SAINT-ETIENNE

The daughter of café-owners, as the secretary-stenographer of Félicien Blanc, the head of Forges Stéphanoises Elise Gervais was much appreciated. She arrived in Saint-Etienne around 1935 and lived in the Grand'Rue district, at 25 rue Paul-Doumer, not far from the Prefecture. When the war broke out, she joined the United Resistance Movements, then from December 1943, worked as an intelligence agent for the Gallia network. After working at first as an operations agent, she became a P1 and then P2 from May 1, 1944, with meetings often being held at her apartment. On May 26, 1944, Saint-Etienne was bombed by the Allies, with many casualties: nearly 1000 killed, 2000 injured and 20,000 left homeless or nearly so; there were deaths and injuries among the staff at Forges Stéphanoises, as well as significant damage.

In the second half of August 1944, the Gallia network found out from a double agent that he had been given away by a contact, 21-year-old Jean-Antoine Goutet, a former member of the Vichyist Mobile Reserve Groups. Georges Château-Reynaud, one of the network leaders, and other members went into hiding. Elise Gervais decided to stay on. On the morning of August 17, 1944, she reportedly told her boss "If I'm not at work tomorrow, it means I've been arrested." When she went home at about 12:30, she was arrested and her archives were seized. She was taken to the Desnoëttes barracks where she was hideously tortured by the Gestapo, but "her attitude was of exemplary courage, and saved numerous agents from arrest. Her atrociously mutilated corpse was found on August 19 at Ratarieux, in L'Etrat (Loire) just as the German troops were preparing to fall back from Saint-Etienne, which was liberated on August 20. Jean Goutet, who had blown her cover, was found guilty on September 22, 1944, during the Fourth Session of the Military Tribunal of Saint-Etienne under Colonel Fournier; he was sentenced to death by the court-martial and executed.

On October 4, 1944, an official funeral ceremony, led by the Mayor of Saint-Etienne, Dr Henri Muller, paid homage to Elise Gervais, José Garcia and Jean Béal, two of the hostages executed at La Grand-Croix (Loire) on August 12, 1944. The three were interred at the Crêt de Roch cemetery. The rue de Lyon was renamed in two segments: one part is now called rue Elise Gervais, the other is named after Pierre Bérard, a resistant from Saint-Etienne who was executed as a hostage on January 10, 1944 in Lyon. 

Elise Gervais's name is on the Monument to the Dead in Polliat (Ain) and on the commemorative plaque at Forges Stéphanoises. Officially listed as having died for her country, she is included on the Mémoire des Hommes site.