Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Olson Lynne

Author:Olson, Lynne [Olson, Lynne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Biography, War
Goodreads: 41739312
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-03-05T08:00:00+00:00

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WHILE MARIE-MADELEINE LOVED THE peace and security of Ussel, she knew that her presence there was putting at risk the clandestine Lysander landings at the nearby airfield. So two days before the 1943 New Year, she, together with Faye, Bontinck, and Rodriguez, moved to an abandoned château on the outskirts of Sarlat, a medieval town in the Dordogne, about ninety miles to the southwest.

The capital of the Dordogne in the Middle Ages, Sarlat looked, in the words of one writer, “as if it had been preserved in aspic since the 16th century, a glorious jumble of medieval houses, narrow alleyways, dank tunnels, and grand Renaissance townhouses.” But Fourcade was in no mood to appreciate the beauty of the town, with its honey-colored stone buildings, gracious central square, and imposing cathedral. She was gloomy and on edge, a state of mind not helped by her stay in the dark, dusty, neglected château that had become her new headquarters.

Her spirits rose briefly on New Year’s Day when the château’s ancient stove rumbled to life and more than a dozen Alliance agents and staff members came together again to enjoy a holiday feast. She, Faye, Bontinck, and Rodriguez were joined by, among others, Maurice Coustenoble, Philippe Koenigswerther, Lucien Poulard, Ernest Siegrist, and Colonel Édouard Kauffmann, the head of the Dordogne sector. The dinner was made even more cheerful by the largesse of Kauffmann, who owned a farm near Sarlat. He had brought with him a cornucopia of foods that were unavailable even on the black market, including a ham and some of the famous Dordogne truffles, along with a selection of wines from his extensive cellar. As Fourcade listened to the laughter, lively conversation, and clink of glasses, her eyes filled with tears at the sight of her veteran agents and newcomers celebrating together.

But when they left the next day, her distress returned. In her increasingly unsettled and dangerous life, she was now forced to deal with yet another complication: She was expecting Faye’s child. Her pregnancy could not have come at a more inopportune time, but it did not deflect her from her commitment to Alliance. Faye knew about the pregnancy, as did Bontinck and Rodriguez, but it’s unclear how many others were aware of her condition. Fourcade, who was extremely slender, likely did everything she could to conceal it, keeping it a closely guarded secret both during the war and afterward. In her memoirs, she made no mention of it, just as she never discussed the nature of her relationship with Faye.

Her emotional state, already fragile, suffered another blow when on January 13, Faye left for Ussel, where he would board his second Lysander flight to London. While she knew it was important, for the network’s sake, that he go, his departure hit her hard. She couldn’t rid herself of a sense of impending danger, and, on the night he left, she wrote to Mouchou Damm, the leader of Alliance’s Toulouse sector, asking him to find her a new, less isolated headquarters as soon as possible.

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