(Private archives)
With my warm thanks to Mr. André Lacombe for allowing me to access this document and reproduce extracts from it.

(page 4)

...... "Some time later, an employee of the Ponts et Chaussée, N. DUPLAN, also passed me some newspapers:" Combat "" Franc-Tireur ". I had several conversations with him and I realized let him "feel" the ground not wanting to engage without fail.
One day, he makes up his mind, comes to find me at the Prefecture and in the corridors talks to me about the secret army: it is a movement that has just been set up and of which he is part with the aim of participating inside the Country in the struggle waged by the English and the Free Forces of General de GAULLE against the German armies and consequently against the Vichy Government and collaboration in all its forms. I like this program, I ask it, however, for a day of reflection, because I want my membership to be a thoughtful, voluntary act, it involves I realize the sacrifice of my freedom more or less quickly and perhaps to be of my life.
I consent with joy for the cause of freedom, so I become team leader of the secret army (AS) my first role is to constitute a team of friends, those with whom I could put myself at the disposal of DUPLAN who took DANIEL as a pseudonym, for all the work that he deems useful to ask him to accomplish, I myself take the pseudonym of CASTOR and I recruit without any difficulty among the young colleagues of the prefecture: MIQUEL Jean, Clerk , CAUSSANEL Georges and WILBERT André, auxiliaries, the members of my team ".......

...... "Through CAUSSANEL who is one of the members of my group, I meet GUIRAL, former President of the Chamber of the Court of Appeal of Madagascar who, after a long colonial career, would only ask to enjoy, in peace in MONTAUBAN, a well-earned rest if he did not share the indignation of the good French against the treason which delivered France to oppression. in the evening in his house in La Bastiole, he "feels" in my turn and when I am sure of his feelings, I suggest that he be part of my AS group. He accepts despite his sixties with the greatest enthusiasm.
I continue to have more and more frequent contact with DANIEL and I inform him of GUIRAL's membership. Like me, he believes that the latter is too important a personality for the resistance not to entrust him with another mission and it is thus that under my patronage, GUIRAL under the pseudonym of GAVARNY enters the Civil Resistance Committee which comes from 'be created and whose role is to coordinate the action of resistance fighters in the department "......

(page 5)

...... "In the meantime, GAVARNY replaced FRANCES at the head of the Civil Committee and he also became, following a fairly long absence of Me VEAUX, the head of the Department's Information Service.
I work in complete collaboration with him and I go more and more often to his home at La Bastiole in this house, I am completely at home. His daughter and his wife are also ardent patriots. They help GAVARNY with all their means and receive, always with a smile, more and more visitors but also, more and more compromising. "......

(page 6)

...... "So now we will have to be wary not only of French collaborators and the police, but of the Boches.
However, winter passes in more and more frequent and diverse contacts. Thanks to my team from the prefecture, I provide a great deal of information: official telegrams, important papers, we are and above all CAUSSANEL says MICKEY on the lookout for everything. I centralize and I transmit. I am also shortly after with my team detached from the 4th company of the A.S. and made available to the Civil Committee "......

(page 8)

...... "After the arrests of Castelsarrasin and Moissac, GAVARNY changed its name and took that of DAUMIER I myself take that of CASSAN It is under this name that I will provide the most information and make the most false papers. "......

...... "My office, at the Prefecture, is contiguous with the Franco-German liaison service where the reserve captain of MAS LATRIE, Head of the service, receives these gentlemen of the Kommandantur. Most of the conversations taking place in French (Lieutenant Von Mayer speaks it fluently) I do not lose one and I spend most of my days in a cupboard which is pressed against a partition which is not waterproof. telephone conversations, many of which are extremely interesting. I transmit most of this information every day to DAUMIER either directly or through my friend "MICKEY" ......

(page 9)

...... "One day, DAUMIER gave me, coming from BOUCONNE, a registration form for the Information Service of the United Resistance Movements. I became Agent DR. 2455 and this registration had the effect of sanctioning my inner work in the intelligence branch.
I followed, on the list of agents of Tarn- et- Garonne, GUIRAL and I preceded my friend MICKEY ......

(page 11)

..... Arrived May 1944, we wait more than ever for the landing. On May 4th, at noon, MICKEY comes to see me at the office. He is pale and I feel he is bringing me some serious news. He tells me, in fact, that in the morning at 6 o'clock, the German Feldgendarmerie went to DAUMIER. DAUMIER, gone for a few days to LERIBOSC with a friend of RESSIGEAC known as REMY (in charge of the Civil Committee, of the N.A.P.) is indeed resting, from an attack of malaria which strongly tested him.
The Boches visit the house but do not search. They are a little disoriented because they were looking for DAUMIER and are at the home of M. GUIRAL, Colonial Magistrate. They therefore leave and Miss GUIRAL takes the opportunity to burn the many documents that were in the house and take to MICKEY the weapons and explosives held by her father. Immediately informed, I decide to go to the farm where DAUMIER is located to warn him and avoid his return which was also imminent.
I leave for LERIBOSC by bicycle with MICKEY's father. We find REMY there who brings us to Pierre MONFRAIX where DAUMIER was. We tell him the news. The blow is hard for him but nothing is lost since the Boches left empty-handed. Before they return, Mme GUIRAL and her daughter Suzanne must be safe. As for DAUMIER, he decides to stay where he is and where, for the moment, no one will come to look for him.
I propose to DAUMIER a retreat in the countryside, with my in-laws in MONTRICOUX for Mrs. and Miss GUIRAL. He accepts and we quickly establish an action plan in case his home is monitored. It is preferable that none of us throw ourselves into a mousetrap, which is why COSTES having joined us, it is understood that his wife will go to La Bastiole with a basket of medicines that could justify her visit, if the way is clear. , she will send Mrs. GUIRAL a note from her husband informing her of the project and asking her to leave her house immediately We make an appointment for 9 hours at the COSTES Pharmacy and we return to MONTAUBAN after having kissed DAUMIER and giving him a card identity in the name of DUPONT, change made necessary by the fact that the Boches know the name of DAUMIER.
In the meantime, DUPONT had told us how this identity had been discovered: a few weeks earlier, he had been instructed by BOUCONNE, Regional Chief, to recruit a free corps in charge of operating against the informers of the Militia and especially to put an end to to the activity of ROUSSEL, Gestapo agent whose activity had already done a lot of harm to the resistant milieu of the department and whose execution had been decided by the leaders of the resistance. DAUMIER had therefore chosen and appointed the leader of the Frankish group: VAROQUI Fred who had to recruit his two companions himself. VAROQUI recruited among others, BOISSONNEAU, bicycle-taxi in MONTAUBAN and whose name we saw later on a list of militiamen .....

(page 12)

..... Arrived at MONTAUBAN, I have dinner with my parents and at 9 am I go to the meeting at the COSTES pharmacy. I find Mme COSTES in tears. She tells me that in the evening at 6 p.m., Mme and Mlle GUIRAL were arrested by the Gestapo. They had not had time to leave the place or had not wanted to, too sure of themselves and not thinking of a return of the German police, after the unsuccessful visit of the morning. We are extremely touched by this news and I am thinking above all of the pain that our friend DUPONT will experience, but there is, for the moment, nothing else to do than to avoid further arrests. Many of our friends are in the habit of going to GUIRAL day or night. We must at all costs notify them of what has just happened. I send my father to tell MICKEY, who warns me that he will not sleep at his place and advises me to do the same for a few days. The same evening I go to LAPLACE, manager of the maquis to warn him. I can not find anyone, warned by my wife he has already left with his. I ask for hospitality for the night from TIGNOL who keeps me at his place until the following evening. I am sending a request for an 8-day leave to the Prefecture on the pretext of many family matters .....

(page 13)

..... My wife continues to go to the office until Saturday May 6 and sleeps alone at home (we had for a long time, in anticipation of events of this kind, send our son Robert to his grandparents in MONTRICOUX). She is not at ease because we cannot know what the Boches will have snatched, according to their usual method, from Mme and Mlle GUIRAL.
On Saturday May 6, my wife also goes on leave and joins me at the COULONGES in Pomponne, a suburb of MONTAUBAN where I spent my second night and in the evening at 5 o'clock, we go by bike for we do not know where. We go to MONTRICOUX to warn my wife's parents and to kiss our son, then I decide to go and ask for hospitality from ST VINCENT D'AUTEJAC at LACUBE, where I in turn become the obligator. We spend 3 very quiet days there in the town hall building, the mayor of which is a perfect collaborator, but ignores our presence, then, we leave ST VINCENT and arrive at PUYCORNET where my friend BAYROU, Teacher welcomes us with joy. This new residence has for me the advantage of getting closer to LERIBOSC where DUPONT and REMY are still located. We have frequent contacts which are necessary because DUPONT's distress is very great. We need all our old friendship, the affection of MICKEY who abandoned MONTAUBAN to join him and of REMY, to prevent DUPONT from engaging in extremes which would only have the consequences of endangering him and destroying everything. the work he did in the resistance just as we hope that this work will become productive.
It is impossible for us to hear from his wife and daughter. We only know that the house was looted by the Gestapo .....