The Cost of Courage (30 page)

39
   
“We triumph,” declares the chief judge: This quote was famous among his grandchildren. Some thought his words referred to the inferior social class of their fellow
Dreyfusards,
but Christiane Boulloche believed his comments were just about politics. “He was a republican, and most of Dreyfus’s supporters were leftists,” she explained. She thought her ancestors had abandoned the conventional wisdom of their social milieu because they were magistrates. “When you’re a magistrate, you do have a particular point of view — you’re in favor of justice.” And to these magistrates, it had always been obvious that Dreyfus was innocent.

40
   A young friend: Author’s interview with Dr. René Cler, March 17, 1999.

41
   Their parents encourage: Letter from Dr. Robert Desmond, collection of Agnès Boulloche.

42
   Trains, planes, and automobiles: Dr. Robert Desmond, Témoignage, p. 17.

43
   As a teenager:
André Boulloche, 1915–1978,
p. 12, Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury.

44
   No priest ever joins them: Mathilde Damoisel’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, Paris, February 3, 1997.

45
   Christiane is certain: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.

46
   Their parents’ favorite writers: Author’s telephone interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, November 21, 2003.

47
   Jacques plays the piano: Mathilde Damoisel’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, February 3, 1997.

48
   who are suddenly forbidden: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.

49
   In a letter home: Letter from Hélène Boulloche to André Boulloche, March 12, 1926, collection of Agnès Boulloche.

50
   When the parents finally return: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.

51
   “It was implicit”: Ibid.

52
   “It was as if the plague”:
New York Times,
September 1, 1989.

53
   “Either he could ally”: Stokesbury,
Short History of World War II,
p. 65.

54
   “Germans Rush Gayly”:
New York Times,
September 3, 1939, p. 11.

55
   “Throughout the 30’s”:
New York Times,
September 1, 1989.

56
   gape “at each other”: Churchill,
Second World War,
I:434.

57
   
most French officers still believe in: Ibid., II:32.

58
   “new and exciting adventure”: Mathilde Damoisel’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, February 10, 1997.

59
   “an imperialist and capitalist crime”: Churchill,
Second World War,
I:511–12.

60
   undermined by shortages: Jackson,
France,
p. 116.

61
   “raring to go”: Quoted ibid., p. 117.

62
   “scores of towns”: Churchill,
Second World War,
II:53.

63
   At the end of the emergency: Ousby,
Occupation,
p. 43.

64
   Across the channel:
New York Times,
June 1 and 2, 1940.

65
   mobs of refugees: Quoted in Jackson,
France,
p. 120.

66
   “This is what we dreaded”:
New York Times,
June 4, 1940.

67
   “I can’t describe”: Letter from Jacques Boulloche, collection of Agnès Boulloche.

68
   There are twenty thousand people: Ousby,
Occupation,
p. 46.

69
   “The German guns”:
New York Times,
June 12, 1940.

70
   “My Beloved”: Letter from Jacques Boulloche, collection of Agnès Boulloche.

71
   “Had all of us in France”: Commandant le Baron de Vomécourt, who served with both the British Army and the French Resistance during the war, replies with an emphatic yes to Captain Liddell Hart’s article, “Was the Maquis Worthwhile?” Peter [aka Pierre] de Vomécourt, [London]
Daily Mail,
February 4, 1947.

72
   There are ninety thousand: Ousby,
Occupation
, p. 33.

73
   Meanwhile, French prime minister Paul Reynaud: Churchill,
Second World War,
II:176.

74
   A French minister of state: Ibid., pp. 180, 184, 187. The minister was Jean Ybarnégaray.

75
   A prescient Reynaud: Jackson,
France,
p. 389.

76
   At nine
A
.
M
.: de Gaulle,
Complete War Memoirs,
p. 80.

77
   “carried with him”: Churchill,
Second World War,
II:192.

78
   André distinguishes himself: Biography of Jean-Pierre Berger,
www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/82.html
. André gave different dates in different places for this departure date. In 1943, he told British intelligence officers that the ship had left France on June 22 and reached Algeria on the day of the Armistice. Seven years later, he thought he had left on June 24 and arrived two days later.

79
   
He thinks “that we [will] win”: Letter from André Boulloche to C. Hettier de Boislambert, Grand Chancelier de L’Ordre de la Liberation, June 13, 1969, French National Archives, box 72AJ2056.

80
   On June 21: Churchill says 21 deputies; Ousby says 19. In a speech before the National Assembly, its president, Raymond Fourni, said there had been 26 deputies and 1 senator aboard.

81
   “I embarked on the
Massilia
”: Ophuls,
The Sorrow and the Pity,
pp. 59–60.

82
   Churchill noted with disgust: Churchill,
Second World War,
II:193–94.

83
   One and a half million French prisoners: Jackson,
France,
p. 127.

84
   At the end of the opera tour: Albert Speer,
Inside the Third Reich,
pp. 171–72.

85
   “My Dear Father”: Letter from André Boulloche, collection of Agnès Boulloche.

86
   “And they sang well”: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.

87
   She sees it as: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.

88
   “It was a succession of shocks”: Mathilde Damoisel’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, February 10, 1997.

89
   “You should have been here”: Eparvier,
À Paris sous la botte des Nazis.

90
   This is when Christiane: Mathilde Damoisel’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, February 3, 1997.

91
   Three months later: Ousby,
Occupation
, p. 99.

92
   By the start of 1941: Jackson,
France,
p. 356.

93
   Adding insult to the humiliation: Ousby,
Occupation
, p. 182.

94
   As the British historian: Jackson,
France,
p. 243.

95
   Like his father: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.

96
   But he has a terrific sense of humor: Author’s interview with Agnès Boulloche, December 8, 2001.

97
   At the end of 1940: “Hommage à André Boulloche,” p. 13.

98
   He is appalled by the savage sight: Author’s interview with André Postel-Vinay, Paris, February 2, 2004.

99
   “war is the only way”: Author’s interview with Claire Andrieu (Postel-Vinay’s daughter), January 31, 2004.

100
 
In December 1940: Jackson,
France,
p. 403;
Ordre de la liberation
website, biography of André Postel-Vinay,
www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/801.html
.

101
 “I know someone”: Author’s interview with André Postel-Vinay, February 2, 2004.

102
 “Andre was very passionate”: Ibid.

103
 “For the two of us”: Ibid.

104
 “Then whose bombers are those”: Stokesbury,
Short History of World War II,
p. 150.

105
 visit it for the first time: Shirer,
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,
p. 1039.

106
 he believes that they are reaching London: When Pierre Pène is arrested, he sees in the Gestapo’s dossier the plan for the works at Margival, which was supposed to have arrived in London.

107
 never discusses his clandestine: Author’s interview with Dr. René Cler, March 17, 1999.

108
 Churchill hopes that he will attract: Jackson,
France
, p. 389.

109
 “Their idea was to get out”: Ophuls,
The Sorrow and the Pity,
pp. 56, 58.

110
 Only one deputy: Paxton,
Vichy France,
p. 42.

111
 de Gaulle notices: Jackson,
France,
p. 398.

112
 felt like a man who had been skinned alive: Ibid., pp. 392–93.

113
 There was one other thing: Ibid., p. 396.

114
 But the general sees: Ibid., p. 397.

115
 Not until November: Ibid., pp. 397–98.

116
 At the same time, French-language: Ibid., p. 398.

117
 Almost anyone who volunteers: Ibid., p. 399.

118
 “The island of Sein stands watch”: Ousby,
Occupation,
p. 44.

119
 Nearly all of what Dewavrin knows: Jackson,
France,
p. 399.

120
 an almost inevitable invasion:
New York Times
, June 1 and 6, 1940.

121
 “Everywhere a feeling”: Orwell,
Diaries,
p. 299.

122
 Three years later: Nicholas Lemann, “The Murrow Doctrine,”
New Yorker
, January 23 and 30, 2006.

123
 “could not agree to forcing De Gaulle”: Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe,
p. 248.

124
 “The familiar slur”: Ousby,
Occupation,
p. 236.

125
 “a very, very explicit act”: Author’s telephone interview with Robert Paxton, January 29, 2004. In 2014, Paxton told me he had recently seen an interview on the Internet with Pétain’s chauffeur saying the Cadillac
had been left on the dock in Bordeaux by someone fleeing in June 1940, and Pétain had purchased it then, so Paxton was no longer certain that the automobile was a gift of the American ambassador. However, most other sources agree that it came from Admiral Leahy.

126
 American public opinion begins to rally: Ibid.

127
 “vitally interested statement”:
New York Times,
June 22, 1941.

128
 “This was our obsessive fear”: Boulloche Audibert,
Souvenirs.

129
 Thanks to their complicity: Postel-Vinay,
Un fou s’évade,
p. 8, used by permission of the author’s estate.

130
 At that moment: Ibid., pp. 8–9.

131
 And yet he still doesn’t want: Ibid., p. 9. Most of the rest of this chapter is taken from
Un fou s’évade.

132
 Probably to avoid:
www.rafinfo.org.uk/rafescape/guerisse.htm
.

133
 Postel-Vinay considers: Remarks of Postel-Vinay honoring André Boulloche, January 26, 1986.

134
 His ultimate nightmare: This and most of chapter 9 is from Postel-Vinay,
Un fou s’évade.

135
 And when a downed British or American: Author’s interview with Claire Andrieu, January 31, 2004.

136
 Patriotic School has been created: Andrew,
Defend the Realm,
p. 250.

137
 Those identified as “goats”: Ibid., p. 251.

138
 The big question is: Stokesbury,
Short History of World War II,
p. 224.

139
 As Operation Torch begins:
www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/421107b.html
.

140
 De Gaulle observed that by not firing: de Gaulle,
Complete War Memoirs,
p. 358.

141
 It would be a huge prize: Ibid., p. 359.

142
 Just one destroyer: Ibid.

143
 There is an immediate uproar: Stokesbury,
Short History of World War II,
pp. 228–29.

144
 “There was a tremendous outcry”: Author’s telephone interview with Robert Paxton, January 29, 2004.

145
 “If the tragic character”: De Gaulle,
Complete War Memoirs
, p. 379. This is the other key paragraph about Darlan’s assassination in de Gaulle’s book:
The man who had killed him, Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle, had made himself the instrument of the aggravated passions that had fired the souls around him to the boiling point but behind which, perhaps,
moved a policy determined to liquidate a “temporary expedient” after having made use of him. This young man, this child overwhelmed by the spectacle of odious events, thought his action would be a service to his lacerated country, would remove from the road to French reconciliation an obstacle shameful in his eyes. He believed, moreover, as he repeatedly said until the moment of his execution, that an intervention would be made in his behalf by some outside source so high and powerful that the North African authorities could not refuse to obey it. Of course no individual has the right to kill save on the field of battle. Moreover, Darlan’s behavior as a governor and as a leader was answerable to national justice, not, certainly, to that of a group or an individual. Yet how could we fail to recognize the nature of the intentions that inspired his juvenile fury? That is why the strange, brutal and summary way the investigation was conducted in Algiers, the hasty and abbreviated trial before a military tribunal convened at night and in private session, the immediate and secret execution of Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle, the orders given to the censors that not even his name should be known — all these led to the suspicion that someone wanted to conceal at any price the origin of his decision and constituted a kind of defiance of those circumstances which, without justifying the drama, explained and, to a certain degree, excused it.