‘When he told me this over dinner that evening, he was very pleased with himself, but I was appalled and decided that I had to do something. My younger brother’s in-laws were socialists before the war, and I suspected some of them might be involved in the resistance. After a few weeks of sending messages and meeting one of them, I became involved too. The organisation I belonged to was Les Mouvements Unis de la Résistance – a group linked with the Armée Secrète. I became active in the unit that covered the 9th arrondissement – they always tried to put you in a unit in a different area from the one you lived in. I delivered messages and money, liaised with other groups and helped people to evade the authorities. I never carried out any actions, but I did take weapons and explosives to people who did. I remained with my husband the whole time, because it was perfect cover, and in any case, by then he had a contract with the German military high command, which was based at the Hotel Majestic on Avenue Kléber. He would often have copies of the material he printed for them in his study, and I was sometimes able to take documents and pass them on to the resistance.

‘Since the liberation, I have maintained my contacts: my main motivation is to ensure that people who collaborated with the Germans should not get away with it.’ She stubbed her cigarette out in a metal ashtray and poured more cognac into her cup.

‘And your husband?’

She laughed bitterly as she lit another Gitanes and began to smoke it as if she was in a hurry. ‘Yes, my husband. He had no idea, of course, about what I’d been up to – he was so arrogant that he assumed I was just another loyal Parisian wife, in awe of him and with no opinion of her own. When the city was liberated, he was terrified – he spent days trying to destroy documents and coaching me on how we were to account for ourselves during the occupation. I arranged for some of my resistance comrades to come to our apartment one evening a week after the liberation. Before they were due to arrive, I sat him down and told him what I’d been up to – how I was so angry at his informing on the Jewish family that I had joined the resistance, and how active I’d been. He was beyond shocked, and pleaded with me to help him, and then, as arranged, my comrades arrived.’ She paused, holding her cigarette in front of her face and watching the smoke spiral towards the ceiling.

‘And?’

‘They took him away.’ She shifted in her seat and tipped some more cognac into her cup. ‘I guess you want to know what happened to him? Le épuration sauvage: he was handed over to a group of Jewish resistance fighters who were specifically looking for people who’d informed on Jews, leading to their deportation. They made him write a full confession.’