Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler | Lynne Olson
The little-known true story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the woman who headed the largest spy network in occupied France during World War II, from the bestselling author of Citizens of London and Last Hope Island In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organizationthe only woman to serve as a chef de rsistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her countrys conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was temperamentally made for the job. Her groups name was Alliance, but the Gestapo dubbed it Noahs Ark because its agents used the names of animals as their aliases. The name Marie-Madeleine chose for herself was Hedgehog: a tough little animal, unthreatening in appearance, that, as a colleague of hers put it, even a lion would hesitate to bite. No other French spy network lasted as long or supplied as much crucial intelligenceincluding providing American and British military commanders with a 55-foot-long map of the beaches and roads on which the Allies would land on D-Dayas Alliance. The Gestapo pursued them relentlessly, capturing, torturing, and executing hundreds of its three thousand agents, including Fourcades own lover and many of her key spies. Although Fourcade, the mother of two young children, moved her headquarters every few weeks, constantly changing her hair color, clothing, and identity, she was captured twice by the Nazis. Both times she managed to escapeonce by slipping naked through the bars of her jail celland continued to hold her network together even as it repeatedly threatened to crumble around her. Now, in this dramatic account of the war that split France in two and forced its people to live side by side with their hated German occupiers, Lynne Olson tells the fascinating story of a woman who stood up for her nation, her fellow citizens, and herself. Advance praise for Madame Fourcades Secret War In Madame Fourcades Secret War, Lynne Olson tells one of the great stories of the French Resistance, a story of one womans courage amid great danger, a story of heroism, defiance, and, ultimately, victory.Alan Furst, author of A Hero of France
Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler | 
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