been grateful to see France return to democracy. Given the deep richness of France, its economy would bear fruit under almost any government. It had seemed the French could even afford a generous welfare state. And the new European Community, thank God, had put an end to wars between France and Germany forever. But the internal politics of the Fourth Republic had been embarrassing. The mechanics of the French parliamentary model had been poorly arranged, and in ten years, there had been twenty governments. De Gaulle had refused to have anything to do with them.

The remaining French empire had also crumbled. In northern Africa, Algeria had gone into revolt. With many French colonists wanting to keep the territory, there had been a virtual civil war. In Indochina, France had been pushed out of her colonies, and in one of those, Vietnam, the problems of communist insurgency had remained to become a nightmare for America too. Then, when Nasser of Egypt had nationalized the Suez Canal, and France and Britain had hatched a plot for military intervention behind America’s back, they had been forced into a withdrawal that had destroyed their reputations as world powers, perhaps forever.

It was not until 1958 that the Algerian crisis had brought the Fourth Republic to an end, and that strange, lonely statue of a man, Charles de Gaulle, had finally returned from his retirement to take the reins of power.

Claire had mixed feelings about de Gaulle. His Fifth Republic had been nearer the American, presidential model. His prestige alone had made it possible for France to accept a free Algeria. He’d glorified the French Resistance and promoted the myth that only a handful of Frenchmen had been collaborators. He’d behaved before the world as if France was still a great empire. And France had regained some dignity.

And some glory too. André Malraux, the Resistance fighter and writer whom de Gaulle had made his culture minister, was busy transforming the dirty old buildings of Paris into a gleaming splendor that delighted the whole world. Notre Dame was looking better than it had since it was built.

Yet for all this glory, it seemed to Claire, something of de Gaulle’s personal spirit had also descended upon French society: proud, xenophobic and, socially, deeply conservative. Not that he was without humor, or didn’t appreciate the traditional regional chaos of old France. “How,” he had once famously asked, “can one govern a country which has 246 kinds of cheese?”



But it was one thing to love France—to visit every year or two—and another to alter her life. The message from Esmé had been outrageous. COME AT ONCE, he’d said. The cheek of the fellow. But then it was easy for Esmé. He was free. He could do whatever he wanted.

She loved Esmé de Cygne. Though they met only when she came over to see her mother, they’d gotten to know each other well over the years.

They’d always had an easy relationship. He’d been so young when he’d lost his parents that Roland and Marie had been the nearest thing to parents that he’d known. He always called Marie “Grand-mère,” and he’d cared for her so devotedly as she grew older that despite their difference in ages, he and Claire had come to treat each other almost as if she were his older sister and confidante.

It wasn’t until his teens that he’d come to know more.

As a child, Esmé had thought of Marc Blanchard as an honorary uncle. Roland had decreed that he should not know more than that. “The little fellow needs some simplicity in his life, not more complication,” he’d said. And both Marie and Marc had agreed.

But when Esmé was thirteen, and Marc became seriously ill, it was decided that he should learn the truth.

“And so I suddenly acquired another grandfather,” Esmé had told her. “And learned that I share the same blood with Grand-mère and with you, my dear Claire, which makes me very happy. I think it was then,” he added, “that I began to realize that all life is mysterious.”

Marc had seen quite a lot of his grandson during the last year of his life. He’d show the boy his paintings, and talk about Aunt Éloise, who’d started the collection, and about the old days when he would visit Monet at Giverny. When Marc died, he’d left Esmé both the art and his considerable fortune.

Roland had lived another five years after that. And after he’d died, very peacefully down at the château one summer, Esmé had inherited that as well. As an illegitimate heir, he could not have the title, but he had everything else. Fortune, it seemed, had smiled on him.

But not quite. There were still things that his family had concealed from him.

“I knew that Louise had been the child of Marc and one of his models,” he had told Claire on one of her visits, “that she’d been brought up by upper-middle-class English parents and left an inheritance. I knew that she was a heroine of the Resistance, like my father. But then in my twenties, I began to notice that people would sometimes give me a curious look. It was as if they knew something I didn’t know.” He’d shaken his head in wry amusement. “I had a vague memory of my early life, of course. I supposed that my mother had owned a hotel of some kind. It was only after making more inquiries that I discovered my mother ran one of the most famous brothels in Paris!”

“Was it a shock?” Claire had asked.

“Yes. At first. I made Grand-mère give me all the papers she had about me. I discovered everything about my mother, including her own mother’s family, who are called Petit.”

“Did you meet them, too?”

“Yes. They had disowned Louise’s mother and we had nothing to say to each other. But I’m glad to have known everything. In fact, it’s been very useful to me.”

“How’s that?”

“It’s been a liberation. You know, bastards often feel that they have to make their own way in the world. Especially if there’s something shameful in their origins. Would William the Conqueror ever have conquered England if he’d been legitimate, and not the grandson of a tanner who stank of urine? Who knows. Probably not.” He shrugged. “But up until then, I had always thought of myself as—all right—the bastard son of Charlie de Cygne, but the inheritor of the estate, the son of two Resistance heroes. My place in life was set. Now, suddenly, my identity wasn’t so secure. And that was good.” He nodded. “I can understand those movie stars, you know, who go to Hollywood and reinvent themselves. That’s a wonderful freedom, to be able to do that. So I have completely reinvented myself.”

“As what, Esmé?”

“As an outcast. It’s wonderful. I come from the backstreets of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. My mother was a whore and a brothel keeper. And I am also half an aristocrat. It’s a revolutionary story. The child of the streets takes over the château. I’m becoming quite famous. I’m the editor of a magazine now. They interview me on television.” He shook his head. “I feel sorry for aristocrats, actually, because no matter how good they are at what they do, nobody will take them seriously, which is quite unfair. But by being this outsider, I am probably better treated than I deserve.”

He was amusing company—and he had his feet on the ground. She liked that.

And he’d been wonderful to her that spring, when her mother died.

It hadn’t been a shock. She’d always encouraged Marie to come to America, despite her age, so that she could see her grandchildren. Last summer, Marie had spent a delightful month with her, but told her frankly: “I don’t think we shall see each other again, my dear. One gets a feeling about these things, you know.”

Her mother had lived with her devoted housekeeper in the apartment on the rue Bonaparte right up to the end. Esmé had called in almost every day. And her departure had been entirely peaceful, in the first week of May, only hours after talking to Claire on the telephone. By the time Claire got to Paris for the funeral, Esmé had taken care of all the arrangements. There had been a large number of her mother’s friends and admirers. And then there had been her French family, of course.

She had not often seen the other Blanchards. Ever since the days when she and her mother ran Joséphine, she had always found her cousin Jules well-meaning but rather dull. His son David, instead of following in the family business, had reverted to his ancestor’s career as a doctor. Claire found him easier to talk to, and his wife and children were charming. She had found it a surprising comfort to know that her mother’s family were still represented in Paris, and in the old house down at Fontainebleau.

After that, she’d stayed another ten days to sort out the estate.

There had been one quite unexpected feature of her stay, however.

That weekend, a simmering dispute over university conditions had suddenly turned into a huge battle in the Latin Quarter. Staying in her mother’s apartment on the rue Bonaparte, Claire had been just outside the area of serious trouble, but only a short walk away from the excitement.

The night of her mother’s funeral had been the worst. Vast crowds of students hurling pavés—the heavy cobblestones they tore up from the old roadways—had fought the police who’d occupied the Sorbonne. There were barricades everywhere, burning cars, and the terrifying CRS riot police swinging their heavy matraques had done serious injury to many young demonstrators. Within days, the unions and factory workers of France had joined in. A huge general strike had brought the country to a standstill, and even General de Gaulle himself had seemed about to fall.

But the Quartier Latin had been the place to be. The students had been allowed to occupy the university. Night after night, she and Esmé had wandered into the quarter together. They’d gone down the rue Bonaparte to the chuch of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and had coffee and cognac in Les Deux Magots, and seen Jean-Paul Sartre coming and going more than once. They’d gone into the Sorbonne, and listened to students, workers and philosophers plan a new Paris Commune, and a new and better world. They might be somewhat Marxist, they were surely idealistic, but they were the eager heirs of the French Revolution, after all. And where else could one see this mixture of rhetoric, philosophy and French wit, except in old Paris?

It was a time to be young. Before long, France would reelect conservative de Gaulle again. But if the protests against the Vietnam draft had ushered in a social change in America, Claire had a feeling that something similar was likely to take place in France.

She was glad she’d been there to see it.



It had been just as she was about to return to America that Esmé had sprung his idea on her.

“I wish I could see more of you. And it’s obvious that you enjoy being here in Paris. Now that Grand-mère is gone, you need an excuse to come over. Why don’t you buy a little pied-à-terre here in Paris? You can certainly afford it.”

“It wouldn’t make sense to do that if I wasn’t going to spend quite a bit of time here. At least two or three months a year,” she pointed out.

“So why don’t you? There’s nothing to stop you.”

“I really don’t think so,” she’d said.



She’d talked to her children about it, back in America. But with their own young families to keep them busy, they didn’t think they’d be able to make much use of such a place.

“Just do it if it makes you happy, Mother,” they’d said.

But like most people who’ve been mothers, Claire didn’t find it easy to do things just for herself. So she’d turned to Phil.

After drifting slowly apart from each other, she and Frank had waited until the children were grown before quietly divorcing in the fifties. Frank had married again. She’d had a few discreet affairs, none really satisfactory. She’d concentrated on her own work.

And she’d made a small name for herself. She had written three well-received art books, and two works of fiction based on the lives of artists. Not only had these sold well in America, but to her great delight they had been published to critical acclaim in France.

And then she’d found Phil. Or, he would say, he’d found her.

Phil was her friend. He was her husband now, and she couldn’t be happier about that fact, but above all he was her friend. He wasn’t tall and handsome like Frank. He was somewhat round. He didn’t have eyes that made her go weak at the knees. His eyes were brown, and gentle, and amused. He’d been a doctor, recently retired. Her children liked him. That was important. Just as important, so did her mother. After she’d been with him for a year, but not yet married, Marie had told her: “I’ve left Phil a bequest in my will, dear, that I thought you ought to know about. I’ve decided to leave him that painting of Saint-Lazare in the snow. The one by Norbert Goeneutte.”

“But I always loved that painting,” she’d cried.

“Yes, dear. I know.”

When Claire had asked Phil what he thought about a Parisian pied-à-terre, he’d been unequivocal.

“I think you should do it,” he said. “You’ve family there.”

“I don’t care too much about Jules’s family. And if Esmé wants to see me, he can get on a plane. He’s free, and he’s got all the money in the world. And I’m pretty much happy staying here with you, you know.”

“You mean you won’t take me to Paris?”

“Not for months at a time. You don’t speak French.”

“So I can learn. It’ll be a project.”

“I’m not going to ask you to do that for me.”

“The offer’s open.”

But she’d put the idea out of her mind, and spent a very pleasant summer sailing and seeing her grandchildren, and Phil’s.

And then Esmé, with his cheek and sense of humor, had sent her a telegram.

COME AT ONCE.

“This is ridiculous,” she’d said.

“Why don’t you go?” said Phil.



It was perfect, of course. It was delicious beyond all words. It was on the Île de la Cité itself, with a quaint living room with old beams, and two bedrooms, and a view over the Seine one way, and a glimpse of the flying buttresses of Notre Dame the other. It was romantic. It was fun.

“You can be on either the Left Bank or the Right in a five-minute walk,” the agent pointed out, when she and Esmé inspected it.

“It’s Friday,” Esmé said. “I’ll give you dinner tonight. Then we can go to the château for the weekend. I’ve already told them you’ll want to see it again on Monday. Then you can make up your mind.”

“You’ve already planned all this?”

“Yes,” he said.



They had dinner in the Marais quarter. Claire had always found that part of Paris interesting. Since the days when King Henry IV had built the lovely brick square of the Place Royale, the Marais had been home to so many of the great aristocratic hôtels, as they were called. But when the court had moved to Versailles, the nobles had little need of their Paris mansions, and many fell into disrepair. The aristocracy had usually gone to the Saint-Germain quarter, after that.

But if the grand old mansions had been split into tenements, and parts of the area had become a thriving Jewish quarter, and other parts had filled with poorer folk from one or other of France’s colonial possessions, whose streets, rightly or wrongly, had a bad reputation at night, one old square had retained its magical charm. The old Place Royale was called the Place des Vosges now. Apartments in its quiet brick mansions were favored by international stars and the artistic rich. It was chic.

And it was in a quiet restaurant under the old colonnades that Esmé and Claire enjoyed a mellow dinner, and talked of the old days when she ran Joséphine, and met Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein, and many others. And Esmé told her that he was thinking of buying an apartment in the Place des Vosges himself, and how André Malraux was cleaning up the whole area, and restoring the old mansions, and how they were planning a huge new cultural center over in the southwest corner of the Marais that would be like a sort of modernist cathedral when it was built.

But he was careful not to mention the subject of her pied-à-terre at all.

The next day they drove down to the château. Esmé didn’t spend as much time there as he should. He was too busy with his life in Paris. But the place had its chatelaine.

Claire had heard about Laïla, the Jewish girl whom they’d rescued in the war, but she’d never met her. She found a delightful woman in her thirties. Laïla had married recently, a local vet, and they had converted one of the stable yards into a delightful office and animal hospital, as well as a large apartment for themselves. It suited everybody.

“Laïla’s part of the family,” Esmé explained. “She knows far more about everything in the château than I do, and she keeps the place in wonderful order.”

When Laïla took Claire around, and explained all the furniture to her, it was clear that she had mastered her subject to an almost professional standard. Indeed, when she showed Claire her favorite unicorn tapestry, one might almost have thought that she owned it herself.

Claire spent a relaxing weekend at the château, enjoying the country air. Then Esmé drove her back to Paris. Upon parting from her, he reminded her that she had an appointment to see the place on the Île de la Cité the following morning, but that he would not accompany her.

“I’ll see you for dinner,” he said, “and you can tell me the verdict.”



Claire left the funicular behind her and went through the streets of Montmartre. She had only once before been up there for the wine festival, and that had been long ago. No doubt it was even busier at the weekend, but there was still plenty of activity. The little vineyard on the back of the hill was looking very charming. Below it, the streets of the old Maquis were looking quite respectable now. But the whole hill still retained a bright, intimate village atmosphere that probably went back to medieval or even Roman times. The wine from the grapes themselves was not too drinkable, but she found space at a table at the Lapin Agile where the men welcomed her very cheerfully and insisted on sharing their bottle of wine with her.

It took only a couple of drinks for her to feel very much at home.

Were they all from Montmartre? she asked.

No, they laughed, they were all from the car works out at Boulogne-Billancourt. But their foreman was from here.

He was a short, sturdy, thickset man, but with a kindly face. His grandfather had lived in the Maquis when he was a boy.

“You had to be tough to live in the Maquis,” one of the men said, and there was a chorus of agreement. Yes, one had to be tough.

She was quite definitely a little drunk by the time she thanked them and went back up the hill. She might be a little drunk, she thought, but it hadn’t helped her in the least decide what to do about that pied-à-terre. Did Phil really mean it when he said he wanted to learn French?



It was half an hour later that Marcel Gascon walked out onto the wide steps in front of the great white basilica of Sacré Coeur. It was a lovely afternoon, the light catching the towers of Notre Dame, the distant dome of Les Invalides and the graceful curve of the Eiffel Tower.

There were quite a few people about, but he noticed one woman sitting alone, staring out over the city. It was the woman who’d shared a drink with the boys a short time ago. She’d been an elegant woman, distinguished.

He’d rather wished the boys hadn’t made so much of the toughness of the Maquis. It was true, of course. But they made it sound as if everyone who came from there was crude, stupid, perhaps.

He went over to the woman, and stood beside her. She looked up and smiled.

“I come up here every year, madame, to look at the view.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He pointed at the Eiffel Tower.

“It never looks the same, the tower. Changes in the light. Like those Impressionists. You know. They’d paint the same thing in different lights. Different every time.”

“This is true,” said Claire.

“It’s made of iron, yet it looks so delicate. It’s masculine, but feminine.” He shrugged.

“That is very observant, monsieur. I agree with you.”

“Oui,” said Gascon, feeling quite pleased with himself. “It’s indestructible, that tower,” he continued with satisfaction. “Like a ship, weathers every storm.” He paused. “My grandfather built that tower,” he couldn’t resist adding.

“Really? That’s a fine thing. You must be very proud, monsieur.”

“Oui, madame. Have a good evening.”

Claire watched him go, then gazed at the view.

Now she knew. She’d better telephone Phil. She’d enjoy teaching him French.





Acknowledgments




Paris is first and foremost a novel. Other than the historical figures—from monarchs and ministers to Claude Monet and Ernest Hemingway—all the characters who make their appearances in its pages are entirely fictional. The names of these fictional families include some of the most common names in France, with two exceptions.

The name of Ney is chosen for reasons that the story will make clear; though Monsieur Ney and his daughter, Hortense, are, of course, entirely fictitious.

And the invented name de Cygne needs a word of technical explanation. The use of the particle “de,” which simply means “of,” is often a sign of a noble family. A man with this sort of name is addressed as “Monsieur de Cygne,” or spoken of as “Jean de Cygne.” But when using the family name or title by itself, we do not need the particle. Just as in English we may refer to the Duke of Wellington as “Wellington,” we should properly say “Cygne,” rather than “de Cygne.” In the case of French names, however—except when speaking of the most famous historical figures—it has become common nowadays to add the particle even where it’s not needed. And so in this novel I have referred to “de Cygne” and to the “de Cygne family,” rather than the more technically correct “Cygne” and “Cygne family.” I hope that purists will forgive me for this.

A few times in the tale, I have made some tiny adjustments to historical detail where absolute precision would have been confusing to the reader. For instance, the great minister of King Henry IV is called Sully, the name by which he is best known to history, although this was actually a title he gained two years after his appearance in the narrative. Insofar as possible, I have sought to avoid the use of more than one historical name for each given place or street. All named places are real with the sole exception of the little Chapel of Saint-Gilles. The saint is real, but his chapel is invented.

One error, however, I have allowed myself. In this novel, Ernest Hemingway attends the Paris Olympics on July 21, 1924. In fact, ignoring the games, he left for Pamplona on June 25 and did not return to Paris until July 27. But I feel he should have been at the games, even if he wasn’t! At other times, he certainly liked to visit the Vélodrome d’hiver, as related in the story.

While I have undertaken extensive research in writing this book, I have also been aided by the fact that, though I am of British origin, I have a large number of French cousins whose homes have been my own, in Paris, Fontainebleau and other places, ever since I was a child. And while none of those cousins, or my many French friends, make any personal appearances in this story, my familiarity with them, and my memory of many stories heard, were a great help to me in imagining the tales of French families interacting through the days of the Belle Époque, the two world wars and the French resistance.

To thank all these many people would take too much space. But I should like to record my particular debt, both for their hospitality and their historical and cultural advice in the preparation of this book, to Isabelle, Janine and Caroline Brizard, and to the late Jacques Sarton du Jonchay, whose memories of the interwar years were invaluable.

Similarly, rather than record my thanks to all the curators of the many museums and cultural institutions in Paris I have come to know down the years, I should like to recommend just two that readers might possibly overlook. The Musée Carnavalet in the Marais quarter takes one through the history of Paris magnificently. And the charming Musée de Montmartre is full of fascinating surprises.

Despite the fact that, even nowadays, I always finish each project with an enviable collection of printed books to add to my library, I have never thought it appropriate as a simple storyteller to supply a detailed bibliography for each novel. However, having enjoyed his books ever since I first read The Fall of Paris, his masterly account of the Siege and Commune of 1870–71, I could not fail as a reader to record forty years of gratitude to Sir Alistair Horne, whose books on France and on Paris continue to be such a delight.

Once again, my many thanks to Mike Morgenfeld for preparing maps with such exemplary care and patience.

And finally, as always, I thank my agent, Gill Coleridge, for her constant guidance and wisdom, and my two exemplary editors, Oliver Johnson at Hodder and William Thomas at Doubleday, for their vision, unstinting support and creative responses to the many challenges of a complex project of this kind. I also owe great thanks to Coralie Hunter at Doubleday, to Cara Jones at RCW and to Anne Perry at Hodder for their help in guiding the manuscript through its various stages.