Provenance

Though born into a fiercely traditional wine-growing
family in the Bordeaux region of France, the author learned
the meaning of independence at a tender age. Her mother,
rebelling against the rigors of provincial life, left for Paris in
search of a new career - and a divorce. Ilian's grandparents,
not knowing quite what to do, placed her in a nearby convent.
The nuns were kind, but as there were no other children her
age, Ilian, then 4, spent her days playing by herself in the
convent courtyard. Then life changed dramatically, when
her mother re-married. Ilian's new step-father, a brilliant
Hungarian-born intellectual, was to have a profound effect on
her life. Together with her siblings, she began to experience
the life of affluent Parisian society. Her parents were very
much a part of the intellectual life of Montparnasse, while
simultaneously creating a publishing empire. Unusual for
those days, Ilian was sent for an interlude of schooling in
England. Back in Paris, this protected teen-ager had only a
brief time, however, before the war clouds began gathering
over Europe.

When the German invasion of France finally came,
Ilian's step-father, Paul, having published derogatory
material about the Nazi leadership, was high on the Gestapo
list. It became urgent for the family to escape. They joined
a massive exodus, on congested roads, toward the south
of France, being strafed by Italian warplanes on the way.
They succeeded in escaping from France with the help of
a courageous American vice-consul in Marseille. In the U.S.
Paul, with renewed energy, set up an office ce in New York and
wrote a regular column for The Washington Post. During
their flight from France, the family had become confirmed
Gaullists. This was reflected in Paul's writing - and in Ilian's
decision three years later (after she had graduated from
Barnard College) to join the Free French Air Force. She
became a liaison officer between the French Air Force and
the U.S. First Tactical Air Force, headquartered in Vittel and
later in Heidelberg. Before being de-commissioned, she was
assigned to the French Air Mission in Washington, where she
dated an American naval officer whom she would eventually
marry. In these memoirs she tells also of other suitors who
came and went. But somehow, during all of these personal
dramas and the upheaval of a World War, she and her
contemporaries retained a quality of "innocence" which
protected them throughout.