Marie-Madeleine Fourcade (1909–1989)

Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, née Bridou, was one of the leaders of the French Resistance during World War II. She was working for a Parisian publishing company in June 1940, when France signed an armistice with Germany. She joined the Resistance and headed a network called Alliance. Its members were assigned animal names as code names -- hers was "Hérisson" (Hedgehog). Although captured in Aix-en-Provence by the Germans in November 1942, she escaped and, after sending her children to live in Switzerland, helped develop a network for returning downed Allied airmen to Britain. It became too dangerous for her to stay in France so she fled to London, where she continued to direct Resistance activities. She returned to France soon after the Allied invasion in June 1944. Her memoir of her wartime experiences, L'Arche de Noé (Noah's Ark), was first published in 1968.