Quotes from Justine Picardie

Catherine was named the 'moral heir', responsible for preserving Christian Dior's artistic heritage; a task that she took on with her characteristic loyalty, ensuring that his autobiography remained in print, and that his couture creations would be preserved in various archives, as well as supporting the establishment of the Dior museum in Granville.

In early July 1944, at the same time as Catherine was arrested in Paris, the hilltop villages of Callian and Montauroux were surrounded by the Germans and searched, house by house, resulting in fifteen members of the Resistance being captured, interrogated and imprisoned.

On 15 August 1944, the same day that Allied troops landed on the nearby Mediterranean coast, and Catherine was deported from Paris to Ravensbrück, Ramonda took part in an operation to hold back a German convoy until the United States Army Air Forces could intervene. He

Those few surviving friends and neighbours who knew Catherine tend to use the same word when they describe her: fort (strong).

But such was her fortitude that she stayed at Les Naÿssès until the age of ninety, living there alone after Hervé's death in September 1989. She died on 17 June 2008, having continued to work in her garden almost until the

There was no physical tenderness; but she always knew what to do if there was a problem.

There are times in one's life when a good book—the right book— feels like a voice speaking in the darkness, reaching out from the past; providing solace when all else seems lost.