Paris after the Liberation 1944-1949

afflicted those on fixed incomes as well as industrial workers. Outside the Ritz, the wife of an American diplomat who threw away a half-smoked cigarette was deeply embarrassed to see a well-dressed old man pounce upon it. There was even a trade in cigarette butts, sold in tens. Those on low salaries defended themselves as best they could. Conductors on overcrowded trains required a tip if they were to find you a seat, a practice which provoked members of the middle class to complain that this was extortion.
    Certain shopkeepers, especially butchers, were notorious for increasing their profits by holding back supplies and offering them to richer customers. ‘If you want some entrecôte, Madame, there is some –
au prix fort
.’ At Barbizon, outside Paris, half a dozen of the best properties were bought up by butchers. One butcher, visiting a house for sale, offered 3.5 million francs in used notes on condition that the owners were out by the next day. In January 1946, the Minister of Supply ordered the Prefect of Police to arrest four leading members of the Syndicat de la Boucherie, but this was little more than a gesture.
    The greatest scandal of all, at a time when the wine ration was only three litres per adult per month, concerned the disappearance of large quantities of wine imported by the Ministry of Supply from Algeria. As usual, the law-abiding saw little wine, while everyone else profited – fromthose who registered at several wine shops to multiply their ration,or kept a dead relative on the books (‘The dead generally take their drink dry,’ remarked the secretary-general of the Confédération des Agriculteurs), right up to the major wholesalers, who are alleged to have made huge profits selling the produce abroad. The Minister of Supply, Yves Farge, sacked all forty members of the directorate dealing with wine, but their faults probably stemmed more from inexperience than deliberate wrongdoing. The
épuration administrative
had removed many competent officials; their places had often been taken by candidates with a good Resistance record but little aptitude for the job.
    The affair grew fast, implicating more and more prominent names from the Socialist Party until even the former Prime Minister, Félix Gouin, was dragged into it. The only people who really benefited from the great wine scandal of 1946 were the press, who had a field day. *
    Almost everyone caught with black-market produce claimed that he was the father of a large family and was just trying to feed his starving little ones. Many no doubt spoke the truth, but at least half the population seemed to be pilfering or dealing in one form or another. A gang of schoolboys at the Lycée Condorcet – their chief was thirteen and a half years old – was found to be buying chewing gum in bulk from the Americans and selling it at huge profits. The group’s treasurer was caught with 10,000 francs on him.
    Nobody stuck scrupulously to their own trade when they could get hold of something else to resell ‘
au prix fort
’. Galtier-Boissière’s barber offered him American chocolate for 800 francs. A couple of days later his wife, Charlotte, told himthat she had at last managed to get hold of some fish.
    ‘Where was that?’
    ‘At the butcher I go to.’
    Those with good connections in the catering trade always managed to survive. During the Occupation, for example, Roland Petit’s ballet troupe, whose star was Zizi Jeanmaire, were fed free at the restaurant in Les Halles owned by Petit’s father, who was immensely proud of hisson’s success. Diplomats, senior officers and officials with cars and a petrol allowance found a farmer as their regular supplier, and drove out at weekends to buy supplies of eggs and butter and perhaps a ham. They did not even bother to hide their purchases because cars, especially official vehicles, were seldom stopped.
    Diplomats certainly did not undergo any hardships. ‘I’m suffering today from a baby hangover,’ wrote one guest after a party at the Turkish Embassy. ‘The Turk did us proud – the board over-groaned. I would have been ashamed “
en pleine révolution
”, for that is how these days are referred to here – to show such langoustes, such pink foie gras – oysters in such quantities – only wings and breasts of chicken floating in a Turkish cream of nuts.’
    A few people were shamelessly flippant about the situation. Noël Coward described in his diary a dinner for the Duke and Duchess