Paris After the Liberation_ 1944 - 1949 - Antony Beevor [32]
For the rest of the day, black traction-avant Citroëns, daubed with the FFI initials on the roof and sides, charged around self-importantly at breakneck speed, stopping only to shoot at rooftops and windows. Other vehicles requisitioned by the Resistance had men armed with rifles lying on the mudguards or standing on the running boards. ‘The heroes multiplied,’ wrote Galtier-Boissière. ‘The number of last-minute resistants, armed from head to toe and covered in cartridge belts in the Mexican style, was considerable.’
De Gaulle, meanwhile, affected not to hear the firing. His open car continued down the rue de Rivoli to the Hôtel de Ville, where the band of the Garde Républicaine was drawn up in review order outside. After a brief stop, he crossed the Pont d’Arcole to Notre-Dame.
Outside the cathedral Mgr Suhard, the cardinal-archbishop of Paris, was conspicuously absent from the welcoming party. He had wanted to be present, but there was little to recommend him in Gaullist and Resistance eyes. In August 1942, he had insisted on giving absolution in the service of blessing for the Legion of French Volunteers off to fight for the Wehrmacht in Russia. In April 1944, he had welcomed Pétain on the latter’s visit to Paris; and only two months before the Liberation he had dignified the funeral of Philippe Henriot with full pomp and ceremony. Henriot, assassinated by the Resistance, had been Vichy’s Minister of Information and a pro-Nazi propagandist.
Shooting broke out again just as de Gaulle entered Notre-Dame. Outside, FFI groups began firing at the towers. The members of the Jewish platoon concentrated on the north tower. Inside, policemen and soldiers trying to protect de Gaulle aimed up into the recesses and vaulting of the cathedral. Some shots brought down chunks of masonry. Members of the congregation, who had thrown themselves flat, then tried to hide behind pillars or even under chairs. De Gaulle, disengaging himself from the mêlée, walked forward up the aisle towards the high altar, where the service was due to begin.
Malcolm Muggeridge, a British intelligence officer who had reached Paris late the night before, described the whole event. ‘The effect was fantastic. The huge congregation who had all been standing suddenly fell flat on their faces. There was a single exception; one solitary figure, like a lonely giant. It was, of course, de Gaulle. Thenceforth, that was how I always saw him– towering and alone; the rest, prostrate.’ There were others, such as Alexandre Parodi, who remained upright, but with all eyes fixed on de Gaulle; he alone appeared majestic, fearless and untouchable.
The incident confirmed de Gaulle in his determination to disarm the FFI at the earliest opportunity. There could be no further doubt that they represented a bigger danger to public safety than the rump of any ‘fifth column’ of miliciens. Disturbances presented a double threat. ‘Public order is a matter of life and death,’ he told a visitor to the rue Saint-Dominique a few days later. ‘If we do not re-establish it ourselves, foreigners will impose it upon us.’ The American and British forces now appeared to be seen as ‘foreigners’ rather than allies.
At half past eleven, during a second night of celebration, the air-raid sirens sounded. The Luftwaffe had arrived on a revenge attack, bombing at random. A hospital was seriously damaged. So too were the spirit