To-day we were for the first time in company with a real live maquis, we were in a taxi and he came along to go to Culoz, and we were delighted, he had the tricolor on his shoulder and looked bronzed and capable, we are Americans we said, yes we know he said, and we solemnly shook hands and congratulated each other, he was a captain in the maquis, and he had been a prisoner in Germany, had escaped two years ago and went back to his job in the water-ways and bridges and joined the maquis and has been working with them ever since, we were all pleased, but everybody is pleased these days, one can hardly realise how strange it seems to see everybody smiling and everybody is smiling.
The maquis were pretty wonderful of course now they are armed and more or less superior in numbers to the Germans they attack and besides they are sure of victory but when they first began to block the German transport system, they were practically unarmed, they were inferior in numbers, they were often betrayed by their compatriots and still they managed to cut railroad lines block tunnels blow up bridges, and besides all their other troubles they had to receive the material sent them by airplane and get away with it and hide and manufacture it and use it all in the face of a heavily occupied country with enemy guards all along, and the poor maquis many of them hungry and cold and not too favorably regarded by many of their countrymen, it was a kind of a Valley Forge with no General Washington but each little band had to supply itself with its own food its own plans and its own morale. We who lived in the midst of you salute you.
While I was walking yesterday evening as I passed through a village little voices came out of the dark saying are not you afraid of the curfew Madame.
On the other hand the little boys who have been playing at being maquis in odd corners and in secret now play it in the open streets, with red white and blue on their shoulders their fathers’ war helmets on their heads and their wooden mitraillettes in their hands, when some one asked them what would you do if the Germans came back. No Germans can come back.
Everybody is waiting, they say it goes so fast it makes them feel as if they were at a cinema. They have completely forgotten that they used to moan and say if they would only hurry. And besides they are so very much better fed, not in the big cities alas, but here in the small towns, the maquis, are doing all the policing, they have announced formally that the Vichy government does not any longer function and that they are the government, and with the assistance of the mayor they are going to feed and police the population. Already we have had supplementary butter wine and cheese, and now they are here the people are talking wildly of supplementary white bread and sardines but that is decidedly premature, anyway the maquis are now in command it puts its notices up on the mairie it sends the town crier around with his trumpet to announce what we are all to do and everybody is pleased because it is French and easy, and conversational and all who want can gather together and talk it over. I was coming up the street I heard a man saying yes before the war of fourteen, well yes they can go back to talk about before the war of fourteen it has come now the middle of August to be as peaceable as that.
It is nice to be free my gracious yes and now we have had our little battle and it was this way. The Germans had left Culoz and they had all gathered together across the river at Vions there were then between two hundred and three hundred of them. About a week ago the maquis decided to take the bridge away from them and get them on the move but there was some difficulty about the signals, they all have to come down from their mountains and there was some mistake. Two Germans were killed on the bridge but they were still there. Yesterday in broad daylight they got a gun up on the hill and attacked the bridge, they first had to warn away the little boys who were bathing in the pools of the Rhone and two women who came along after were wounded a little bit, and then the maquis rushed the bridge and it was most exciting, six maquis attacked eight Germans killed two and the others ran away, in the meantime eight German airplanes came along from Lyon but they did not help their comrades in distress they just went on their way to Germany and we have not been seen again. Just a little while and the Germans got away as fast as they could. The maquis put the flag on the bridge and sent round to the mayor to tell the town crier that the bridge was in the hands of the maquis and nobody should cross it, then came the night, the maquis gathered from all sides attacked the fleeing Germans and killed anywhere from fifty to eighty of them in the marshes, the nephew of our baker killed five and the butcher boy killed four, the Germans were trying to escape toward Aix-les-Bains, but there others of the maquis pushed them back and it became a regular rabbit drive, the weather was hot and the Germans were in a bad way there in the marshes, some tried to surrender but others of the group fired and the maquis killed them all, every one, and then they came back, and everybody was happy and they said everybody must put up flags so we all rushed around trying to get flags, and our general store who had been a well-known collabo unearthed from his stores a quantity of French, English and American flags we got one nice one and in the meantime the maquis had given the mayor a nice big American flag and it and the French flag were hung up in front of the mairie and we were very moved and Mrs. Mayor was teaching all the children to salute the flag to say vive la France et honneur aux maquis. It is rather wonderful when you think that a quantity of little children had never seen a flag never, the Germans never had flags and of course there were no French ones allowed, and the little children go up and touch it timidly, they never have seen a flag. What a town everybody is out on the streets all the time, and in between time they sing the Marseillaise, everybody feels so easy, it is impossible to make anybody realise what occupation by Germans is who has not had it, here in Culoz it was as easy as it was possible for it to be as most of the population are railroad employees and the Germans did not want to irritate them, but it was like a suffocating cloud under which you could not breathe right, we had lots of food, and no interference on the part of the Germans but there it was a weight that was always there and now everybody feels natural, they feel good and they feel bad but they feel natural, and that was our battle, the maquis are all down there at the bridge they do not think the Germans can come back, but they are watchful, there was firing just now but it did not last, so it was probably a false alarm, we like the maquis, honneur aux maquis.
They say that six of the wounded and killed Germans escaped into the mountain and they look for them from time to time but as they have not found them they take it for granted that they are dead and gone. It is wonderful to pass the railroad station and see the block house that the Germans had built to defend themselves already gone the barbed wire already gone and the children playing around where the Boches had so solemnly been standing with their guns all ready to shoot any one. The employees of the railroad are very busy, they are getting everything ready so that the railroad track can be all mended and that trains will be able to go as soon as France is free, well it is free but not completely free, in Lyon and Chambery the two chief towns the maquis are still fighting the Germans, but soon yes soon now we can say soon.
Everybody is so pleased with the maquis taking Vichy, it is a good joke une bonne blague à la Francaise, no it was not an allied army but the maquis who took Vichy, everybody is so pleased with the joke that they have pretty well forgotten their rancor against the government, the French certainly are sans rancune, they cannot remember their hatreds very long it is at once their weakness and their strength, but it is nice, a good joke like the maquis taking Vichy and all the government running away makes everybody gav. It is hot and dry most awfully hot and dry but as everybody knows it is good for the fighting armies to have dry weather they put up with it contentedly, even if the vegetables are drying up, tant pis they say, what of it, if we are free. And now there is more distribution of wine and butter and cheese, so why worry.
And now they have just announced on the radio that the Americans are at Grenoble and that is only eighty kilometers away and no opposition in between, oh if they would only come by here. We must see them
. There is no way of getting there.
And now at half past twelve to-day on the radio a voice said attention attention attention and the Frenchman’s voice cracked with excitement and he said Paris is free. Glory hallelujah Paris is free, imagine it less than three months since the landing and Paris is free. All these days I did not dare to mention the prediction of Saint Odile, she said Paris would not be burned the devotion of her people would save Paris and it has vive la France. I cant tell you how excited we all are and now if I can only see the Americans come to Culoz I think all this about war will be finished yes I do.
To-night it was just like fourth of July in my youth in the San Joaquin valley, it was just as hot and we all went to-day that Paris was freed to put flowers on the soldiers monument, it had already been draped with flags and the maquis marched down the main street of Culoz, and then everybody stood at attention and sang the Marseillaise, it was interesting to see who out of the population of Culoz were members of the fighting maquis, and then there were another lot of affiliated but not fighting maquis. I like to call them maquis, that was what they were, when every moment was a danger, they had to receive arms they had to transport them and they had to hide them and they had to do sabotage and all the time a very considerable part of their countrymen did not at all believe in them, and there were workmen, station masters, civil servants, tailors, barbers, anything, nobody knew but they naturally, and some of them looked pretty tired but my everybody was happy, everybody had the flag on their shoulders and some of the girls heaven only knows how had achieved a whole dress made of tri-color ribbons sewn together, Paris was taken at noon and by eight o’clock all France was putting wreaths on their soldiers monument because of course every village has that, honneur aux maquis, and they say that Americans are at Aix-les-Bains only twenty-five kilometers away how we want to see them even a little more than the rest of the population which is saying a great deal. We found some American flag ribbon in the local country store, and we gave it to all the little boys, just as we did in the 1914–1918 war when America came into the war, we rather wondered whether it was not some left over of the same ribbon, after all there was no particular reason in this little village that the local country store should otherwise have had it, vive la France vive l’Amerique vive les allies vive Paris, and after this most exciting day. Oh I forgot, I naturally wanted my dog Basket to participate and so I took him down to the local barber and I said won’t you shave him and make him elegant, it is not right when the Americans come along and when Paris is free that the only French poodle in Culoz and owned by Americans should not be elegant, so perspiring freely all of us including Basket, he had his paws shaved and his muzzle shaved and he was elegant and as such he took part in the evening’s celebration and all the little children, said Basket Basket come here Basket, they do say it beautifully and then there was a blare of trumpets and naturally he was frightened and tried to run away, so I tied him with a handkerchief and the effort was not so elegant but we were all proud of ourselves just the same.
We are all exhausted to-day the next day, we were so excited we are so happy we are all exhausted, we just go around shaking hands and being exhausted.
And that is the way it is after all of us being so happy yesterday, to-day they are once more fighting in the streets of Paris, dear Paris and dear dear Paris, but Saint Odile did say it would be all right and although worried well anyway to distract our minds just now while I was in my bath, bang and the house shook I got out of my bath and another big bang, and the house shook, and there down in the valley were volumes of smoke, they were trying to hit the bridges over the Rhone, the cook was screaming and the people flocking into the grounds, and we could see the railroad bridge and it seemed to be intact, but the maquis who were guarding it, well now everybody says nobody was hurt, and it was the Boches flying home because they could not any longer stay in France in vengeance dropped bombs, we saw two lots of airplanes in the air and now they are gone I was afraid they were Americans dropping bombs but nobody believes anything bad of Americans, and perhaps not, anyway we are not as happy as yesterday but to-day is to-day and that is all there is to say.
And now to-day that Paris is really free, this is what Saint Odile did say.
Saint Odile said that the world would go on and there would come the worst war of all and the fire would be thrown down from the heavens and there would be freezing and heating and rivers running with blood and at last there would be winning by the enemy and everybody would say and how can they be so strong, and everybody would say and give us peace and then little by little there would come the battle of the mountain and that was certainly Moscow, because even in the time of Saint Odile because of its many religious houses was called the Holy Mountain and indeed it was there that the enemy received its first check, and then she said, much later there would be fighting in the streets of the eternal city, and Rome taken it was not the end but the beginning of the end (which indeed was so) and that Paris which was in the greatest danger would be saved because of the holiness of its holy women, Sainte Genevieve and now it has been saved owing to the valor of its men and its women and we are all so happy, honneur aux maquis.
It is wonderful to go down to the village square on Sunday evening and to see it full of maquis in their nice shorts and khaki shirts with the tricolor on their shoulders talking to the girls everybody smiling and only ten days ago everybody was staying in the house and the Germans were in the square, only ten days ago, what a week, and nobody is really used to it, and yet it is hard to believe that it was not always so, we have one hundred and fifty maquis stationed in our town and it is a pleasure.
Yesterday I was out on the road and there was a tremendous thunderstorm and I went into a roadside café, there were two men sitting at a table with F.F.I. on their breasts and I said how do you do and Basket and I were very wet, and they said how do you do but not quite like Frenchmen, we talked a little more and then I knew from their accent they were Spaniards, I said I was American and we solemnly shook hands and we began to talk, one of them was the typical Barcelona intellectual he reminded me of Picasso’s friend Sabartes, he and his comrade with two hundred and fifty other Spanish refugees have been with the maquis for two years now, since said they we cannot fight for freedom in our own country we fight for freedom wherever we can, they have been at it for ten years now, they know about Hemingway and when I told them that I knew Picasso they stood up and solemnly shook hands, all over again. Then I asked where they had come from and they said Annecy and I said you must have seen my compatriots and they said yes and a woman journalist interviewed them and said to them what are you Spaniards doing here, and when they told her she said she was glad to meet them and that they were heroes. They were going to Artemarre to see their wives who were refugeed there and then they were going back to Annecy. If said I you see the journalist again tell her that I want to see her, and I told them my name but they wont remember but anyway it was a pleasure to send word. It is very tantalising Americans all over the place sometimes only twenty kilometers away and we do not see them, how we want to see them and send word to America and have news from them. To-night I was all bitten by mosquitoes trying to get more news of them. I went down to the Pont de la Lois which is the only bridge left over the Rhone, it strangely enough was not destroyed in ’40 and now again it has not been destroyed. It was near there that our little battle was fought and it was near there that the bombs were dropped the other day or was it only yesterday. Well anyway I was talking to the maquis that were guarding the bridge, among them a boy I knew in Cezerieu and they told me that a car with American officers had passed over the bridge, when I told Alice Toklas about it tonight she said she would take her typewriting down there and await them but when I told her about mosquitoes she weakened, well anyway, one of the train hands who was also there said that they had received orders to repair the train tracks between Chambery and Culoz and that it had to be done in three days, because he said the Americans want to use it
and he promised me that when the first train carrying Americans was signaled, night or day, he would leave all and come up and let me know. Dear Americans how we do want to see them.
It’s wonderful in the evening hearing the voices of the children playing, for such a long time they played quietly they were afraid to play in the streets or on the sidewalk but now they are let loose and the elders smile indulgently and all of a sudden you hear a childish voice cry pomm pomm pomm, pomm pomm pomm, pomm pomm pomm that’s that, of course that is a mitraillette killing the Boches, everybody calls them Boches now, and everybody is easy very easy in their minds, except of course those who made money off the Germans, and there are some, and naturally they are nervous. The maquis of course do revenge themselves a little the French are not naturally a revengeful people but the Germans did commit such awful atrocities in the mountain regions that when the mountain boys caught the S.S. troops in Annecy naturally enough they made them parade the town with their hands in the air and then took them up into the hills and there nobody knows what did happen to them, and naturally the young ones who had seen farms burned with men women and children inside them as well as the beasts, when they take a German prisoner they cannot help giving him a kick in the behind. But the French are not a vengeful people and they will soon now that they feel their strength they will not feel revengeful.
Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein Page 71