Brave Genius Page 26

  Rol directed the distribution of the homemade explosives from his underground command post as he followed the movements of tanks around the city. One of the tanks menacing the Hôtel de Ville was knocked out when a young woman crawled up onto it and tossed an explosive Champagne bottle into its open turret. At a barricade in front of the Police Commissariat in the fifth arrondissement, a man ran out and smashed a bottle into one tank’s ventilator, setting it on fire. Both attackers were gunned down before they could make their escapes.

  HOW LONG THE FFI could hold out with its few and primitive weapons and little ammunition (except that captured from the Germans), or how long Parisians could manage with little or no electricity and a dwindling food supply, was not certain.

  To the west in Normandy, General Eisenhower was having second thoughts about Paris. Only a day after their meeting in person, he had received a letter from de Gaulle trying to convince him once again to send the Allies immediately to Paris. De Gaulle had been receiving repeated appeals from Parodi and his military delegate in Paris. He wrote to Eisenhower: “Information received today from Paris leads me to believe that … serious trouble may shortly be expected in the capital.” The situation was so critical, de Gaulle urged, that Paris should be taken “even if it should produce fighting and damage in the interior of the city.” While Eisenhower pondered de Gaulle’s message, Generals Bradley and Sibert arrived at his headquarters with news that a representative of the Resistance in Paris had reached them and was pleading for help, warning of a potential massacre if the Allies didn’t come soon.

  Eisenhower relented. The Falaise Gap had been closed; the Allies had taken 50,000 prisoners and killed another 10,000 Germans, bringing the overall German losses in Normandy to a staggering 200,000 dead and another 200,000 taken prisoner. There was no reason to hold Leclerc any longer, and good reasons to send him to Paris. While the DB was not the closest Allied division to the city—it was still 120 miles away—Eisenhower would keep his word and send Leclerc’s division to Paris, with the support of the US 4th Armored Division. Bradley and Sibert flew back to give Leclerc the news. Leclerc returned just before nightfall to his command post in an orchard in Fleuré and shouted from his Jeep: “Mouvement immédiat sur Paris!”

  “THEY SHALL NOT PASS”

  The next morning’s issue of Combat (August 23) reported on the previous day’s battles around the city, and noted that the Allies were rolling toward Paris. One could ask, as Camus did in his editorial, since the Allies were coming, why should Parisians risk the fight? He was again looking beyond the immediate prospect of liberation to the future dividends of the struggle:

  What is an insurrection? It is the people in arms. What is the people? It is that in a nation which refuses ever to bend its knee.

  A nation is worth what its people are worth, and if ever we were tempted to doubt our country, the image of its sons on the march, brandishing rifles, should fill us with overwhelming certitude that this nation is equal to the loftiest of destinies and is about to win its resurrection along with its freedom …

  The enemy ensconced in the city must not be allowed to leave. The retreating enemy must not be allowed to reenter. They shall not pass.

  To those Frenchmen bereft of memory and imagination, forgetful of honor, heedless of shame, and cushioned by their own personal comforts who ask, “What good can any of this do?” we feel compelled to respond here and now.

  A people that wants to live does not wait for its freedom to be delivered to it. It takes its own. And in so doing it helps itself as it helps those who seek to help it. Every German who is prevented from leaving Paris means one bullet less for the Allied soldiers and our French comrades in the East. Our future, our revolution, depend entirely on the present moment, echoing with cries of anger and with the wrath of liberty.

  While Camus wrote for Parisians, Monod and Noufflard prepared official FFI communiqués for the radio and the outside world. That same morning, Noufflard typed and sent a cable to Philo in Switzerland reporting on the state of Paris as of August 22:

  Give through Swiss press and foreign correspondents widest diffusion to following informations [sic]. Stop. Since August 19 FFI and risen Parisian population are fighting the enemy. Stop. Entirely rallied to FFI, Police holding Prefecture and Palais de Justice. Stop. Furious enemy assaults with tanks repelled. Several tanks destroyed. Stop. Combats all over Paris between FFI patrols and German patrols. Stop. Enemy checked everywhere suffering heavy losses men and material. Stop. All town halls and ministries occupied by new administration. Stop. New newspapers issued. Three radio transmitters broadcasting informations [sic] and instructions. Stop. Military command secured by Rol Regional Chief FFI.

  Encouraged by posters, communiqués, and perhaps Camus’s very words, the fighting continued. As exhilarating as the sight was of Parisians liberating their city, it made getting from place to place very dangerous. Noufflard took daily communiqués to the newly reoccupied Ministry of Information on the rue de Lille, on the Left Bank, close to the Seine and contested areas. A short distance away, smoke was pouring out of the Grand Palais, which had been destroyed in a German attack. Noufflard and Monod arrived early that evening to find Pierre Schaeffer, the engineer in charge of transmission, discussing his concerns with the minister about the safety of the studios. With the sound of gunfire going on outside Monod said, “Why don’t we give up tonight’s transmission? Tomorrow we will try to provide you with a guard.” Schaeffer shrugged and replied, “You know perfectly well that I shall transmit, even with no guard at all,” and then he left for the studios nearby.

  Monod and Noufflard left the Ministry on their bicycles, but as they approached the rue de Grenelle, near the studio building, they heard gunfire. Then, they saw a tank—the Germans were attacking the radio building. They feared for their friend Schaeffer but could do nothing. Soon they saw FFI men with rifles and hand grenades working their way house-by-house up the street to meet the Germans.

  Monod and Noufflard waited nervously for the squad to pass out of sight before they crossed the street and hurried back to a friend’s house nearby. There, they anxiously turned on the radio. At seven o’clock, they heard Schaeffer’s calm voice reading their communiqué, with gunfire in the background.

  A DAY OF RUMORS, THE NIGHT OF TRUTH

  “The Americans are coming.” “The Allies are just outside Paris.” “Panzers are coming to defend Paris.” “The Germans are going to blow up the bridges and monuments.” All sorts of rumors were swirling around Paris. Each of these four, however, did have some element of veracity. Hitler had ordered repeatedly that Paris be “defended to the last man” and that all of the bridges across the Seine be mined in preparation for their destruction. He had also personally ordered the movement of two SS Panzer divisions to defend the city. On the night of August 22, he told his commander in the west, “The defense of the Paris bridgehead is of decisive military and political importance … In history the loss of Paris always means the loss of France … Paris must not fall into the hands of the enemy except as a field of ruins.” All of the bridges had indeed been mined, and only the day before, explosive charges had been placed under Les Invalides, the Palais du Luxembourg, the Palais Bourbon, and Notre-Dame.

  The Panzers were not yet in position, but the Allies were very close. Camus confirmed that rumor by sending a writer and Pierre Gallimard out of the city to the Allied lines. They met an American major twenty-five miles southwest of Paris who told them, “We are coming.” The story ran in that morning’s newspaper, but the major probably did not know that the French DB was intended to be the first into Paris. The DB was fighting its way in along three routes. When it would get there, and how the Germans would react once it did, no one knew.

  FIERCE FIGHTING CONTINUED at German strongpoints within Paris, especially near the Place de la République. Monod and Noufflard spent the day bicycling across the city, going from barricade to barricade. They, too, had heard that the Allies were close. That eveni
ng, they were at a friend’s home on rue Vaneau, listening to the radio as Pierre Schaeffer was reading out a flurry of communiqués, reports, and rumors. At 9:32, they heard correspondent Pierre Crenesse break in to announce that tanks of the DB had arrived at the Hôtel de Ville.

  “Parisians, rejoice!” Schaeffer exclaimed. “The Leclerc Division has entered Paris. We are mad with happiness.”

  He then read three lines from Victor Hugo’s Punishments:

  Awake! Be done with shame!

  Become again great France!

  Become again great Paris!

  Then Schaeffer played “La Marseillaise”:

  Allons les enfants de la Patrie

  Le jour de gloire est arrivé!…

  [Arise, children of the Fatherland, the day of glory has arrived.]

  Then he asked that “all the parish priests ring their church bells.”

  Monod and Noufflard opened the windows and waited … They heard a bell in the distance, then another one closer, and soon a chorus of bells across the city—from Notre-Dame to Sacré-Coeur, ringing for the first time in four years.

  NOUFFLARD AND MONOD wanted to join the celebration in the streets, but Monod could not leave the house. He had to wait for a phone call from General Joinville, the head of the FFI. There was a preset plan to take over the Ministry of War, and the call could come at any moment. Monod told Noufflard to go on out while he waited.

  She went out into the street. People were singing and shouting; a café had opened its front windows, spilling light onto the street. Noufflard was still wearing her FFI armband; the crowd saw it and started chanting: “Vive les FFI!”

  She wanted to get across the Seine to the French tanks. But when she reached the river, a German Tiger tank was patrolling and firing its large gun. Gunshots were still ringing out in the area, so she thought better of it and turned back.

  Just after she returned, the phone rang. Joinville ordered Monod to go to the Ministry of War. “You are coming with me,” he said to Noufflard.

  The Ministry was not far—about five large blocks away on the rue Saint-Dominique—but it was very dark and they could not see anything, not even each other. The gunfire was still ongoing, so they pressed against the walls as they crept down rue Casimir Périer. Noufflard kept her hand on Monod’s back so as not to lose contact with him. As they started to cross the small park across from Sainte-Clotilde church, there was more gunfire very close by. Too close, Noufflard thought. She could not tell whether it was coming from the bell tower or the bushes. “Who are they shooting at?” she wondered, before realizing that it was she and Monod. It was so dark, she figured whoever it was could only aim in the direction of the sound of their footsteps—the only sound, besides gunshots, that could be heard on the street.

  When they reached the door to the Ministry, they were stopped by a group of FFI men with tommy guns; they were there to guard Monod and Noufflard. They entered a grand hallway of large black-and-white flagstones, decorated with armor, and were then led into a large salon. Sitting in a circle of elegant, high-backed eighteenth-century armchairs was a group of military men in civilian clothes. They were mostly generals and colonels attached to the Vichy government. They appeared a bit stunned to see Monod and Noufflard, who were disheveled and dirty from pedaling across the city. She was wearing an old skirt, and her legs were black with grease from her bicycle chain; Monod was in a suit that was too small for him and that had been mended at the knees. Nevertheless, the assembled gentlemen were to turn over the Ministry to them.

  Noufflard was awestruck by the surroundings. The salon was in the oldest part of the Ministry building that was once the residence of Laetitia Bonaparte, Napoleon’s mother. It had very tall windows that were draped with immense blue damask curtains, fine gold-and-ivory-colored paneling, and a massive mahogany desk in the center. A spectacular chandelier hung from the ceiling.

  The conversation was cordial but was interrupted from time to time by the din of battles outside. One of the windows was pierced by a bullet, and the louder detonations made the chandelier shake and swing, so everyone was careful not to stand under it. A case of champagne appeared, booty reclaimed from an apartment that had been occupied by Germans. Fine crystal goblets were brought out and filled. Everyone stood as one of the generals made a formal toast to “Victory.” The Vichy men then said farewell.

  As the time approached two in the morning, the FFI officers insisted that Noufflard get some sleep. She was too excited and resisted at first, until they showed her the bedroom. It was Madame Mère’s—Napoleon’s mother’s bedroom—with a beautiful little square boudoir with ivory-and-gold paneling and embossed yellow velvet. Still too excited to sleep, she decided to write a letter to her parents to reveal, after eight months of secrecy, that she was in the FFI working for her “illustrious boss,” Commandant Monod, and to tell them about the historic night in Paris.

  NOUFFLARD WAS NOT the only Parisian up writing in the wee hours that night; Camus and the staff of Combat had a newspaper to put together. The morning’s headline would read:

  AFTER FOUR YEARS OF HOPE AND STRUGGLE FRENCH TROOPS ENTER INTO THE LIBERATED CAPITAL

  For the fifth consecutive day, Camus sought the most apt prose for the historic moment, this “Night of Truth”:

  As freedom’s bullets continue to whistle through city streets, the cannon of liberation are passing through the gates of Paris amid shouts and flowers. On this sultriest and most beautiful of August nights, the permanent stars in the skies mix with tracer rounds, smoke from burning buildings, and multicolored rockets proclaiming the people’s joy. This night unlike any other ends four years of a monstrous history and an unspeakable struggle that saw France at grips with its shame and its fury.

  Those who never lost hope for themselves or their country are finding their reward tonight. This night is a world unto itself: it is the night of truth. The truth in arms, the truth in battle, the truth in power after languishing for so many years empty-handed and chest bared …

  Four years ago, a few men rose up amid the ruins and despair and quietly proclaimed that nothing was lost yet. They said that the war must go on and that the forces of good could always triumph over the forces of evil provided the price was paid. They paid that price. And the cost was indeed heavy: it had the weight of blood and the terrible oppressiveness of prison. Many of those men died, while others spent years enclosed within windowless walls. That was the price that had to be paid …

  Harsh battles still await us. But peace will return to this gutted earth and to hearts tormented by hope and memories …

  Nothing is given to mankind, and what little men can conquer must be paid for with unjust deaths. But man’s grandeur lies elsewhere, in his decision to rise above his condition. And if his condition is unjust, he has only one way to overcome it, which is to be just himself. Our truth tonight, the truth that hovers in the August sky, is in fact man’s consolation. What gives our heart peace, as it gave peace to our dead comrades, is that we can say before the impending victory, without scolding and without pressing any claim of our own, “We did what had to be done.”

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 25

  Dawn broke to a perfect clear-blue-sky summer morning. General Joinville arrived at the Ministry of War. With lumps in their throats, Noufflard and the FFI general staff watched as an FFI guard presented arms and the French tricolor was raised over the building. The staff then went to greet General Leclerc while Noufflard stayed behind to handle communications, the sole representative of the FFI in the Ministry.

  Early that morning, American columns and more of the DB arrived triumphantly in the city, swarmed by hordes of ecstatic Parisians. Paris, however, was not yet free. As they reached the city center, the liberators began to encounter German strongpoints. Large numbers of German troops held the École Militaire, the Senate (Palais du Luxembourg), the Chamber of Deputies (Palais Bourbon), and the area around von Choltitz’s headquarters on the rue de Rivoli. Fresh battles erupted at each loca
tion.

  The Chamber of Deputies was just behind the Ministry of War. From her elegantly appointed post, Noufflard looked out over a shady garden where FFI men had taken positions behind a high wall and were exchanging fire with Germans on the other side. The Germans had a heavy gun firing from the Chamber of Deputies, and an occasional shell passed over the Ministry and onto buildings across the rue Saint-Dominique. The chandeliers were swinging again, and the racket was deafening. It was very difficult for Noufflard to answer the constantly ringing phones.

  Finally, in the late afternoon, the fighting around the Chamber of Deputies died down and the officers returned to the Ministry. Noufflard showed a newly arrived member of the staff around the building and pointed out the flag flying over the main entrance on rue Saint-Dominique. Then, to their astonishment, the front gate opened and a long black Hotchkiss sedan bearing a tricolor flag with the Croix de Lorraine pulled in. A very tall man in a general’s uniform stepped out and looked up at the Ministry building. They had never seen a picture of de Gaulle, but they knew that it was him—the voice they had listened to over the BBC during four years of occupation. Noufflard ran to alert the general staff.

  De Gaulle had just accepted von Choltitz’s surrender at Leclerc’s headquarters at the Gare Montparnasse. He then came straight to the Ministry where he had once worked.