rue de Saint-Simon

The rue de Saint-Simon is a street in the 7th arrondissement of Paris that, during the German occupation of France in World War II, became a clandestine center of the French Resistance. It was here, in an apartment at an undisclosed number, that Isabelle Rossignol—operating under the code name Juliette Gervaise—was integrated into the network that would eventually run the Nightingale escape route across the Pyrenees into Spain.

Location and Appearance

The rue de Saint-Simon is a Parisian street, part of the city's established urban fabric. During the occupation, the apartment used by the Resistance was a nondescript space, its windows blacked out and its interior thick with cigarette smoke. The only light came from oil lamps, and the room was furnished with a wooden table and an overflowing ashtray. The building's entrance was a red door, a detail that Isabelle noted when she first arrived. The street itself was subject to the same occupation conditions as the rest of Paris: barricades, German patrols, and a pervasive atmosphere of surveillance and danger.

Role in the Resistance Network

The apartment on the rue de Saint-Simon functioned as a primary meeting place and operational center for a cell of the French Resistance. It was here that Isabelle first met the key figures of her network, including the woman known as Anouk and the elderly printer Paul Lévy. At this location, she was given her first major assignment: to deliver a package to a contact in Amboise. The apartment was also where downed Allied airmen were brought for shelter and processing. On one occasion, Isabelle herself brought an RAF pilot, Lieutenant Torrance MacLeish, to this address after finding him hiding in Paris. The network used the apartment to plan the logistics of the escape route, consulting maps and devising routes to get airmen out of France. It was also on the rue de Saint-Simon that Isabelle was reunited with Gaëtan Dubois, the man she had fallen in love with during the exodus from Paris, who was also a member of the same resistance cell.

Key Events and Consequences

The rue de Saint-Simon was the site of several pivotal moments in Isabelle's war. It was where she was formally accepted into the Resistance after proving her reliability as a courier. It was where she received the false identity papers that allowed her to travel as Juliette Gervaise. Most significantly, it was in this apartment that Isabelle proposed and was authorized to lead the first group of airmen across the Pyrenees, a plan that would define her role as the Nightingale. The street itself was a place of constant danger; the network was aware that collaborators and the Gestapo were always watching, and the apartment's location was a closely guarded secret. The success of the Nightingale escape route, which saved over a hundred Allied airmen, was built on the foundation of the planning and coordination that took place on the rue de Saint-Simon.