Madame Fourcade's Secret War cover art

Madame Fourcade's Secret War

The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Madame Fourcade's Secret War

By: Lynne Olson
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £17.05

Buy Now for £17.05

About this listen

 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The little-known true story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the woman who headed the largest spy network in occupied France during World War II, from the bestselling author of Citizens of London and Last Hope Island

“Brava to Lynne Olson for a biography that should challenge any outdated assumptions about who deserves to be called a hero.”—The Washington Post

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE WASHINGTON POST

In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organization—the only woman to serve as a chef de résistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country’s conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was temperamentally made for the job. Her group’s name was Alliance, but the Gestapo dubbed it Noah’s Ark because its agents used the names of animals as their aliases. The name Marie-Madeleine chose for herself was Hedgehog: a tough little animal, unthreatening in appearance, that, as a colleague of hers put it, “even a lion would hesitate to bite.”

No other French spy network lasted as long or supplied as much crucial intelligence—including providing American and British military commanders with a 55-foot-long map of the beaches and roads on which the Allies would land on D-Day—as Alliance. The Gestapo pursued them relentlessly, capturing, torturing, and executing hundreds of its three thousand agents, including Fourcade’s own lover and many of her key spies. Although Fourcade, the mother of two young children, moved her headquarters every few weeks, constantly changing her hair color, clothing, and identity, she was captured twice by the Nazis. Both times she managed to escape—once by slipping naked through the bars of her jail cell—and continued to hold her network together even as it repeatedly threatened to crumble around her.

Now, in this dramatic account of the war that split France in two and forced its people to live side by side with their hated German occupiers, Lynne Olson tells the fascinating story of a woman who stood up for her nation, her fellow citizens, and herself.

“Fast-paced and impressively researched . . . Olson writes with verve and a historian’s authority. . . . With this gripping tale, Lynne Olson pays [Marie-Madeleine Fourcade] what history has so far denied her. France, slow to confront the stain of Vichy, would do well to finally honor a fighter most of us would want in our foxhole.”—The New York Times Book Review Freedom & Security Military Political Science Politics & Government Women Espionage War
All stars
Most relevant
A thoroughly interesting biography of a very brave woman. It’s well narrated and if you’re at all interesting in learning more about world war 2, the french resistance, or remarkable women in history then I’d recommend this book to you. The bravery of Marie-Madeline and her agents is astounding, while other events are truly heartbreaking. 5/5

A Remarkable Story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Even if you think you know it all about WW2, this book makes you realise how much these people sacrificed and the fear they lived with as well as how brave they all were. They end of the book is particularly poignant.

Gripping

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As evidenced in this book’s epilogue, much of the postwar history of the Resistance in France was written by those of specific political allegiances, where the complexities that dominated wartime France played out in official recognitions and biographies. A result of this was that the stories of Fourcade and others like her faded into history, which is a great shame.

An interesting book, charting not only Fourcade’s wartime experiences, but those of the many Resistants she led and worked alongside, while giving a more nuanced insight into the valuable work done by the Resistance

Hidden History

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What an incredible story, so well put together and I was enthralled.
I would heartedly recommend it

Wow!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
easy to listen to. goes a lot into back ground details, but that is very interesting if you have read a lot about 2nd world war.

Great book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews