"Paris, mind and heart of France has been freed by the wrath of her people. Paris opens her prison doors, Paris tenderly buries the martyrs and soldiers of the national uprising. Paris salutes the armies of liberation, but knows that France is covered with ruins and weighs the price of the Armistice of 1940, the price paid by all France for the benefit of a band of traitors. Paris faces the future with the faith and determination of a noble people. She knows that once the nation has been cleansed by deceit and treason, the people of France now united in the Resistance will remain united in the task of national reconstruction that France may soon become a greater and a better nation." (1)
"There is no point in hiding the fact that joy overwhelms us all, men and women, here in Paris as it rises to liberate itself and as it wins its freedom by its own efforts. No, we shall not conceal our deep and sacred feeling; there are moments, we know, that are ageless and beyond the scope of our mortal lives.
Paris! Paris ravaged! Paris crushed! Paris martyred. But Paris free!
Liberated by ourselves, liberated by her people with the help of the Armies of France with the help and cooperation of all France, and by that I mean the true France, fighting France, France eternal . . . ." (2)
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1 From "Free France," Vol. 6, Nos. 5 and 6, September 1 and 15, 1944, (Published by the French Press and Information Service, an agency of the Provisional Government of the French Republic: New York), p. 157.
2 Excerpted from a speech given by Charles de Gaulle on August 26, 1944 at the Hotel de Ville in Paris. Found in "Free France," Vol. 6, Nos. 5 and 6, September 1 and 15, 1944, (Published by the French Press and Information Service, an agency of the Provisional Government of the French Republic: New York), p. 161.
