More than a hundred and sixty airmen, from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were betrayed or captured, many being sent to the camp at Buchenwald. Thanks to your son, I was one of the lucky ones to escape.

When I parted from your son, he gave me a little lighter, which I enclose, telling me it would bring me luck, which it certainly did. He told me I could return it after the war. Alas, he is not there to receive it himself, but I believe he leaves a son who, perhaps, might like to have it as a memento of a friendship, and with respectful gratitude from a Canadian airman whose life his father saved.

It was a graceful and charming letter.

“You know what’s worst of all,” Roland said. “If Charlie had kept that lighter, it might have brought him luck instead of the Canadian. He might be alive today.”

The next day they went to Père Lachaise. Roland de Cygne showed the little lighter to Esmé and told him that one day he should have it, as his father had before him. Standing together beside Charlie’s gravesite, they let a moment pass in silent remembrance.

CHARLES DE CYGNE
PATRIOTE
MORT POUR LA PATRIE
JUIN 1944

Epilogue

•  1968  •

If Paris in the spring was romantic, Claire thought, there was a beauty about the city in the autumn season that was just as lovely. And it brought new stirrings too. For after the traditional holiday month of August, when the place is strangely quiet, September marks the beginning of a new school and cultural year. And then, in October, comes the wine harvest.

She stepped out of the funicular and began to walk into Montmartre. She had spent all morning trying to come to a decision, but without success. Perhaps, she thought, if I get a little drunk up here, I shall know what to do.

She loved France. She knew that. All the years she’d been living in America, she’d always followed what was going on there. Not all of it had been happy.

After de Gaulle had brought some stability to the nation as it emerged from the war, Claire had been grateful to see France return to democracy. Given the deep richness of France, its economy would bear fruit under almost any government. It had seemed the French could even afford a generous welfare state. And the new European Community, thank God, had put an end to wars between France and Germany forever. But the internal politics of the Fourth Republic had been embarrassing. The mechanics of the French parliamentary model had been poorly arranged, and in ten years, there had been twenty governments. De Gaulle had refused to have anything to do with them.