Trampled Lilies

PERFUME FROM PROVENCE, which became an instant bestseller when it was first published in the 1930s, created a world that was both nostalgic and unique. Telling of Lady Fortescue’s home in Provence, it was followed by SUNSET HOUSE, the story of her reclamation of a smaller, old stone farmhouse where she lived after her husband’s death.

It was from Sunset House, set in a little lost village perched on a peak of the Alpes Maritimes, that she watched the Mobilisation Générale at the beginning of WWII. Thousands of weary French soldiers, called from their homes at a moment’s notice, tramped past Sunset House. The French Army boarded many of the officers on her but, so concerned was she at the plight of the humble poilu, that she immediately set about finding food and shelter for them. With the help of her friend ‘Mademoiselle’, she began to set up foyers all over Provence where the mobilised men could rest and pass their leisure.

Then, as the war advanced, as Calais fell to the Germans, Lady Fortescue realised she was about to be trapped in France as an enemy alien and so began her mad dash across the country to Brittany, only a little ahead of the German Army, to make her escape on one of the last boats to leave France.