Paris after the Liberation 1944-1949

always came first.
    The rank and file were determined not to hand over their weapons, often seized at huge risk during the Occupation, for they had receivedfew parachute drops from England. All over France, weapons of every sort were greased up and wrapped in oilcloth to be buried in gardens or under floors. The quantity concealed can only be guessed at. In December, the gendarmerie detachment at Valenciennes discovered one arms cache. It contained three aircraft machine-guns, two rifles, three anti-tank rifles, one revolver, eight grenades, fifteen stick grenades, two boxes of detonators, 19,000 rounds of ammunition and six cavalry saddles. Former members of the FTP incorporated into the army at the Rouzier barracks nearby promptly threatened to attack the gendarmerie if there were any more searches.
    In many parts of the country, members of the
maquis
refused to bow to the order from Paris, and the local Commissioner of the Republic decided to bide his time, whatever the Ministry of the Interior might decree. But the move had been made and it was only a question of time before the state re-established its monopoly of force everywhere.
    De Gaulle’s speech in Toulouse had revealed his dislike of irregular warfare, and his text was imbued with his almost monarchical view of legitimacy and succession. The Liberation was a restoration, not a revolution, and Charles de Gaulle was not so much a head of government as a republican sovereign. The Communist leader Jacques Duclos used to refer to him as Charles XI.
    The selection of his pre-war office at 14 rue Saint-Dominique, part of the Ministry of War, demonstrated de Gaulle’s determination to rebuild France upon elements of the past. The army was a sure foundation. He did not, however, feel the same about industry. His speech at Lille on 1 October, on the second leg of his post-Liberation tour of France, promised a programme of nationalization in terms that could have come straight from the mouth of a
dirigiste
socialist, if not a Communist.
    De Gaulle seemed able to relax only with trusted members of his staff. Claude Bouchinet-Serreulles, who was one of his young aides in London before parachuting into France to join Jean Moulin, never forgot his ‘
grande courtoisie
’. The General would always rise to shake hands when he brought in the dossiers first thing in the morning. He never ate alone, usually taking one of his young colleagues to eat with him, and used the opportunity to formulate his ideas to an audience. In those wartime days, he always talked of the future, never of the past,although he had a deep knowledge of history. But with the Liberation the future had arrived and it was not comfortable. One of the main problems was his very limited circle of companions, when the breadth of problems to be discussed was so great.
    Close associates, often lacking specialist knowledge, were the only people able to influence him, since with ministers his mind was usually made up in advance. His
chef de cabinet,
Gaston Palewski, whose job was to control access to an already overburdened de Gaulle, inevitably made the most enemies. He was particularly resented by senior French army officers. The myth of Palewski’s power spread to such an extent that people used to say that the initials GPRF (Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Française) on official cars stood for ‘Gaston Palewski Régent de France’. *
    Members of the government constituted in the second week of September were to suffer many surprises – often with their appointments. Georges Bidault was the first to admit that he was an extraordinary choice for Minister of Foreign Affairs. ‘This adventure was unexpected,’ he wrote, ‘and strongly tinged with paradox.’ Having led a clandestine existence during the Occupation up to his time as head of the National Council of the Resistance, he had not the slightest idea of what had been going on in the outside world.
    Pierre-Henri Teitgen, erstwhile professor of law at the University of Montpellier and member of the Resistance’s Comité Général des Études, found to his astonishment that he had been appointed Minister of Information. He commandeered a fine building on the Avenue de Friedland which the Wehrmacht had converted into a cinema. He asked one man he knew and trusted to be his secretary-general and another to be his
chef de cabinet
.
    Starting from scratch, Teitgen faced fewer difficulties than some of the more well-established