Patrick Modiano - The Occupation Trilogy - La Place de l'Étoile – The Night Watch – Ring Roads

Abetz: Otto Abetz (1903–58),the German ambassador to Vichy France during the Second World War.

General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs: Commissariat général aux questions juive , the administrative committee tasked with enforcing the anti-Semitic policies of the Vichy Government.

Stülpnagel:Otto von Stülpnagel (1878–1948), head of the occupied forces and military governor of Paris. He committed suicide while awaiting trial after the war.

Doriot:Jacques Doriot (1898–1945), Communist turned fascist who, with Marcel Déat, founded the Légion des Volontaires Français .

Déat:Marcel Déat (1894–1955), founder of the Rassemblement national populaire (National Popular Rally), a political party in the Vichy Government; later appointed Minister of Labour and National Solidarity.

Jo Darnand:Joseph Darnand (1897–1945), a decorated French soldier during the First World War, Darnand went on to become a leading collaborator during the Second World War, founding the collaborationist militia, Service d’ordre legionnaire , which later became the Milice .

Franc-Garde:armed wing of the Milice . In 1943–44, it fought alongside the German army against the Maquis .

… beautiful lines by Spire:André Spire (1868–1966), French poet, and writer.

L’Aiglon:Napoleon II ‘the Eaglet’ who died aged twenty-one.

Süss the Jew:the eponymous character in the 1940 Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß commissioned by Joseph Goebbels.

The ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’: song penned by Horst Wessel in 1929, usually known as ‘Die Fahne hoch’ (‘The Flag on High’), it was adopted as the Nazi Party anthem in 1930.

Colonel de la Rocque:François de La Rocque (1885–1946), leader of the French right-wing Croix de Feu during the 1930s and later the French nationalist Parti Social Français .

Brocéliande:in French literature, a mythical forest said to be the last resting place of Merlin the magician.

Tante Léonie:character in Proust’s In Search Of Lost Time at whose house Marcel stays in Combray.

Maurice Dekobra (1885–1973):French writer of adventure novels.

Stavinsky: Alexandre Stavinsky (1888–1934),French ‘financier’ with considerable influence among government ministers and bankers. After his death in 1934, it was discovered that he had embezzled 200 million francs from the Crédit municipal de Bayonne, a scandal which rocked the French government.

Novarro:Ramón Novarro (1899–1968), Mexican actor, one of the great stars of the silent cinema.

the anti-Jewish exhibition at the Palais Berlitz: Le Juif et la France , a notorious anti-Semitic propaganda exhibition staged in Paris during the Nazi occupation.

Bagatelles pour un massacre: title of a collection of virulently anti-Semitic essays by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, translated as Trifles for a Massacre .

Rue d’Ulm! Rue d’Ulm!:the address of the prestigious École Normale Supérieure.

Jallez and Jephanion:the writer Jallez and the politician Jerphanion are the inseparable friends in Jules Romain’s novel Les Hommes de bonne volonté ( The Men of Good Will ).

to join the LVF: Légion des volontaires français (contre le bolchévisme), the Legion of French Volunteers (Against Bolshevism), a collaborationist French militia founded on July 8, 1941.

Rastignac:a character in Balzac’s La Comédie humaine , Eugène de Rastignac is portrayed as a naïve but fervent social climber — he went by the name ‘Rastignac de la butte Montmartre’.

… to quote Péguy:Charles Péguy (1873–1914) French poet and essayist, he coined the phrase ‘les hussards noirs’ in 1913 to refer to his teachers.

He insisted that … to notice him:parodying the phrase ‘if the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him’ in Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew .

my old friend Seingalt:Casanova, who signed his Memoirs (as he did many other works) Jacques Casanova de Seingalt.

Paul Chack (1876–1945):French Naval officer and collaborationist writer.

Monsignor Mayol de Lupé (1873–1955):Catholic priest who served as chaplain for the Légion des volontaires français and later for the SS.

Henri Béraud (1885–1958):French novelist and journalist. Virulently Anglophobic and anti-Semitic, he supported the Vichy Government. After the liberation, he was sentenced to death for collaboration. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

… attack on Mers-el-Kébir:as a direct response to the signing of the French — German armistice, the British Navy bombarded the French Navy off the coast of Algeria in July 1940, resulting in the deaths of 1,297 French servicemen.

‘Maréchal, nous voilà’:a French song pledging loyalty to Maréchal Pétain.

Romanciers du terroir :a group of turn-of-the-century French novelists best known for their realistic depiction of rural life.

Mistral:Frédéric Mistral (1830–1914), French novelist awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904.

Bichelonne:Jean Bichelonne (1904–44), French businessman and civil servant, later head of the Office central de repartition des produits industriels in the Vichy government.

Hérold-Paquis:Jean Auguste Hérold aka Jean Hérold-Paquis (1912–45), a French journalist who fought for Franco during the Spanish Civil War and was later appointed Delegate for Propaganda to the Hautes-Alpes region by the Vichy Government. Executed for treason in 1945.

admirals Esteva, Darlan and Platón:three admirals who served in the Vichy regime.

Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821):Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre, philosopher and writer who famously defended the monarchy after the French Revolution.

Maurice Barrès (1861–1923):French symbolist writer, politician who popularised the notion of ethnic nationalism in France. An influential anti-Semite, he broke with the left wing to become a leading anti-Dreyfusard, writing: ‘That Dreyfus is guilty, I deduce not from the facts themselves, but from his race’.

Charles Martel (68?–741):Frankish military leader who defeated Abdul Rahman’s son, halting the advance of the Islamic caliphate circa 736.

fleurs-de-lis on a field Azure:the heraldic arms of ‘France Ancienne’.

I was secretary to Joanovici:Joseph Joanovici (1905–65), a French Jewish iron supplier, who supplied both Nazi Germany and the French Resistance. After the war, he was found guilty of collaboration and sentenced to prison. In 1958 he escaped from France to Israel but was refused the right to request to naturalize and returned to France. He was released in 1962.

Frison-Roche:Roger Frison-Roche (1906–99) French mountaineer, explorer and novelist

Bordeaux:Henry Bordeaux (1870–1963), French lawyer, essayist and writer. His novels reflect the values of traditional provincial Catholic communities.

Capitaine Danrit:penname of Émile Driant, (1855–1916), French writer, politician, and a decorated army officer. He died at the Battle of Verdun during the First World War.