DOUBLE AGENT VICTOIRE: Mathilde Carré

Temperamental scheming and manipulative, known as "La Chatte", Mathilde Carré may have been driven by psychopathic tendencies, being "completely lacking in ordinary human understanding and sympathy", but it is more likely that she had a willingness to sacrifice more than 100 friends, colleagues and lovers for her own ends, fuelled by jealousy and a tendency to fantasize. As a double, possibly triple agent, Mathilde, codenamed Victoire, betrayed 60 Resistance workers, some of whom died as a result. During the occupation of France by Germany from May 1940, many subversive groups emerged with both right and left wing affiliations. There was a climate of mistrust not only of the German occupiers but also of their fellow-citizens. This book draws on previously unpublished material from MI5 files, and attempts to set the record straight on the complexities of the Interallié Affair. Victoire was an agent of the Interallié network, an organisation working on behalf of the Polish Secret Service in Occupied France, and on 18 November 1941 she was arrested by the Abwehr, subsequently becoming a double agent while still operating the Interallié radio and probably also becoming the mistress of Abwehr officer Feldwebel Hugo Bleicher, whom she accompanied on a series of round-ups of network operatives. 6 December was a particularly productive day in which Victoire met Betrand and Bob, who between them gave away the whereabouts of six other agents before being arrested, together with the plan of the local SOE Overcloud organisation. The Lucas network was a deception practised on SOE officer Pierre de Vomécourt, an imaginary network through which information was channelled direct to Bleicher, but Vomécourt was suspicious and persuaded Victoire to travel to England, where she was interned and returned to France after the war for trial, which resulted in imprisonment. With an impressive amount of detail the author charts all the stages of Victoire's treachery, though exactly where her real loyalties lay at any one point remains uncertain. Mainly she wanted men, money and revenge on her sexual rivals such as the agent "Violette". 488pp, photos.