Le Lion D'Or

After our trip I was reading Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" that follows the US Army from D-Day to the German surrender. The following quotation is from a top-secret report sent to President Roosevelt by an unnamed Frenchman who went into Normandy for a day in the summer of 1944 and interviewed residents:

"Severe gasoline shortages immobilized many German vehicles and even entire units; the general belief among both Frenchmen and Germans was that the Normandy landing was but the first of a series and the next one would be at Pas-de-Calais; people were well fed and clothed; the behavior of the Germans during the occupation had been "extremely correct"; there is no food shortage apparent in the restaurants, although prices are very high. Source states that the wine cellar of the Lion D'Or hotel is excellent."

Then Ambrose adds in a footnote:

"The hotel is in Bayeux. It became Eisenhower's favorite Norman restaurant. Five decades later it retains an excellent wine cellar, and remains expensive. There is no food shortage."

I sent this account to Remy, who replied:

"What you say about the anecdote which is recounted in Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" regarding the Lion D'Or in Bayeux is as interesting as it is funny! The restaurant Lion D'Or is one of the rare restaurants in the north of France which did never know food shortage during the war. There were never food shortages in this kind of inn for the mere and easy reason that they were very much frequented by the German officer of high rank and French big boss of the black market. One of the most well-known Germans who came to the Lion D'Or when he was in Normandy several times to survey the "Atlantic Wall" was Marshall Rommel!

"Before, on, and after D-Day, as a matter of fact, Bayeux never knew any bombing, never received even one small bomb. So the town received visits of the most illustrious VIPs, such as General Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, King George IV, General DeGaulle, Marshall Montgomery, and many other American and British generals. Later Queen Elizabeth also came to Bayeux. All these VIPs went at least once to eat at the Lion D'Or restaurant which indeed was the only good one in Bayeux...until one day the VIP Rarey family came to sit down in the same room as these VIPs!"

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