At Charfres

In the middle of the courtyard was a growing pile of grey and blondined hair. At the Chartres police station patriots were shaving the heads of women collaborationists. There were old ones who had operated black markets. There were young, blowsy ones who had sold themselves to the Germans. The women, their shaved heads bowed, were lined up against a wall.

Every once in a while the crowd would boo as more women, with expressionless faces, were hustled in to be shaved.

Said a girl from the Resistance: "It is cruel and unnecessary. They are soldiers' women, and tomorrow they will be sleeping with the Americans. What difference does it make whether the man is German or American or Japanese? I have worked for liberation. Three times I have been questioned by the Gestapo. You understand? [She made a slapping gesture.] And I do not demand such a thing as this."

A murmur went through the crowd. The Tricolor was going up on the tower of the cathedral whose stained glass windows Henry Adams once called "the Court of the Queen of Heaven." Beside the Tricolor waved the Stars & Stripes. Spontaneously the crowd began to sing the Marseillaise.

The shaved women raised their heads and sang with the rest.

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