Madame Fourcade's Secret War

The Little-Known Story Of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, The Woman Who Headed The Largest Spy Network In Occupied France During World War II.  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 resistance 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 Maria-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 command