The 40s: The Story of a Decade Read Online Free PDF Page A

stopped for a drink of apple brandy. The theory was that when we had completed our round of the markets we would circle back on our course, picking up the baskets, and thus avoid a lot of useless carrying. It worked all right when we could remember the bars where we had left the various things, but sometimes we couldn’t, and on such occasions M. Bisque would cry that
restauration
was a cursed
métier
, and that if the government would permit he would take up his old rifle and leave for the front. But they would have to let him wear horizon blue; he could not stand the sight of khaki because it reminded him of the English. “They say the English are very brave at sea,” he would say, winking slowly, “but who knows? We don’t see them, eh?”
    The trip to the Gare du Nord was solemn. M. Bisque dragged me to see various mothers sitting on rolls of bedding and surrounded by miauling children; his eyes would water, and he would offer a child a two-franc piece, and then haul me to the buffet, where he would fortify himself with a glass of Beaujolais. At the buffet I remember meeting a red-bearded gnome of a colonial soldier who kept referring to himself as “a real porpoise.” “Porpoise” was the traditional Army term for a colonial infantryman. “A real porpoise,” the soldier repeated dreamily, “an old porpoise, and believe me, Monsieur, the Germans need
somebody
to bust their snouts for them.” He had two complete sets of decorations, onefrom the old war and one from the new. He was going north to rejoin his regiment and he was full of fight and red wine.
    Saturday morning I had another note from Jean-Pierre. He enclosed a bit of steel from a Dornier shot down near him. “How I am still alive I have not time to write to you,” he said, “but chance sometimes manages things well.” The letter produced the same effect on me as news of a great victory. I called up Henri. He and Eglée had had a letter too.
    · · ·
    On Saturday, May 18th, I went to a press conference held by the Ministry of Information, which had just organized an Anglo-American press section, with quarters in a vast, rococo ballroom at the Hôtel Continental called the Salle des Fêtes. Pierre Comert, chief of the section, held conferences for the correspondents at six every evening, when he would discuss the day’s developments from the government’s point of view. This evening he announced that Paul Reynaud had taken over the Ministry of National Defence. He also announced that Reynaud had recalled Marshal Pétain from Spain to advise him. General Weygand had already arrived from Syria and it was understood that he would take over the high command in a few days. The two great names, in conjunction, were expected to raise national morale. The two old men, however, were military opposites. Pétain, cautious at sixty, when he had defended Verdun, was at eighty-four incapable of conceiving any operation bolder than an orderly retreat. Weygand believed in unremitting attack. One staff officer later told me, “Weygand’s ideas are so old-fashioned that they have become modern again. He is just what we need.” Strategically, the two men cancelled each other, but politically they were a perfect team. Both were clericals, royalists, and anti-parliamentarians. There is something about very old soldiers like Hindenburg and Pétain that makes democrats trust them. But Pétain was to serve Laval’s purpose as Hindenburg had served Hitler’s. However, we were cheerful on the evening we heard about the appointments. The German advance was apparently slowing down, and all of us thought that Weygand might arrange a counterattack soon. A week earlier we had been expecting victories. Now we were cheered by a slightly slower tempo of disaster.
    · · ·
    There was a hot, heavy pause the next few days. I took long walks on the boulevards, and up and down dull, deserted business streets. The wartimepopulation of Paris had slowly increased from late