Soon the city was split into districts, some under German control, others controlled by the Resistance. The situation was fluid, chaotic. Sometimes the Germans were shooting Resistance men by firing squad only two streets away from an area under Resistance control.

Max was engaged all over the city. His father was busy producing the broadsheets that would be distributed when the moment came—though Max found him cheerfully manning a barricade with the younger men in Belleville more than once. But each evening they met in company with several dozen other committed FTP men, communists and socialists, and reviewed the situation. The excitement was palpable. They were taking ground from the Germans all the time. Soon the Maquis would control the city.

Only one development threatened to throw everything in doubt. The Maquis received an urgent message from General von Choltitz, the commander of the city himself.

“The führer has given orders. If we have to evacuate, I’m to blow up the city.”

Frantically, with the help of the neutral Sweden’s envoy in Paris, the Maquis negotiated with the general. At last the German commander made his choice.

“He’s going to ignore Hitler’s orders,” Max reported to his father. “He knows what’ll happen to him if he obeys them.” Then he smiled. “It seems, Father, that the Paris Commune is about to be reborn.”

And then, on the evening of the sixth day, came the crushing news which put all their calculations at risk and, by the seventh day, destroyed all their hopes.

General Charles de Gaulle arrived to liberate Paris.

To be precise, the advance guard of General Leclerc’s Free French Division arrived at the western gates of the city. When Max first heard it, he couldn’t believe it.

“Impossible!” he cried. “Eisenhower’s not coming to Paris.”

“Eisenhower isn’t,” they told him. “But de Gaulle is.”

Within an hour, the advance guard had raced into the city, straight up its central axis and arrived at the Hôtel de Ville behind the Louvre by nine-thirty that night.

When the two Le Sourds met with their usual committee that night, the story was becoming clear.

“It’s all de Gaulle’s doing. Eisenhower didn’t want to go near Paris at all. But once the Rising began, de Gaulle badgered him, told him that if the Germans massacred us, it would be worse than the tragedy of the Warsaw uprising. In the end Eisenhower gave permission for Leclerc’s division, together with the U.S. Army Fourth Division, to divert up here. Leclerc actually disobeyed orders to wait and just drove straight through to Paris. He’ll enter with his entire force, and the American division as well, in the morning.”

“Then we’re screwed,” said Le Sourd bitterly. “We can’t organize the Commune overnight.”