sidevalve, thank you for painting such a vivid picture of the "Dédée Line", which personally I much prefer to the later appellation. What an amazing and inspiring lady she was. No matter her stature, she was a giant among men (and women of course).
She started this service to allied serviceman immediately following Dunkirk, and it soon built up to involving 2000 volunteers and a chain of safe houses en-route via Brussels, Paris, and the Pyrenees. Just thinking about that would have been a remarkable enough achievement in peacetime, but in enemy occupied territory it was incredible. How quickly that happened you will no doubt cover in future posts even if the high-water mark was only just before D-Day and the Liberation of France it is still incredible.
Incidentally, let no-one be fooled by the labelling of Vichy France as being the "Zone Libre". It was as rabidly anti-Semitic as its Northern neighbour, and so collaborationist that its security forces were hand in glove with its Nazi counterparts. Yet this is a human story rather that one of regimes, and I expect that we will be treated to the good and the bad on both sides of the divide.
I agree with Danny, she should have been ennobled by us, along with others who did such vital and dangerous work for us. Perhaps though that would have upset our new friends and allies in the Cold War, in Paris and Bonn.