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An Unsavory Tale 1940-1945 : Années erotiques, tome L: Vichy ou les Infortunes de la vertu [1940-1945: Erotic years, vol. 1: Vichy or the misfortunes of virtue], by Patrick Buisson, Albin Michel, 2008, 570 pp. [French]
Reviewed by Michelle Mazel
This book, with its deceptively catchy title, is intended to be the first of a trilogy devoted to one of the darkest periods in French history. After the humiliating defeat of the French army in 1940, the French government retreated to the so-called free zone and set up house in the town of Vichy, a favorite spa resort for the elderly, better known until then for the quality of its thermal sources. From the relative safety ofthat provincial retreat it openly collaborated with the German authorities.
It is difficult for a foreigner to understand the depth of the trauma that Vichy caused for the average Frenchman. His country was defeated and occupied. Hundreds of thousands of people had fled the capital in a panic, seeking refuge in the South of France. The Germans were parading through Paris, marching up and down the Champs Elysées. After the war, much was made of the efforts of the heroes of the Resistance, the underground movement which fought against enormous odds and did manage to salvage some of the honor of their country. There were attempts to "cleanse" the administration of its most blatant collaborators. Marshall Pétain, who led France at the time, was court-martialed and condemned...