Madame Fourcade's Secret War
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These ordinary men and women never planned to be heroes, but they were—every bit as much (and some perhaps even more) than the 1,038 enshrined in the Compagnons de la Libération. Although they were from varied walks of life and political backgrounds, a moral common denominator overrode all their differences: a refusal to be silenced and an iron determination to fight against the destruction of freedom and human dignity. In doing so, they, along with other members of the resistance, saved the soul and honor of France.
Equally important, they served as an example from the past of what ordinary people can do in the present and future when faced with existential threats to basic human rights. As Jeannie Rousseau noted many years after the war, “Resistance is a state of mind. We can exercise it at any moment.”
* Friend, do you hear the dark flight of crows over our plains? Friend, do you hear the muffled cries of a country in chains?
For Stan and Carly
A common thread unites the eight books I’ve written. They all focus in some way on unsung heroes—individuals of courage and conscience who helped change their country and the world but who, for various reasons, have slipped into the shadows of history. Since seven of those books deal with war, specifically World War II, it’s perhaps not surprising that most of the heroes I’ve spotlighted have been men. Madame Fourcade’s Secret War is the exception.
I first became aware of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade while doing research on the French resistance for my most recent book, Last Hope Island. There were only scattered mentions of her in the books and journals I consulted at the time, but the little I learned about this elegant young mother of two—the only woman to lead a major French resistance network—made me want to know more. As I dug deeper into her story and that of Alliance, I discovered that both were far richer than I could have imagined. I found it hard to believe that she was so little known in the United States, and I decided to correct that deficiency.
My most important source was Fourcade’s own wartime memoir. Intensely human, it describes in minute detail the satisfaction and joy, as well as the fear and terror, of fighting back against France’s Nazi occupiers. An English translation, entitled Noah’s Ark, was published in the United States in 1974. The original French version, L’Arche de Noé, was published in 1968.
Also helpful were memoirs written by two of Fourcade’s top lieutenants—Jean Boutron (De Mers-el-Kébir à Londres 1940–1944) and Ferdinand Rodriguez (L’Escalier Sans Retour). Rodriguez’s memoir, which focuses on his hellish sojourn in Gestapo prisons, is one of the most chilling, moving, and heartbreaking books I have ever read about World War II.
I also learned much from a French biography of Fourcade by the historian Michèle Cointet and from the writings of the American historian Valerie Deacon about the wartime activities of Fourcade, Georges Loustaunau-Lacau, and others belonging to the French right.
My heartfelt gratitude goes to Fourcade’s daughter, Pénélope Fourcade-Fraissinet; Rodriguez’s son and daughter, Patrick Rodriguez-Redington and Elizabeth Pernet; and Charles-Helen des Isnards, the son of Helen des Isnards, another key figure in Alliance. Their generosity in sharing with me their memories and insights into their parents and other Alliance members, along with providing me with several previously unpublished accounts of the network’s activities, was of crucial importance in bringing these amazing individuals to life on the page.
Of the many noteworthy experiences I had while researching this book, the one that immediately comes to mind is a cocktail party hosted by Charles-Helen des Isnards and his wife, Sylvie, in their elegant Paris apartment. The other guests included Pénélope Fourcade-Fraissinet and her husband and des Isnards’s five siblings and their spouses, who had traveled from all over France to be there. The warmth of their welcome to me and my friend and colleague, Dorie Denbigh-Laurent, reflected their pride in their parents and their extraordinary achievements during the war.
And speaking of the wise and beautiful Dorie Denbigh-Laurent, I owe her a particular debt of gratitude—not only for helping me with translations but also for her expert guidance and counsel on all things French. I could not have done this book without her.
I’d also like to thank Tom Chapin, the son of Sylvia Bridou Chapin Smith (Marie-Madeleine’s onetime sister-in-law), who gave me access to his mother’s unpublished roman à clef novel about her experiences and those of Marie-Madeleine’s family during the war.
Thanks, too, to the historians whose work on the French resistance, Vichy France, and MI6 I learned from and drew on in writing Madame Fourcade’s Secret War and my other books about World War II. I’d like to single out M.R.D. Foot, Robert O. Paxton, Julian Jackson, Keith Jeffery, Simon Kitson, H. R. Kedward, Douglas Porch, Robert and Isabelle Tombs, and David Schoenbrun.
Also helpful were the French national archives (Archives Nationales de France) in Paris and the archives of the French ministry of defense (Service Historique de la Défense) in Vincennes, both of which have considerable material on Alliance and its members (much of it available online). Their records include an account of Léon Faye’s life and his written notes of his capture by the Gestapo, failed escape from 84 avenue Foch, and nightmarish imprisonment in Germany.
The Association of Friends of Alliance (Association Amicale Alliance), an organization of the network’s members and families founded by Fourcade after the war, also produced documents relating to Alliance’s history, including a lengthy—and poignant—report memorializing its agents who were killed by the Germans.
I want to thank Julie Summers, the author of several wonderful histories set in England during World War II, including Jambusters and Our Uninvited Guests, for her help on a number of matters, including putting me in touch with Florence Smith, a talented young British researcher and historian. Florence was kind enough to track down for me the unpublished memoirs of the British diplomat Patrick Reilly at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
The outstanding collection of oral histories at the Imperial War Museum in London also proved to be extremely useful, particularly those of Hugh Verity and Barbara Bertram, who played major roles in the RAF’s wartime ferry service of Fourcade and other French intelligence agents between France and England.
Working on this book has been one of the most satisfying and enjoyable experiences of my writing life, in no small part because of the encouragement and guidance of my splendid editor, Susanna Porter, and the rest of the Random House team. I’ve also had the great good fortune to have the incomparable Gail Ross as my agent and friend—a relationship that has flourished for more than twenty years.
Above all, I must thank the loves of my life—my husband, Stan Cloud, and our daughter, Carly. You are my everything.
PROLOGUE
“minute elite”: Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Noah’s Ark: A Memoir of Struggle and Resistance (New York: Dutton, 1974), 10.
“a tough little animal”: David Schoenbrun, Soldiers of the Night: The Story of the French Resistance (New York: Dutton, 1980), Loc. 3483 (Kindle edition).
“resisters shared one characteristic”: M.R.D. Foot, Six Faces of Courage (Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword, 2003), 17.
“She was very independent”: Interview with Pénélope Fourcade-Fraissinet.
“not inclined to feminism”: Jean Novosseloff, book review of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade: A Leader of the Resistance, Fondation de la Résistance, fondationresistance.org/pages/rech_doc/marie-madeleine-fourcade-chef-resistance_cr_lecture55.html.
“She had enormous charisma”: Interview with Charles-Helen des Isnards.
“To this day”: J. E. Smyth, Fred Zinnemann and the Cinema of Resistance (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), 206.
“I don’t understand”: Jeannie Rousseau video interview with David Ignatius, International Spy Museum Archive, Washington, D.C.
CHAPTER 1: LEAPING INTO THE UNKNOWN
“The minds
of the French”: William Shirer, The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969), Loc. 3625 (Kindle edition).
“the stylish”: Harriet Sergeant, Shanghai: Collision Point of Cultures 1918–1939 (New York: Crown, 1990), 2.
“You could be”: “In the Mood for Cheong Sam: New Women in Old Shanghai Glamour,” that-obsession.tumblr.com/post/132366778412/in-the-mood-for-cheongsam-new-women-in-o.
“My mother loved”: Marie-Madeleine Fourcade radio interview, July 2, 1989.
“They wanted to speak”: Ibid.
“tagines of every kind”: Ibid.
“allow a husband”: Michèle Cointet, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade: Un Chef de la Résistance (Paris: Perrin, 2006), 17–18.
“people’s ineradicable love”: Stacy Schiff, Saint-Exupéry: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1995), Loc. 4875 (Kindle edition).
“You seemed interested”: Cointet, 24.
“One of my Belgian”: Ibid., 24–25.
CHAPTER 2: THE CHAOS OF DEFEAT
“were the reckless agents”: Valerie Deacon, The Extreme Right in the French Resistance: Members of the Cagoules and Corvignolles in the Second World War (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2016), 84.
“A man of the utmost”: M.R.D. Foot, Six Faces of Courage (London: Eyre Methuen, 1978), 46.
“It is neither”: Deacon, 83.
“an anthill”: Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years 1940–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 100.
“all the ugliness”: Charles Glass, Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation (New York: Penguin, 2009), 79.
“We had lost”: Jackson, 120.
“a stream of lava”: Eric Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream (New York: Atheneum, 1976), 148.
“too few arms”: Robert Tombs and Émile Chabal, eds., Britain and France in Two World Wars: Truth, Myth and Memory (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 10.
“the apocalypse”: Tom Keene, Cloak of Enemies: Churchill’s SOE, Enemies at Home and the Cockleshell Heroes (Staplehurst, UK: Spellmount, 2012), Loc. 3878 (Kindle edition).
“How dare you say”: Cointet, 48.
“Whatever happens”: Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 1890–1944 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), 225.
CHAPTER 3: FIGHTING BACK
“Never was Vichy”: Schoenbrun, Loc. 3405.
“the physical”: Shirer, Loc. 18120.
“says, ‘the Marshal’ ”: Jean Guéhenno, Diary of the Dark Years 1940–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 93.
“the Marshal’s authority”: Lynne Olson, Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War (New York: Random House, 2017), 129.
“She never operated”: Interview with Charles-Helen des Isnards.
“aristocracy of defeat”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 25.
“The Marshal received”: Jean Boutron, De Mers el-Kébir à Londres 1940–1944 (Paris: Plon, 1980), 160.
“You know very well”: Cointet, 61.
“the first stronghold”: Deacon, 87.
“The hackneyed phrase”: Jackson, 406.
“The French have”: M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France: An Account of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940–1944 (London: HMSO, 1966).
“We must learn”: Schoenbrun, Loc. 1338.
“watch, resist, and unite”: H. R. Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 43.
“the fight must go on”: Schoenbrun, Loc. 2298.
CHAPTER 4: SPYING IN MARSEILLE
“An immense”: Boutron, 107.
“But we are not”: Ibid., 15.
“This bloody armistice”: Ibid., 43.
“with the same principles”: Ibid., 154.
“the pivot around”: Ibid, 169.
“the memory”: Ibid.
“Marseille residents”: Simon Kitson, Police and Politics in Marseille, 1936–1945 (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2014), 5.
“I swear to fight”: Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper, Paris After the Liberation 1944–1949 (New York: Penguin, 2004), 13.
“discreetly anti-Nazi”: Kitson, Police and Politics in Marseille, 1936–1945, 96.
“Who wouldn’t wish”: Ibid.
“Good God!”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 33.
“Collaboration was not”: Simon Kitson, The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 6.
“there was no inherent”: Frenay, 167.
“all the hopes”: Ibid., 97.
CHAPTER 5: THE BIRTH OF ALLIANCE
“a remarkably quick”: Sylvia Bridou Smith, unpublished manuscript.
“seemed to be everywhere”: Schoenbrun, Loc. 3624.
“It is, of course, urgent”: Keene, Loc. 1342.
“there was no contact”: Keene, Loc. 1356.
“very distressing”: Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight over World War II, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2013), 291.
“even now England”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 6: DANGER IN PARIS
“it turned out to be”: Schoenbrun, Loc. 6590.
“enthusiastic volunteers”: Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of MI6 (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), Loc. 6990 (Kindle edition).
“The buffet was groaning”: David Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation, 1940–1944 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981), 71.
“Fashion was, for the French”: Anne Sebba, Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), Loc. 4104 (Kindle edition).
CHAPTER 7: TAKING COMMAND
“left me gasping”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 37.
“Algeria had felt”: Boutron, 184.
“The next time”: Schoenbrun, Loc. 6409.
“She is the most”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 47.
“She had a natural”: Interview with Pénélope Fourcade-Fraissinet.
“For months”: Boutron, 182.
“Everyone worships”: Ibid., 194.
“pronounce the name”: Ibid.
“Enough, little one”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 66.
N1 ARRESTED THIS MORNING: Cointet, 109–110.
CHAPTER 8: A NETWORK IN PERIL
“at bars, restaurants”: Schoenbrun, Loc. 7011.
“It’s open war”: Paul Paillole, Fighting the Nazis: French Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 1933–1945 (Enigma Books, 2003), 253.
“At the grass roots”: Ibid., 254.
“Vichy is betting”: Boutron, 221.
CHAPTER 9: THE MAILBAG
“From the bag”: Boutron, 232.
“I’m back”: Ibid., 236.
“These are diplomatic”: Ibid.
“only people with foreign names”: Anthony Cave Brown, “C”: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 131.
“letting women run”: M.R.D. Foot and J. L. Langley, MI9: Escape and Evasion 1939–1945 (London: Biteback Publishing, 2011), 80.
“Your network must last”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 86.
CHAPTER 10: THE RETURN OF LÉON FAYE
“At last!”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 166.
“I’m prepared to”: Ibid., 173.
CHAPTER 11: A GAME OF WITS
“Who is ASO 43?”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 107.
“a sharp-eyed”: Schoenbrun, Loc. 3655.
“We’re going to arrest”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 111.
“By the way”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 12
: “AN UNDISPUTED LEADER”
“They’re after you again!”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 131.
“She performed”: Ferdinand Rodriguez, L’Escalier Sans Retour (Paris: Éditions France-Empire, 1984), 138.
“I carried messages”: Monique Bontinck Rodriguez, unpublished manuscript.
“Faye is obsessed”: Cointet, 130.
“fact had outpaced”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 9.
“he, like so many”: Adam Bartos and Colin MacCabe, Remembering Chris Marker (New York: OR Books, 2017), 28.
“A woman”: Léon Faye, biography, Reseau Alliance website, reseaualliance.e-monsite.com/pages/biographie-des-membres/leon-faye-bis.html.
“She was young”: “Le Réseau Alliance,” French television interview, Sept. 27, 1968.
CHAPTER 13: SITTING ON A BARREL OF GUNPOWDER
“We were all”: Hugh Verity, We Landed by Moonlight: The Secret RAF Landings in France 1940–1944 (Manchester, UK: Crécy Publishing, 2000), 197.
“I was rather pleased”: Ibid., 84.
“were only vulnerable”: Ibid., 9.
“Well, I’ve got”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 142.
CHAPTER 14: THE TRAITOR
“We’ve got you”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 147.
“You can’t imagine”: Ibid., 150.
“You’re exhausted”: Ibid., 152.