Clare Mulley

Sleeping with the enemy: the wartime story of ‘La Chatte’

Roland Philipps describes the perilous life of the French Resistance agent Mathilde Carré, who first betrayed her friends and then double-crossed the Nazis

Mathilde Carré on trial for treason in Paris in 1949. The original death sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison, but she was released in 1954. Credit: Bridgeman Images
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  • Victoire: A Wartime Story of Resistance, Collaboration and Betrayal

    Roland Philipps

    Bodley Head, pp. 352, £20

The name ‘Carré’ immediately evokes the shadowy world of espionage. Ironically, however, few people today have heard of the real Carré, also known as ‘Victoire’ and ‘La Chatte’, a female intelligence agent inside Nazi-occupied France whose life had enough plot twists and moral ambiguity to satisfy any spy novelist.

Mathilde Carré (1908-2007) had beena clever but rather neglected child.

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