Victoire

A most engrossing biography of an unusual and complex French woman and her tragic life in three separate periods. The first relates to her upbring which explains how she became what she was, vulnerable, intelligent, and courageous. When WWII starts, she volunteers to be trained as a Red Cross nurse, serving with distinction with the French Army. When the Germans invades, France falls with a government collaborating to salvage what it can to survive, while the Free French escaped to England with little support from most of the French population and its Armed Services. With this background she and a fellow spirit worked together to organise an intelligence network in the whole of France, personally recruiting agents and organising them into separate zones with help from the British in the way of money and radio communications. The organisation was extraordinarily successful suppling London with vital information over a period of one year until on its anniversary when she and her partner was betrayed. This was the period when she had to choose between torture and death or become a collaborator and double agent to fool London. So she became a double agent and became tp be trusted and allowed some freedom. In her work she found a SOE agent to whom she confessed her guilt, and they formed a plot to fool the Germans that he had been turned and to let them escape to England to work for them as double agents while secretly planning to be triple agents a plan that was typical of her audacity. In London as a triple agent, she worked with the British to send doctored information to the Germans to confuse them. Her plans to return to France was banned as too dangerous and not to be completely trusted, so the British decided to intern her until later she was transferred to a prison where she stayed till the end of the war, but always treated like an honoured guest. After the end of the war, she was handed back to France where all collaborators were arrested for trial. She was tried and condemned for death but later, on appeal was sentence to 2 years of hard labour from which with remission she was released to living quietly alone to a ripe old age. A rather sad tale, to be condemned and to end her life friendless and alone. The British owed her and should have done better.

An excellent biography, telling the story of Matthilde Carre, later known as 'Victoire', a spy who is part of the intelligence network in France that provides information to Britain. When things start to go wrong, she has to think on her feet and makes a choice that might just save her life, becoming a double agent and collaborator for Germany. This story shows the risks that are taken in espionage as the stakes are raised as Victoire is drawn into double and triple agent territory. Can she continue to be trusted by each country as suspicions start to surface, and betrayal is never far away. A recommended read. Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage for my copy.

This was a wonderfully researched and written biography of the mysterious and enigmatic Matthilde Carre, later known as 'Victoire' who began as a much vaunted resistance heroine, was turned by the German and later became a triple agent. There is much exceptional detail about the formation and running of a spy network in occupied France and how she and her colleagues managed to do so without any formal training - needs must, indeed.

What I found most enthralling and fascinating was the author's keen observations about her moral dilemma when discovered by the Germans and her behaviour after she was arrested when she became the mistress of her raptor and betrayed almost her entire network.

It is easy to criticise her without being out in the same impossible situation she faced and I really enjoyed reading this book.

Highly recommended.