On the 6th August, 1944, a strong force of German soldiers, supported by armoured vehicles, tanks and artillery attacked the 400 maquisards living in a large camp in the forest of Picaussel above the village of Lescales in the high Aude. After their successful routing of similar armed camps of resisters at Gileres and in the Vercors the German army and their Milice collaborator allies were expecting a bloody but successful operation that would destroy their foe. Two young men from Lescales, who were working with the Marquis were ambushed and killed as they scouted out the German advance. The rest of the large group, under the inspired leadership of Lucien Maury, the village school teacher, fought off the first attack and were resupplied by the RAF with munitions and arms. Under cover of night fall they slipped through the German lines taking their wounded and all their supplies. The confused and angry German forces then burnt the village of Lescales to its foundations as a warning to all those who supported the Resistance.

Catherine Mercer's Revenge and Regret is loosely based on this incredible story. Tracing the roots of resistance and collaboration from their pre-war days through to their impact on modern day Languedoc. The central character, a young peasant boy, Joseph Peyrou adopted on Public Assistance by a widow is 10 in September 1939. The story builds a picture of life in the high Aude using Joseph as the foundation stone around which we see the hardships bourne by small villages still devastated by the disproportionate casualty rate the countryside suffered in the Great War.

The pace of the narative picks up as Jospeh and the villagers find themselves increasingly dragged into the war. The arrival of demobbed and escapee locals brings home the reality of an all too distant defeat and leads to the arrival of a Scottish escapee soldier at Jospeh's house. From then on Jospeh gets increasingly embroiled in the fledgling Marquis, and the local small market town divides between passive resistors and active collaborators.

The sense of utter betrayal by Prime Minister Laval's speech to the nation when he expressed his desire for a German victory is superbly portrayed. It marks the watershed when passive resistance moves into a more militant stance.

Armed action, already undertaken by the Spanish Republican refugees in the Marquis and by the communist backed FTP, picks up dramatically with the allied invasion on mainline France. Jospeh finds himself and his extended family at the forefront of the action and also at the brutal recieving end of the increasingly frustrated and desperate Milice and German response.

The pre-battle actions and the battle itself are incredibly dramatic, showing both the incredible courage and ingenuity of the Maquis as well as their fear and lack of training for such conflict.

There is nothing more destructive than a civil war- and the history of the Resistance is as much a story civil war as it is of a war between nations. The pain and anger that built up not just between the Resistance and the Milice but also within villages and towns is horrifyingly illustrated in the book as the day of Liberation approaches.

Mercer uses theng scene of the book and the closing chapters to deal with the longer term divisions still left in France from this civil war. Divisions and bitterness that continue in many villages and towns of the Aude to present day.

A superb book and insight into a hidden part of the Languedoc's history.

The amazon link for this doesn't work but you can buy it from them or order from your local bookshop. ISBN Published by Camdale Press, 4 Thorndale Bristol BS8 2HU