Wine And War: The French, The Nazis And The Battle For France's Greatest Treasure Part 2

Nomads AS THE LAST RESCUE BOATS DISAPPEARED, SO TOO did any hopes Gaston Huet had that he and his men might be saved.

It was May 24, 1940, and at the port of Calais on France's northwestern coast, tens of thousands of French and British soldiers were trapped by German forces, their backs to the sea. At that moment, Huet, a thirty-year-old French army lieutenant, would have given just about anything to be back in the Loire Valley, tending his vineyard in Vouvray.

It had already been a long war for Huet. A year and a half earlier, he had been among the first to be called up during the Munich crisis. Since that time, he had been home only once, for his daughter's first birthday. Now, with enemy forces closing in, Huet wondered when, or even if, he would see his family again.

Huet headed a transport company which had been dispatched to Belgium just before the invasion to fetch badly needed gasoline supplies for French forces. That mission became impossible, however, when motorized German infantry units backed by tanks and air support swept into France, overrunning Holland and Belgium as well.

"When we got to Flanders, we found that the Belgians had blown up the gas reservoir to prevent it from falling into enemy hands," Huet said.

With communications down and the Germans moving at incredible speed, it was difficult to know which way to turn. Huet decided to push his company south and try to get back to France. The route, he quickly discovered, had been cut by German tanks, so he turned back north toward Antwerp, only to find virtually every road blocked by a crus.h.i.+ng tangle of panic-stricken refugees. In desperation, Huet decided that he and his 200 men should make a run for the port of Calais on the English Channel, where, Huet hoped, they could find a boat that could evacuate them to England.

"About twenty miles from Calais, I ordered my men to begin dispersing our trucks and supplies to keep them out of German hands," Huet said. Some of the trucks were driven into woods while others were pushed into gullies, but not before a few essential supplies were unloaded, such as food, water and thirty cases of Vouvray, wine which Huet had brought from home "to fortify the men whenever necessary." After stuffing a few bottles into their packs, the company set off again.

The sight that greeted them at Calais was a nightmare. There on the beach were thousands of British and French soldiers waiting-hoping-to be evacuated. But no vessels were in sight, not even a single fis.h.i.+ng boat. Huet's heart began to sink. "I did not know what to do," he said. "There was absolutely no place for us to go. On one side was the English Channel, on the other were the Germans."

A ma.s.sive evacuation was just beginning only twenty-five miles away at Dunkirk but "we knew nothing about it," said Huet, "and even if we had, it would have been impossible for us to get there." All escape routes had been closed and now, suddenly, German fighter-bombers had begun attacking troops on the beach. And they were not the only ones; British planes were bombing them too. "They thought that the Germans had already taken over and that we were Germans," Huet said.

Amidst the fire and smoke, several small British navy boats appeared. The ma.s.ses trapped on the beach edged closer to the surf, with some of the men plunging into the water, trying to swim to the boats. The boats, however, were too small and could hold only a few hundred people. With priority going to the British, Huet and his men never had a chance. Someone from one of the vessels shouted that they would try to return, but it never happened.

"I was stupefied," Huet said. "We were completely abandoned." So were thousands of other soldiers.

As the bombing grew more intense, Huet led his company to cover in one of the concrete bunkers built as a line of defense along the coast. From there, they could see the last of the rescue boats slip out of sight. In despair and frustration, they stared at the huge guns mounted in their bunker, all fixed in place and pointed out to sea. According to Huet, "Even if we could have turned them toward the Germans, they would have done us no good. Their range was too long; we would have just fired over their heads."

Realizing it was only a matter of time-a short time-before they would be captured, Huet and his men did the only thing they could: they sat down and uncorked their last bottles of Vouvray.

As minutes pa.s.sed, the bombing began to let up. Curious about what was happening, Huet peered from the bunker and was dumbfounded. At the bunker on his right, the French flag, the Tricolore, was being lowered and a German one was being raised in its place. Huet moved quickly to the other side of his bunker and saw the same scene being repeated at every other bunker along the coast. Only one French flag still flew, the one above his bunker. With tears in his eyes and his men looking on, Huet approached the flagpole and slowly lowered the flag. Ripping it into tiny pieces, he then parceled them out to each of his men, stuffing one piece into his own pocket. The rest, he burned.

Afterward, everyone sat back down, resigned to the fate that awaited them. "There was nothing else we could do," Huet said. "We were not armed to fight; we were a transport company. When the Germans came, we had to surrender."

Less than a month later, France itself formally surrendered-but not before 10 million people, a quarter of the country's population, had been turned into nomads, fleeing south, away from the advancing Germans. It was the biggest migration of people seen in Europe since the Dark Ages. "They don't know, n.o.body knows, where they are going," one witness said. Under a broiling sun broken only by fierce thunderstorms, children became separated from their parents; hundreds of lives were lost in low-level strafing by German fighter planes. But no one stopped; no one dared to.

"Nearly every Frenchman had been nurtured on stories of German atrocities during World War I," according to historian Robert O. Paxton. One of them, Burgundy winemaker Henri Jayer, recalled how his father warned him, "You must leave at once; the Germans are barbarians! They will cut off your hands if you don't do what they want."

That same fear prompted the father of champagne maker Henri Billiot to insist that his family flee as well. Billiot's father, who had "lost his health" in the earlier war, was convinced that the entire family would be ma.s.sacred if they failed to leave. "In the rush and confusion, one of my grandfathers became separated and panicked," Henri said. "He walked all day and night looking for us, but it was hopeless. Finally, he just gave up and returned home, where he suffered a stroke. I am sure it was the fear, his not knowing what had happened to the rest of us, that caused it."

Many of the refugees were soldiers who once guarded the Maginot Line. Now, the only lines they occupied were those that stretched for miles, moving away from the frontier they were fleeing. "It was a retreat without glory," Rene Engel, a winemaker from Burgundy, said. Engel, who fought in World War I, recalled soldiers discarding their weapons as they pa.s.sed his house, fleeing through the vineyards because roads were so congested. "It was a sight that we, veterans of Verdun, watched with a heavy heart."

For some, however, it was "kind of exciting."

Robert Drouhin, who was eight years old, remembers seeing people weighted down with food, mattresses, even birdcages. "Sometimes, my sisters and I would stand and wave," he said. "We did not realize how dangerous the situation was."

Or how dramatically life was about to change.

The Germans had moved amazingly fast. By June 12, they had overrun Champagne. Two days later, they entered Paris. Other units continued on, rolling down the highway past the vineyards of Burgundy's Cte d'Or. On June 28, their advance reached the Pyrenees and finally came to a stop. Their primary destination, however, was the port city of Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast, the commercial center of France's wine trade.

"The Germans swept in like angels of death," said one resident, recalling how the sunlight glinted off their motorcycle goggles. Within hours they were setting up checkpoints, requisitioning homes and office buildings and taking control of the port. On hand to greet them was the French government which had fled Paris two and a half weeks earlier and turned the city into its temporary capital. Officials immediately entered into discussions about France's future.

Almost overnight, nearly everything about this ancient port city had changed. It bristled with gun emplacements; flags with n.a.z.i insignias were draped everywhere. The port itself, a vital s.h.i.+pping point for Bordeaux wine producers for more than two hundred years, was now teeming with armed soldiers and being converted into a German naval base.

The most dramatic change, however, was the population. Earlier that month, it had been 250,000. Now, crammed with refugees who had fled the German invasion, it was nearly a million.

Like Robert Drouhin, Hugues Lawton found the unfolding drama incredibly fascinating. Hugues's father, one of Bordeaux's most prominent wine merchants, was a veteran of World War I and had told him stories about the war. "I never dreamed I would ever see anything so interesting, so I was determined to see the action," said Hugues, who was fourteen years old at the time. Fortunately, he happened to be looking out the window when the Germans arrived. "I saw the first German tanks come in, and it was quite a thrill." But even in his excitement, Hugues felt a tingle of fear. "I remember seeing this German soldier go by on a motorbike; his nostrils were flared, he was so proud. I could not understand that."

What many could not understand was how an army which even some German generals considered the strongest in Europe could be defeated so quickly and easily. So staggering were the losses-90,000 dead, 200,000 wounded, more than one and a half million taken prisoner-that when an old soldier from World War I called on his countrymen to lay down their arms, everyone was ready to comply and breathed a sigh of relief.

Marshal Philippe Petain, the "hero of Verdun," had been serving as amba.s.sador to Spain when Prime Minister Reynaud summoned him home to boost the country's morale. When Reynaud resigned on June 16, the eighty-four-year-old Petain agreed to take over and form a new government. By noon the next day, he was on the radio addressing the people of France. "With a heavy heart, I tell you that it is necessary to end the fighting." Pledging to give himself to the country (le don de ma personne), the old Marshal said he would sign an armistice with Germany and that France, under his guidance, would return to its former glory. His logic was based on the belief that the country stood alone, that Britain would not survive a German attack and that France, by signing a peace treaty with Berlin, would emerge from defeat stronger and more united than ever in a new Europe dominated by Germany.

Petain's a.s.surances were like a soothing balm and ninety-five percent of the public supported him. He was hailed as a male Joan of Arc, "the leader who saved us from the abyss." Among those who heard Petain's June 17 broadcast was May-Eliane Miailhe de Lencquesaing. "His words were just what we wanted to hear," she said. "We were all Petainists."

Those in the wine trade were especially enthusiastic. They knew Petain owned a small vineyard on the Riviera. They also remembered what he had written about the role of wine during World War I: "Of all the s.h.i.+pments to the armies, wine was a.s.suredly the most awaited and most appreciated. To procure his ration of wine, the French soldier braved perils, challenged artillery sh.e.l.ls and defied the military police. In his eyes, the wine ration had a place almost equal to that of ammunition supplies. Wine was a stimulant that improved his morale and physical well-being. Wine, therefore, was a major partner in the victory."

Although there was no victory this time, most French took comfort in the belief that they had at least escaped the chaos another all-out war would bring. To further cus.h.i.+on the blow of defeat, Petain argued that, under the Third Republic, the people of France "had not been honestly led into war in 1939, but dishonestly misled into defeat." It was finger-pointing at its very worst. As historian H. R. Kedward points out, "No one admitted responsibility; everyone blamed someone else. Ordinary soldiers blamed their officers, the General Staff blamed the politicians, the politicians of the Right blamed those of the Left and vice versa, the government of Petain blamed the ministers of the Popular Front, they in turn blamed the army, most people blamed the Communists, the Communists blamed the internal Fascists and the Fascists blamed the Jews." There was, adds Kedward, "enough fragmentation here to refloat French politics for a generation."

What no one disputed was that this was a war France hoped to avoid. When it was declared, the reaction was a mixture of surprise, dismay and resignation. Although public opinion polls in the summer of 1939 indicated most people favored war if Germany attacked Poland, there was little overt enthusiasm when it finally happened-especially on the battlefield. Marc Bloch, a historian who was a staff captain in the French First Army Group, blamed the "utter incompetence of the high command" and its pa.s.sivity in the face of the German threat for France's defeat. He described how his own commander sat "in tragic immobility, saying nothing, doing nothing, but just gazing at the map spread on the table between us, as though hoping to find on it the decision he was incapable of taking."

It did not help that France had the wrong kind of tanks. Most were designed for supporting the infantry, not for the lightning warfare which Charles de Gaulle had advocated and which German forces used so effectively. The army was also hampered by an antiquated communications system. One officer complained to his superiors that a carrier pigeon system would have been more effective. He was not only serious, but also probably correct.

"No one who lived through the French debacle of MayJune 1940 ever quite got over the shock," says historian Robert O. Paxton. "For Frenchmen, confident of a special role in the world, the six weeks' defeat by German armies was a shattering trauma."

It was especially shattering for Andre Terrail, owner of Paris's famed restaurant La Tour d'Argent. He was terrified that the Germans would discover his wine cellar.

"For my father, that cellar meant everything and he was heartsick," his son Claude said. "It was his pa.s.sion, his life's work, his very soul."

Andre Terrail had spent years putting together one of the greatest cellars in the world, a cellar that contained more than 100,000 bottles on the eve of World War II, many of them from the nineteenth century. So great was its reputation that even before World War II, the rich and glamorous-from financiers like J. Pierpont Morgan to movie stars to most of the t.i.tled n.o.bility of the world-were drawn to the Tour as much for the riches of its cave as for its famous duck. The thought of losing that entire cellar was more than Andre could bear.

He had already survived two wars, the Franco-Prussian in 187071 and World War I, in which he was wounded and taken prisoner. When war was declared again, Andre was so depressed he left Paris and placed the restaurant in the hands of his longtime manager and friend, Gaston Ma.s.son. Andre's son Claude, who was with the French air force in Lyon, flew back to help.

"To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine," he said.

Claude arrived in Paris on May 12, 1940, just two days after the Germans had crossed the Meuse River from Belgium. It was warm and sunny, the kind of day that makes Paris the most beautiful spot on earth. Indeed, there was almost a festive mood in the French capital. There were long queues in front of movie houses and most of the cafes were full. Claude must have been shocked by the Parisians' att.i.tude. He knew how weak the French air force was, and he realized that the German breakthrough was a major blow.

With the military on high alert, Claude had only been granted a six-hour leave, and it was rapidly expiring. He and Ma.s.son already had agreed that the best way to protect the restaurant's wine in such a short time was to wall it in. With so much wine, however, it swiftly became apparent that they could not hide everything, so they resigned themselves to choosing 20,000 of the very best bottles, especially those from 1867, Andre Terrail's pride and joy.

The pace was furious, the mood almost frantic as Claude and Gaston, with help from the restaurant's staff, began sorting bottles. Cases of famous labels and vintages were hauled from one side of the cellar to another as one brick after another was slapped into place.

"We had only five hours left to do the job," Claude remembered, "but we got it done."

A month later, on June 14, under skies heavy with soot from the oil reserves the retreating French government had ordered burned, forces of the Third Reich marched into the now nearly deserted city. With them came a special emissary from Hitler's chosen successor, Field Marshal Hermann Gring. The emissary's first stop was La Tour d'Argent. "I want to see your cellars, the famous cellars," he announced, "and especially the bottles from 1867."

Realizing what was at stake, Gaston Ma.s.son invited the officer in and tried to remain calm. Taking a deep breath, he informed his visitor that all the 1867s had been drunk.

"What? That can't be! Are you sure? I have been told about that wonderful wine," said the German.

Ma.s.son apologized, but he was positive it was all gone. "Of course, if you would like to check . . . ," Ma.s.son said.

So, with a small contingent of his soldiers, the German followed Ma.s.son into the elevator and down to the cellars five floors below. For more than two hours, they opened cases, turned bottles and checked labels. They searched every corner, every nook and cranny, all to no avail. Not a single bottle of 1867 could be seen.

When the Germans finally gave up and left, however, they did not go empty-handed. All 80,000 remaining bottles of wine were seized.

It was a small taste of things to come.

On June 22, a railroad boxcar was pushed into a small forest clearing in northeastern France and dusted off. It was the very train car in which Germany had been forced to surrender in World War I. Now, with Hitler and his generals looking on, France was forced to do exactly the same thing-sign an armistice that imposed many of the same harsh conditions that so humiliated Germany in 1918. The French army was reduced to 100,000 men; its once-proud troops were relegated to maintaining internal security; astronomical occupation costs were imposed; and more than half the country was placed under formal occupation. The zone occupee, which included the northern three-fifths of France as well as a strip of land running down the Atlantic coast to the Spanish border, contained most of France's industrial wealth and population. The unoccupied zone, or zone libre, was by far the poorest part of France, and it was where Marshal Petain was told to headquarter his government.

Separating the zones was a Demarcation Line, an internal military frontier, which the Germans could open or close as they wished. Pa.s.ses were required and travelers were subject to searches. In the first weeks after the armistice, the Line was open only to selected workers and administrators, those whom the Germans felt were essential to the recovery of basic industries and services in the north. Prevented from crossing were millions of refugees who had fled the invasion. It was a calculated move by the Germans. By forcing Petain's government to keep the refugees for two or three months while they established an efficient occupation in the north, "it allowed the Germans to appear organized and generous," according to historian Kedward. Grievances about food and other problems, therefore, were directed against French rather than German authorities.

Still, at that early point, most French were not overly concerned about the division. It was a temporary situation, they thought, and the new government of Petain believed so too. On June 29, when officials moved from Bordeaux to the health spa town of Vichy, one government minister told owners of the city's Htel du Parc, "Don't worry about the heating, we'll be back in Paris by fall."

The cheery optimism faded fast.

Marshal Petain had believed that if he was a "good collaborator" and cooperated with the Germans, Hitler would be pleased and the occupation would soon be lifted. He was wrong. Hitler was not interested in collaboration; he was interested in "booty," in milking France for everything he could.

"The real profiteers of this war are ourselves," Hitler said, "and out of it we shall come bursting with fat! We will give back nothing and will take everything we can make use of. And if the others protest, I don't give a d.a.m.n."

The fat Hitler alluded to included one thing above all, what former French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier called "France's most precious jewel": wine. Its importance lay not only with marketplace profits; it was also a symbol of prestige, sophistication and power.

With the drawing of the Demarcation Line, most of France's best vineyards, the grands crus, came under German control, and authorities wasted no time in letting winegrowers know who was in charge. Less than a week after the Germans arrived in Bordeaux, the Miailhes, at Chteau Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse de Lalande, were told to find another place to live.

"About two hundred fifty soldiers suddenly showed up, and one of the officers told us he wanted us out along with all the furniture," said May-Eliane. "He was polite but firm and insisted we had to move immediately." The chteau was furnished with a collection of Charles X furniture and artwork dating from the early nineteenth century that had been put together by the first Comtesse de Lalande. It took the entire Miailhe family to haul it to the chteau's attic.

One piece was deliberately left behind. It was a ma.s.sive armoire that held kitchen supplies. The Miailhes decided to use it to protect their wine, pus.h.i.+ng it from one side of the kitchen to the other so that it stood directly in front of the door that led downstairs to the cellar.

When the Miailhes finally left their chteau, German soldiers were already throwing straw pallets for sleeping on the parquet floors and hammering nails into the boiseries, the carved wood paneling, to hang their guns.

With the seizure of their home, the Miailhes moved to Chteau Siran in neighboring Margaux, where May-Eliane's grandparents lived. They found Siran jammed with refugees from northern France, among them some distant cousins from Verdun. "The place was overflowing but we really had no other place to go," May-Eliane said.

They had been there only a couple of hours when the officer who had requisitioned Pichon suddenly arrived. "He was furious and ordered us to come with him," May-Eliane said. "We were very, very scared." The officer told them to get in their car and follow him back to Pichon. Upon their arrival, the officer motioned the Miailhes into the kitchen. It was full of armed soldiers. In horror, they quickly discovered why: the armoire hiding the door to the wine cellar had been moved and the door was wide open.

"Do you think we are thieves?" the officer thundered. "Did you think we would steal your wine?" Before the Miailhes could reply, he continued, "Well, we are not thieves, and we will not touch a bottle of your wine!" He then sent the shaken Miailhes away.

Their fears, however, had just begun. The officer's tirade made them realize that something had to be done immediately about their Italian Jewish friends who were still at Chteau Palmer. "We knew they were no longer safe there," May-Eliane said, "so we decided on a temporary measure and moved the two families into a small annex attached to the chteau." An entrance connecting the buildings was then walled up. In the rear of the annex, concealed by a thick hedge, was a tiny window. The Miailhes added a small trapdoor so they could pa.s.s food, messages and other supplies to their Jewish friends.

But then, something frightening happened: the Germans announced they were requisitioning Chteau Palmer.

"When I heard that, my heart dropped," May-Eliane said. "I really did not know what we were going to do. All we knew was that our friends couldn't stay at Palmer much longer without being discovered."

The Miailhes were lucky in one respect. The officer who requisitioned their chteau kept his word: none of their wine was touched. Others, however, were not so fortunate. For two nightmarish months, wine producers throughout much of France suffered through an orgy of looting as the Germans gorged themselves on triumph and the delights of people's wine cellars.

In Burgundy, soldiers broke down doors of houses and pillaged the cellars of people who had fled.

In Champagne, nearly two million bottles were stolen and carted away. "They stacked everything in the center of our village-food, clothing and, of course, champagne-then loaded it onto trucks," remembers one resident. "It left people in a very bad state."

In the village of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, seventeen-year-old Bernard de Nonancourt was working with his brother and several cousins at the Delamotte champagne house, packing and loading cases of champagne, when they heard trucks approaching. Minutes later, a convoy of fifteen vehicles pulled up and armed soldiers piled out. With them was a stern-looking officer who said he was there on behalf of Field Marshal Gring. "Those who worked for Gring were always younger, rougher and more brutal," Bernard said. "They played the black market and never hesitated to circ.u.mvent rules when it suited them." With their young commander in the lead, the soldiers marched into Salon, one of the most prestigious houses in Champagne, and began carrying out cases of champagne. "It went on for several days," Bernard said. "Each morning, they would come back and take away more champagne. I particularly remember seeing cases of the 1928 Salon being hauled out."

For most French, those first two months of the occupation were bewildering. Everything seemed out of control. Even the Germans seemed a little confused.

"One thing became clear at once," wrote historian Philip Bell. "German policy was not following a 'blueprint.' The speed of the victories took everyone by surprise-the German high command, government ministries, even Hitler himself. So far from there being any detailed program ready to be put into operation, nothing was prepared."

In Bordeaux, Chteau Haut-Brion, which had been converted into a hospital for French soldiers by its owner, the American banker Clarence Dillon, was seized and turned into a rest home for the Luftwaffe.

The vineyards of Chteau Montrose were converted into a rifle range.

At Chteau Cos d'Estournel, decorative bells hanging from the towers of the famed wine estate suddenly began ringing. Soldiers were using them for target practice.

At Chteau Mouton-Rothschild, troops had no sooner moved into that jewel of a property than they began shooting at various paintings hanging on the wall. "It was totally ridiculous," said Baroness Philippine de Rothschild. "I remember being told about this old cook, a woman, running around trying to remove the pictures before they were destroyed."

Other times, however, the Germans were courteous and disciplined. Hugues Lawton's mother was just sitting down to tea when the maid entered the salon and announced, "Madame, the Germans." On her heels were several officers. "They were perfectly polite, but it was also perfectly clear they were taking over our house," Hugues said.

In Burgundy, however, the Germans helped ruin the 1940 harvest when they prevented workers from entering the vineyards to treat vines for oidium and mildew. The problem was noted in the vineyard logbook of the Marquis d'Angerville of Volnay: "17 juin 1940, Pas de travail aujourd'hui, occupation par les Allemands." (No work today, occupation by the Germans.) At the Chteau du Clos de Vougeot, a landmark of Burgundy ever since monks planted vines there in the thirteenth century, soldiers moved in abruptly, turning the beautiful ground-floor salons into an ammunition depot and chopping wood on the floor, scarring the medieval monument permanently. They also had planned to chop up the chteau's magnificent fifteenth-century pressoir for firewood but were talked out of it at the last minute by two prominent winegrowers who pleaded that the grape press was a museum piece.

One of the worst incidents of German thuggery occurred in Sezanne-en-Champagne at one of France's most famous restaurants, the Htel de France. When troops arrived, they discovered the cellar was nearly empty and all of its most famous wines missing. They went on an angry rampage, breaking up the furniture, hacking at the artwork on the walls, smas.h.i.+ng windows with their rifle b.u.t.ts and carting away what wine remained.

They no doubt would have been even angrier if they had known that the owner, only a few weeks earlier, had hidden his best wines behind the very walls they were bas.h.i.+ng.

By the end of July, German authorities realized they had to find a way to control their troops. Not only were they stealing from the French; they were also stealing goods requisitioned by the Third Reich. At least 250 trainloads of goods destined for Germany had been looted. To put an end to it, authorities decided to make an example of two young soldiers who were arrested after breaking into the cellars of the Perrier-Jout champagne firm in Epernay. The day after their arrest, a military court sentenced them to death. Although the sentence was later rescinded and the men instead were sent to the front, the message was clear: looting and pillaging would no longer be tolerated.

Field Marshal Gring, whose authority had been expanded to dictate economic policy for all occupied countries, was keenly aware that times had changed and that maintaining order was essential; but his instructions to the Occupation Authority also revealed a characteristic duplicity: "In the old days, the rule was plunder," he said. "Now, outward forms have become more humane. Nevertheless, I intend to plunder, and plunder copiously."

His first move was to sharply devalue the French franc, making the German mark nearly three times more valuable than it was before the war and purchases of fine wine or anything else tremendous bargains for the Germans.

For the French, it was a terrible blow. When some complained the franc would soon be worthless, Gring had a ready reply: "Good, I hope it happens. I hope that very soon the franc will have no more value than the paper that one uses for a certain purpose."

Gring's retort did not go down well, especially with a feisty little priest named Felix Kir (who bequeathed his name to that particular French aperitif). Shortly after the Germans changed the exchange rate, Kir spotted a merchant selling wine to German soldiers in Dijon. "How much are you charging them?" he asked. The merchant said thirty francs. Kir shouted, "Those guys just changed the exchange rate; charge 'em sixty! If they don't want to pay, don't sell." The soldiers paid. Within an hour, the merchant was sold out.

Vichy was less outspoken. Its powers were only vaguely defined, set down in the armistice agreement which had been cobbled together in less than four hours by writers and translators who had to work by candlelight.

In theory, Vichy's administrative authority covered the entire country. It could negotiate prices, even argue about exchange rates, but it was subject to German interference and veto in the occupied zone. Only in the unoccupied zone, or zone libre, did Vichy exercise full executive power, but then only within the restrictions of the armistice which the Germans could interpret as they saw fit.

Clouding the picture even more was a bitter power struggle between Gring, who believed France should be treated like a conquered country, a milch cow, and plundered without mercy, and those in the Foreign Office, headed by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, who favored a more subtle approach, one that would enable Berlin to bring France into a German-dominated New Order as a subordinate power but one which might retain a limited amount of sovereignty. "If France is to be treated like a milch cow," argued one official, "it has to be given some fodder." A limited amount of fodder is about all Vichy ever got.

Yet most French, in those first six months, believed that the regime, ensconced in its sleepy setting and headed by a grandfather figure who professed only to want what was best for France, was just what the country needed. It extolled the traditions of old, provincial France, the need to return to rural life, and the sanct.i.ty of the family in which a woman's place was in the home. Under the motto "Travail, Famille, Patrie" ("Work, Family, Fatherland"), Vichy set out to rejuvenate France by promoting youth organizations, the pursuit of sports and a healthier, outdoor life. It also encouraged "good works" and called for a greater role of the Catholic Church in education.

But there was a darker, more sinister side. Vichy was authoritarian, patriarchal and messianic. "From the very beginning," according to historian Kedward, "it was a divisive and punitive regime, acting under the illusion that the widespread veneration for Petain indicated a similar consensus for its political and social program." Against the values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Vichy preached a society in which people respected their place-and were kept there. Married women were prevented from holding jobs. Their real job was staying home and having children; it was practically a sacred duty.

For others, it was much worse. Within two months of coming to power, Vichy published the first of a series of decrees making Jews second-cla.s.s citizens. Immigrant Jews were stripped of their rights, constantly hara.s.sed and threatened with deportation. Vichy's goal was to make France a unitary nation. "France for the French," they said. Communists and Freemasons were hunted down. Trade unions were abolished; local elected councils and mayors of larger towns were swept away, all of them replaced with pro-Vichy nominees. In that context, Vichy, according to Kedward, "appeared as a force not of national integration but of political retribution."

Although support for the government was about to fade, faith in the man who headed it remained high. For most French, there was a clear distinction: on one hand, there was Vichy; on the other, there was Petain. Even the Marshal drew a distinction, saying he considered himself more as a moral tutor for the nation who shaped correct att.i.tudes rather than policy. Crowds adored him and the Church wors.h.i.+pped him: "La France, c'est Petain, et Petain, c'est la France," declared the French primate Cardinal Gerlier. On the road, peasants lined the rails when his train pa.s.sed by; women held out their babies for him to touch. In one case, a woman hurled herself in front of his car to stop it so she might have a chance to touch his hand. According to an official report of the incident, the prefect turned to Petain to apologize, but found the Marshal gently asleep (he was eighty-five), "without," said the report, "losing his dignity or his sovereign bearing."

The chaos of the first two months came as a rude awakening for most French, who traditionally viewed Germans as being disciplined and always "correct."

By August, however, most of the trouble had been brought under control, the clearest sign being in Paris, where soldiers were behaving much like tourists. They went sightseeing, saw movies and filled restaurants. Authorities had even created an organization called Jeder einmal in Paris (Everyone in Paris Once) to offer all the troops a holiday in the City of Light.

One officer, who said he considered France a "second spiritual fatherland," described Paris as "even more brilliant during the occupation than before." Hitler himself made a whirlwind tour of the city, his daylong trip highlighted by a brief visit to Napoleon's tomb.

For most Germans, however, the primary attraction of Paris was not historical monuments but gastronomic ones, restaurants which one soldier said "allow you to live as G.o.d in France." One of those restaurants was La Tour d'Argent, which a young officer named Ernst Jnger visited, later describing the "diabolical feeling of power that came while dining on sole and the famous duck."

Claude Terrail, who, three months earlier, had helped hide the restaurant's most precious wines, said the Germans who dined there always behaved correctly. "They may have been killers outside but at night they came well dressed and behaved, and they paid for everything." Where wine was concerned, the Germans always ordered the best. "We tried to push the cheaper stuff," Terrail said, "but we didn't play tricks. It wasn't worth dying for."

It was an att.i.tude the Hugels of Riquewihr understood. Unlike the Terrails and so many others, they did not bother to hide their wine. "We were Germany again," Andre said, "and the Germans were once again our customers, our only customers."