Monsieur Humbert

Monsieur Humbert is a pudgy, pale-fingered butcher from the neighborhood near Julien Rossignol's Paris bookshop. When the Germans approach Paris in June 1940, he and his wife, Patricia, agree to take Isabelle as far as Orléans in their dusty black automobile, which is burdened with a saggy mattress strapped to its roof, fishing poles, and a rabbit cage with the rabbit still inside. His hands clutch the steering wheel as if the car might bolt at any second, and his wife, a sturdy woman with a heavy-jowled peasant look, smokes a cigarette and stares out the window in disbelief at the chaos around them.

The Exodus and Its Failure

Monsieur Humbert's car inches south through a living dragon of humanity—women, children, old people, and the occasional vehicle—all fleeing the Nazi advance. The heat is punishing, the car interior stifling, and the crowd so thick that the automobile can only move in fits and starts. When the car finally runs out of petrol near Étampes, Monsieur Humbert announces the situation with resignation: "I stopped at every chance along the way. You know I did. We have no more petrol and there's none to be had." He proposes walking to Étampes to find a room and a meal, hoping to convince his brother to come fetch them. This decision, made without consulting Isabelle, leaves her stranded among strangers in the middle of the refugee column.

Abandonment and Its Consequences

When Monsieur Humbert and his family abandon the automobile and disappear into the crowd, Isabelle is left alone, clutching her valise. She calls out for him and Patricia, but her cries are lost in the thud of thousands of feet and the crunch of tires on dirt. The Humberts' failure to plan for the journey's practical needs—especially the lack of sufficient petrol—forces Isabelle to join the desperate march on foot. This abandonment, coming after a lifetime of being sent away by her father and sister, deepens her sense of disposability and isolation. Yet it also propels her into the next stage of her journey: she peels away from the crowd, finds a trail south, and eventually encounters Gaëtan Dubois, the man who will become her lover and fellow resister. Monsieur Humbert's brief, careless role in Isabelle's story thus serves as a catalyst, stripping away the last pretense of ordinary safety and pushing her into the dangerous, transformative world of the war.