For express service, there were super-vélo-taxis towed by four riders. The fastest was pulled by a group of veterans of the Tour de France, France's famous bicycle race.
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"I can now tell you that if that plane arrives, the man who will be on board will be General de Gaulle."
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'One day I could have destroyed all this, and I preserved it as a gift for humanity.' General, is not that worth all a conqueror's glory?" Von Choltitz was silent. Then he turned to Taittinger, his voice softer now. "You are a good advocate for Paris, Mr. Taittinger," he said. "You have done your duty well. And likewise I, as a German general, must do mine."
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In those streets in just one week's time, the melancholy passenger of the Lodestar France had a rendezvous with history.
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For the first time in four years, two months and four days, the French tricolor floated officially from a building in the capital of France.
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"In the name of the Republic and Charles de Gaulle, I take possession of the Prefecture of Police."
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"M. le Préfet," Bayet said, "the Prefecture has been taken. It is yours."
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As Luizet entered his Prefecture, a shy man carrying two valises walked in by a side door and stepped into the police laboratory. From his bags he took out eight bottles of sulfuric acid and several pounds of potassium chlorate. Rolling up his sleeves, Frédéric Joliot-Curie took these bottles, borrowed from the laboratory in which his mother-in-law had discovered radium, and began to manufacture Molotov cocktails for the defense of the Prefecture.
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"But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep/And miles to go before I sleep."
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Each of those figures produced its island of sorrow in the waves of happiness sweeping the city.
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Without waiting for a reply, he listed for Levy the three items he considered essential for the effective government of France that night: cigarettes, C rations and Coleman lanterns.
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"After that," said an American newsman who watched him, "de Gaulle had France in the palm of his hand."
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"The iron," de Gaulle later wrote with eloquent understatement, "was hot. I struck it."
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