25 “What is the meaning”: Lottman (1979), 217.
26 “tightrope, in passionate”: Todd (1997), 108.
27 “at certain moments”: Ibid.
28 “it seemed a failure”: Ibid.
29 “I am writing to you”: Ibid., 110.
30 “I don’t care”: Ibid., 110–11.
31 “As for the risks”: Ibid., 110.
32 “I am writing to you at night”: Ibid., 109.
33 One force was landed: Churchill (1948), 605–52.
34 A second force: Ibid.
35 “man for man showed themselves”: The Times, London, May 8, 1940.
36 “I confess that I did not”: Kersaudy (1991), 189.
37 “We cannot go on”: May (2000), 342; Kersaudy (1991), 189–90.
38 “nothing which can contribute”: Churchill (1948), 660.
39 “I have had enough”: May (2000), 379.
40 “certain to lose”: Shirer (1969), 603.
41 “As I cannot make my”: May (2000), 379–80.
42 “I can only think”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, May 9, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
CHAPTER 4: SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER
1 “We have assured all”: Murphy et al. (1943), 241.
2 “Columns marching westward”: Shirer (1969), 603.
3 “The attack that we had foreseen”: Le Matin, May 11, 1940.
4 “The Boches have business”: Liebling (2008), 74.
5 “They will see we”: Ibid.
6 “The real roughhouse”: Ibid., 73.
7 “It’s good that it’s starting”: Ibid.
8 “That’s it, Hitler has”: Lottman (1992), 2.
9 “Three free countries”: Le Figaro, May 11, 1940.
10 “satisfied that they have”: Ibid.
11 “If I have not heard”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, May 11, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
12 Jacques briefed them: Letter, Odette Monod to Lucien and Charlotte Monod, May 14, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
13 “We have unlimited confidence”: Le Figaro, May 11, 1940.
14 “Let us have confidence”: Le Matin, May 11, 1940.
15 on May 11: Le Figaro, May 12, 1940.
16 on May 12: Le Figaro, May 13, 1940.
17 “brilliantly prepared and executed”: The Times, May 13, 1940.
18 The French military communiqué: Le Figaro, May 13, 1940.
19 Seven panzer divisions: Battistelli and Hook (2011), 20.
20 “Victory or defeat”: Shirer (1969), 650.
21 “Our front has been pushed”: May (2000), 413.
22 “hurling counterattacks”: Le Figaro, May 15, 1940.
23 “France has many trump cards”: Todd (1996), 251.
24 “If we are to win”: Lottman (1992), 91.
25 “We have been defeated”: Churchill (1949), 42.
26 “Where is the strategic reserve”: Ibid., 46.
27 Churchill needed to rouse: Ibid., 49–51.
28 “where the enemy”: Le Figaro, May 16, 1940.
29 “For the moment”: Ibid.
30 “It is in the best interests”: Le Figaro, May 17, 1940.
31 Odette had stayed in Paris: Letters, Odette Monod to Lucien and Charlotte Monod, May 15, 1940; and from Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, May 18, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
32 “In any case”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, May 18, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
33 “It seems to me”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, May 20, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
34 “Do as I do”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, May 21, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
35 “At the sight”: De Gaulle (1964), 36.
36 “What have we come”: Le Figaro, May 20, 1940.
37 “As the days go on”: Todd (1997), 112.
38 “in the middle of an almost”: Ibid.
39 “This war has not”: Ibid.
40 “The homeland is in danger”: Le Figaro, May 22, 1940.
41 “I think that I missed my vocation”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, May 20, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
42 “My dear angel”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, May 21, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
43 “with vigor”: Le Figaro, May 31, 1940; Lottman (1992), 156.
44 “We must be very careful”: Churchill (1949), 115.
45 “Since I am convinced”: Shirer (1969), 767.
46 “The disproportion between”: De Gaulle (1964), 53–54.
47 “convince the English”: Ibid., 54.
48 “The Battle of France”: Shirer (1969), 762.
49 During these desperate days: Jackson (2003a), 179–80.
50 “We are at the end”: Shirer (1969), 769.
51 “The necessity of asking”: Ibid., 770.
52 “no honorable armistice”: Ibid.
53 “The safety of the nation”: Lottman (1992), 222.
54 “a day of agony”: Shirer (1969), p. 771.
55 “In 24 hours”: Shirer (1969), 771.
56 “We are in the sixth day”: Le Figaro, June 11, 1940.
57 “Mr. President”: “The President of the French Council of Ministers (Reynaud) to President Roosevelt, 10 June 1940,” Mount Holyoke College, https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/reynaud.htm. Source: U.S. Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931–1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), 548–49.
58 “Should the Germans”: Barber (1976), 35.
59 “somewhere in the north of France”: Saint-Exupéry (1942), 68.
60 After several days of confusion: Account of Monod’s evacuation in letters from Jacques Monod to his parents, June 14, 1940, and to Odette Monod, July 11, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
61 “The only things that matter”: Letter, Jacques Monod to his parents, June 14, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
62 “to abstain from all hostile acts”: Lottman (1992), 315.
CHAPTER 5: DEFEATED AND DIVIDED
1 “a river of torment”: Jacob (1988), 98.
2 “indestructible framework”: Ibid., 73.
3 “a whole nation disintegrate”: Ibid., 99.
4 “the country, the Republic”: Ibid.
5 “Everything I believed in”: Ibid., 98.
6 “foaming at the mouth”: Ibid., 99.
7 “governments of bunglers”: Ibid.
8 “If an armistice”: Shirer (1969), 787.
9 “The duty of the government”: Ibid., 799.
10 “For the last three days”: Ibid., 805.
11 “At this most fateful moment”: Ibid., 825.
12 “would have placed France”: Ibid., 830.
13 “You imagine that by capitulating”: Champoux (1975), 287–88.
14 “the greatest disappointment”: Shirer (1969), 831.
15 “go and ask Marshal Pétain”: Ibid., 836.
16 “I’m told he has”: Ibid., 840.
17 “There is my government”: Ibid., 842.
18 “Frenchmen! On the appeal”: Times (London), June 18, 1940.
19 “the traitors, the crooks”: Jacob (1988), 101.
20 “We are not going to shrink”: Ibid., 101–2.
21 “If you can”: Ibid., 103.
22 “concentrating all his power”: A. Beevor, “Rallying Call: A Mesmerizing Oratory,” The Guardian, April 29, 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/29/greatspeeches.
23 “The leaders who”: De Gaulle (1964), 83–84.
24 Odette and the twins: Letter, Dominique Dreyfus to Patrice Debré, July 9, 1996, copy provided by Olivier Monod.
25 “For all military inquiries”: Jacob (1988), 103.
26 “Don’t make yourselves”: Ibid.
27 “Ever hear of de Gaulle?”: Ibid., 105.
28 “It
is the bounden duty”: Charles de Gaulle, June 19, 1940, “The Flame of French Resistance,” Great Speeches of the 20th Century, http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/29/greatspeeches1.
29 “You will not leave”: Champoux (1975), 293.
30 “What is the value”: Shirer (1969), 889.
31 “The French government, after”: Charles de Gaulle, June 22, 1940, “The Flame of French Resistance,” Great Speeches of the 20th Century, http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/29/greatspeeches1.
32 “that such or similar terms”: Shirer (1969), 887–88.
33 “The French government and people”: The Times, June 24, 1940; Shirer (1969), 888.
34 “M. le Maréchal”: The Times, June 27, 1940.
35 “turn over this dark page”: The Times, June 26, 1940.
36 “beneath the German jackboot”: The Times, June 27, 1940.
37 Joseph Meister, Louis Pasteur’s first patient: Diary of Eugene Wollman, June 24, 1940, Fonds Elie Wollman, SAIP. Note: the often-repeated story of Meister’s suicide has him shooting himself with a revolver sometime around June 14–16 after refusing to open Pasteur’s tomb to the Germans. Neither that means, the date, nor the catalyst are likely correct. The account here is based on a newly available diary (discovered by my colleague Héloïse Dufour) of Eugene Wollman, a Pasteur scientist, who described the atmosphere in Paris in June 1940. His entry for June 24, 1940, reads, in part: “This morning, Meister was found dead. He committed suicide with gas. He was very depressed these last days and as he was in the lodge (his wife and children are away), his meals were being delivered to him.” Wollman and his wife, Elisabeth, were murdered by the Nazis in 1943; their son, Elie, served in the Resistance and worked at the Pasteur Institute after the war, making fundamental advances in genetics with François Jacob.
CHAPTER 6: REGROUPING
1 In six weeks: Ousby (2000), 111.
2 After a twenty-four-hour journey: Details from letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, July 11, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
3 “Mon amour, I don’t have any hope”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod at Dinard, June 26, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
4 “My Dears, Will this letter”: Letter, Jacques Monod to his parents, June 26, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
5 A week later, he was comforted: Letters, Jacques Monod to his parents, July 3 and 6, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
6 On July 7, a telegram arrived: Letter, Odette Monod to Lucien and Charlotte Monod, July 4, 1940, private archives, Monod family; letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, July 7, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
7 “My dear angel”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, July 11, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
8 “French armed forces”: “Franco-German Armistice: June 25, 1940,” from the US Department of State, Publication No. 6312, Documents on Foreign Policy 1918–1945, Series D, IX (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office 1956), 671–76, available at the Avalon Project: Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/frgearm.asp.
9 “Hold my little ones”: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, July 7, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
10 Camus thus had a ringside seat: Todd (1997), 114.
11 While Pétain had earned: Ousby (2000), 79.
12 “a vase on the mantelpiece”: Pryce-Jones (1981), 16.
13 “The National Assembly gives”: Shirer (1969), 919.
14 “the arteries of a man of forty”: Todd (1997), 114.
15 “What we are going to experience”: Ibid.
16 “the last French soil”: Ibid., 115.
17 “Work, Family, and Homeland”: Le Temps, July 12, 1940.
18 “Parliamentary democracy lost”: Shirer (1969), 928.
19 “We have only one”: Ibid.
20 “Cowardice and senility”: Todd (1997), 115.
21 “Pro-German policies”: Ibid.
22 “Around the Marshal”: Shirer (1969), 932.
23 There was some good news: Summarized from letters of Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, July 1940, private archives, Monod family.
24 Finally, he was officially demobilized on July 29: Letter, Jacques Monod to Odette Monod, July 29, 1940, private archives, Monod family.
CHAPTER 7: ILL WINDS
1 The Majestic Hotel had become: Pryce-Jones (1981), 31, 34.
2 The Monods could not avoid them: Debré (1996), 116.
3 “The French Government will bear”: “Franco-German Armistice: June 25, 1940,” from the US Department of State, Publication No. 6312, Documents on Foreign Policy 1918–1945, Series D, IX (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1956), 671–76, available at the Avalon Project: Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/frgearm.asp.
4 The 400 million francs: Jackson (2003b), 169.
5 Much more stringent rationing: Ousby (2000), 116; Pryce-Jones (1981), 94.
6 On July 12: Jackson (2003b), 150.
7 On July 22: Ibid.
8 Public servants had to swear: Ibid., 151.
9 On August 17: Ousby (2000), 325.
10 Au Pilori: Pryce-Jones (1981), 77.
11 Jews were obliged to register: S. Klarsfled (1996), “A Chronology of Major Events in the War Against the Jews and the Deportations of Jewish Children From France 1940,” French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial, The Holocaust History Project, http://www.holocaust-history.org/klarsfeld/French%20Children/html&graphics/T0009.shtml.
12 “For some time, the Jews”: Le Matin, October 2, 1940.
13 These actions were preludes: “Régime de Vichy: textes officiels. 2. Lois antisémites,” Encyclopedie, http://www.encyclopedie.bseditions.fr/article.php?pArticleId=160&pChapitreId=24023&pSousChapitreId=24024.
14 The new regulations upended: Olivier Monod, interview, Paris, August 17, 2010.
15 Almost 150,000: “Le Recensement des Juifs,” Un Livre du Souvenir, http://www.unlivredusouvenir.fr/recensement.html.
16 Odette’s mother and her sister: Françoise Benhamou, phone interview with Héloïse Dufour, October 19, 2010.
17 Jacques even had to register: Handwritten note, MON. Bio 02, item 6, Phillipe Monod dossier, Fonds Monod, SAIP.
18 Algerian Jews were stripped: S. Klarsfled (1996) “A Chronology of Major Events in the War Against the Jews and the Deportations of Jewish Children From France 1940,” French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial, The Holocaust History Project, http://www.holocaust-history.org/klarsfeld/French%20Children/html&graphics/T0014.shtml.
19 The publishers cooperated: Pryce-Jones (1981), 77; Ousby (2000), 177.
20 “All the Jews are being thrown”: Todd (1997), 116.
21 “So I am going to choose”: Ibid., 116.
22 “I have no joy”: Ibid., 117.
23 “I don’t plan to publish anything”: Ibid.
24 “All of this is particularly unfair”: Ibid.
25 Vichy acted swiftly: “Chronologie Détaillée de la Vie du Général de Gaulle, 1890–1970,” La Fondation Charles de Gaulle, http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/accueil/chronologies/chronologie-detaillee-de-la-vie-du-general-de-gaulle.php#1940.
26 “ardently that the British”: Cornick (2000), 70.
27 “France has never”: Shirer (1969), 918.
28 “ex-Frenchman” and the “ex-general traitor”: Le Matin, September 24, 1940.
29 “horrifying impudence”: Le Matin, September 25, 1940.
30 Moreover, as a reprisal: Ibid.
31 “France follows your resistance”: Ibid.
32 “By the will”: Le Matin, September 27, 1940, trans. SBC.
33 In late October: Delpla (1997); Shirer (1990), 814�
�15.
34 “I know that personally”: Le Matin, October 27, 1940.
35 He explained that he had invited: A detailed account of this meeting was later published by Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s interpreter. Available at http://pages.livresdeguerre.net/pages/sujet.php?id=docddp&su=300&np=951.
36 “Frenchmen, Last Thursday”: “Discours de Pétain apres entrevue de Montoire,” Encyclopedie, http://www.encyclopedie.bseditions.fr/article.php?pArticleId=160&pChapitreId=24028&pSousChapitreId=24032, trans. per Ousby (2000), 86, and SBC.
37 “This policy is mine”: Ibid.
38 A key exhibit: Le Matin, November 2, 1940.
CHAPTER 8: AN HOUR OF HOPE
1 The second was de Gaulle’s: “Chronologie Détaillée de la Vie du Général de Gaulle, 1890–1970,” La Fondation Charles de Gaulle, http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/accueil/chronologies/chronologie-detaillee-de-la-vie-du-general-de-gaulle.php#1940.
2 The BBC devoted: Luneau (2005), 74; “Maurice Schumann,” http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/911.html.
3 Les Français Parlent aux Français: Luneau (2005), 64.
4 “that did not return to base”: Le Matin, August 17, 1940.
5 59 British and 120 German planes: Two-day total for August 15–16; Battle of Britain data accessed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11029903.
6 “The war between Germany and England”: Le Matin, August 17, 1940, trans. SBC.
7 “Thus, de Gaulle, traitor”: Le Matin, September 26, 1940.
8 “We have not only fortified our hearts”: “Premier’s Review of the War,” The Guardian, http://century.guardian.co.uk/1940-1949/Story/0,,128255,00.html.
9 “Français! C’est moi, Churchill”: “Discours de Churchill: Homage à la France (21 Octobre, 1940),” Jalons, http://www.ina.fr/fresques/jalons/fiche-media/InaEdu00281/discours-de-churchill-hommage-a-la-france-21-octobre-1940.html.
10 “Frenchmen! It is me, Churchill”: English text in Churchill (1949), 510–11.
11 “I tell you what you must truly believe”: Ibid.
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