“This year we will celebrate Bastille Day with good heart,” said M. Blanc to Father Duprey.
And Father Duprey, who was very practical, asked, “How?”
“Ah, that I have thought about,” M. Blanc answered. “And I have a plan for our little village. Alone, we cannot do justice to such a great event as this Liberation. We will join with Ste. Mère Église to celebrate. We are not without talent in this village.” He looked mysterious and whispered his plans to the priest, so that no one could overhear.
When they had finished their discussion, Father Duprey said, “Your plan will also keep the children out of the fields till the German land mines have been cleared up.”
The following few days there was a great hubbub in the loft of the Gagnon barn. Children’s voices rang out. And music billowed over the rooftops.
Early one morning, Father Duprey summoned André. Victor appeared with his cart, and with the priest and André jogged off, behaving mysteriously, to talk to the mayor of Ste. Mère Église.
Bastille Day, Friday, July 14th, was the next day. By sunrise that morning all the little villages near Ste. Mère were alive with activity.
Mothers bustled breakfast into their families and packed up lunch baskets. Older sisters swept the family’s best clothes, all nicely aired, over the heads of the younger children. Then mothers and big sisters pulled and twisted themselves into their own gayest Normandy dresses. Fathers put on the dark suits they had been married in.
And all over the peninsula the French tricolor flags, which had been hidden away, flew in great flapping bursts of triumph from every house.
All churchbells that had survived the bombing began to ring soon after the sun was up.