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By Root 588 0

Bayeux that night. Although the camionnette was now considerably lighter, it proved no more adept at surmounting the rolling hills of Normandy. Cervotti and Falue were obliged to dismount and push many more times. By 9 p.m. they had only reached Alencon, not even halfway back to Bayeux. It was getting dark and drizzling coldly; they had no choice but to break the journey. The Germans, however, had recently evacuated the coastal regions and Alencon was overflowing with refugees. Our heroes began a quest of biblical proportion to find somewhere to stay. There was absolutely no room at any hostelry, nor could any restaurant or cafe provide them with the slightest sustenance. Eventually the concierge at the town hall, having heard of their plight, took pity and offered them an attic room, which doubled as a prison cell for black marketeers. All that he had in the way of food was eggs and cheese, but this modest meal was accepted and consumed with relish. The next day, by dint of another four and a half hours of sweaty toil, the three gentlemen arrived back at Bayeux. Cervotti and Falue immediately reported to the mayor, who had been anxiously waiting for news ever since the previous evening. Despite all the vicissitudes of the journey, they were able to report that the Bayeux Tapestry had been transported across occupied Normandy, safe and intact, and that it was now in storage at the art depot at the Château de Sourches.

The tapestry remained practically undisturbed at Sourches for another three years. It was not until 1944 that it faced renewed danger. On 6 June 1944 the great seaborne Allied landings on the coast of Normandy, years in preparation, finally took place. It was as if history had held up a great mirror to the events of 1066: a vast fleet of ships, packed with warriors, was crossing the Channel but this time in the opposite direction, from England to France, and it was intent upon a mission of liberation rather than conquest. Despite intense fighting, the Allies found it difficult to break free of their initial bridgehead. Sourches was over 100 miles inland, but evidently it was still too close for comfort, for on 18 June 1944 orders were given by the German authorities, with the agreement of the French minister of education, for the Tapestry to be taken for its own safety to Paris. It appears that the leader of the SS himself, Heinrich Himmler, was the impetus behind this latest move. Alone among the priceless artworks which were deposited at Château de Sourches, it was the Bayeux Tapestry that he insisted should be taken to Paris.13 On 27 June 1944 it duly arrived, this time under SS guard, and it was placed in a dry cellar at the Louvre.

Ironically, long before the tapestry arrived in Paris, Bayeux had already been liberated. It was taken by the 56th British infantry division on 7 June 1944, the day after the Allied landings. Bayeux was the first town in mainland France to be freed from the Nazi yoke and, unlike so many other old towns in Normandy, its historic houses and monumental cathedral emerged unscathed from the war. The British War Cemetery, just outside the town, now bears a fitting Latin inscription recording that those whom William conquered returned to liberate the land of the conqueror. Had the famous tapestry depicting William the Conqueror's invasion remained at Bayeux it would have fallen into the safety of the liberators'hands sooner than it eventually did. Now in Paris, however, it was to suffer another knife-edge encounter with disaster.

By August 1944 the Allies had at last advanced to the outskirts of Paris. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied forces, had been keen to bypass the city and push on towards Germany, but the leader of the Free French, General de Gaulle, feared that Paris would fall into the hands of the Communist resistance and insisted that the French capital be liberated as a priority. Eisenhower eventually agreed and the Allies were now moving in on the city. Sporadic street fighting was already taking place between the Germans and disparate resistance groups.