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| France's Battles Against Grindelwald (Les baitailles de France contre Grindelwald - original title in French) | |
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| Publication information | |
| Author(s) | |
| Published |
2024 (French) |
| Subject(s) |
The personal experiences of Aimée Bienfaisance during the Global Wizarding War and the Nazi occupation of France. |
| Owners |
Aimée Bienfaisance |
France's Battle's Against Grindelwald is a bestselling memoir written originally in French by renowned expert on Transfiguration and author Aimée Bienfaisance. It was published originally in French in 2024, and translated for the English-speaking market in 2026.
Its original title in French is Les baitailles de France contre Grindelwald.
Excerpt[]
The following is an excerpt from the English translation of France's Battles Against Grindelwald
The Global Wizarding War was a difficult time for us all in France. Not only were we struggling to counter the incessant efforts of Grindelwald and his acolytes to promote his agenda of the Greater Good, but we were also caught up with the efforts of Hitler and his army to make our beloved country a German colony. As we both fought together to do our part in the two war efforts that increasingly intermingled with each passing day, my late husband Georges became my rock and my right arm, my support and my battle-partner. To this day, the memory of my late-husband reminds me not only of the warm embrace of love, but also the sombre spectre of death. Not merely due to his parting, but also due to the atrocities we had faced together.
We had met late in the summer of 1942, when I was still a woman named Aimée Baudelaire. At the time, I worked freelance as an expert in Transfiguration, often being contracted by Le Ministère des Affaires Magiques to reverse particularly tricky Transfigurations, or to aide in building work. It was one gloriously sunny September morning when I received an urgent owl from Le Ministère seeking my aid in reversing a mass Transfiguration that had occurred across Paris the previous night, one which had already resulted in nearly three hundred Muggles needing to be Obliviated. My task, much to my chagrin, was to return all the Nazi banners across the city back to their usual state, as overnight they had all transformed into animated depictions of Adolf Hitler straining upon a toilet surrounded with excrement. Seeing as this was a major breach to the International Statute of Secrecy, and considering the rather large fee Le Ministère was offering to pay to have it reversed, I put aside my great wish to leave the hilarious banners as they were and got to work.
By sunset that evening, nearly every single Nazi banner in the city had been returned to its usual state, except a few covert ones which I had sneakily left with their comedic depiction of Hitler, simply charmed to stop the animation. It was around, as I sat on the rooftop of a building in the 5th arrondissement admiring the work of the cheeky band of Nazi-fighters, that I met Georges Bienfaisance. Having heard of the young woman who had been assigned the work of reversing their efforts, and having noted the purposefully forgotten banners, he sought me out. We sat upon that rooftop until the sun rose once more over Paris, talking of everything from the war to our childhoods in between renewed explosions of laughter every time we caught sight of Hitler’s toilet struggle on the banner across from us. That night, Georges invited me to join his group – Le Front Libération des Non-Magiques (the Muggle Liberation Front). At the time, I was too preoccupied with my career to consider distracting myself with the war, so I declined.
Work had become incredibly busy over the following months, thanks mainly to Georges and the Muggle Liberation Front’s efforts to interfere in the Muggle’s war and to disrupt Grindelwald’s efforts. Each time the Ministry came to me for help to reverse their tricks, I accepted, knowing that each time I did, I would see Georges one way or the other. It soon became clear that Georges was not simply transfiguring German tanks into giant rubber ducks for no reason, but because he wanted to see me too. Before I even recognised that I was falling in love with him, we were an item. Despite the war, every seemed to be so absolutely joyous now that I had Georges in my life. That was until Georges came to me one fateful day in late November.
With the Nazi’s now running Paris on the Muggle sides of things, they had taken over everything from the government to the hospitals. The Muggle Liberation Front had been attempting to relieve the Muggles struggling under this Nazi administration. It was for this reason that Georges arrived at my home at three o’clock in the morning that day. He had received intelligence that the Nazi’s were purposefully neglecting many institutions of care across the city. In particularly, he had learned of a spate of deaths at the mental institution where my own mother resided at that time. As he and his comrades descended upon the hospital to try and bewitch the Nazi workers to give better care to their charges, Georges discovered a list of those who had died in the institution, and had found a woman who carried my maiden name within that dark list. It had turned out to be worse than they thought. Over the previous months, at least one hundred patients had been left locked within their rooms without any leave to even go to the toilet, left to die of hunger and thirst without any water or nourishment, and had received no care for their mental illnesses for the entirety of the Nazi occupation. One of these neglected patients was my mother.
I was so overwhelmed with grief, I felt as if I could die myself if it was not for Georges who held me up and helped me retain my strength. It was from that exact day that, incensed by what had happened to my beloved country, I gave myself completely to the efforts of the Muggle Liberation Front. Georges and I worked every single day for the next three years to fight back against the hatred and evil that had taken my mother from me. As the New Year bells rang out in Paris, and another year of bloodshed and heartbreak began, Georges and I enjoyed one golden happy moment amidst all the misery, and I became Aimée Bienfaisance. Soon enough, as the war with Grindelwald became more and more violent, we became not only relief workers but soldiers. Side by side, we fought countless acolytes, nearly all of them dark wizards. We suffered so many close calls, we often joked that it would be a miracle if we made it out of the war alive, if the war ever ended at all. As fate would have it, being a vile and capricious mistress, we did not both make it out of the war alive.
It was in 1945. The efforts of our band of combatants had begun to earn the ire of Grindelwald, and every day we were losing our friends to the assassination attempts of Grindelwald’s acolytes. Georges and I were following some intelligence which we hoped would lead us to Grindelwald himself. It turned out to be a false lead. As we entered the darkened alleyway of Rue de Narbonne, we were suddenly ambushed by at least two dozen acolytes. The most violent duel I have ever experienced in my life broke out. Georges and I fought back to back as the acolytes attempted to close in upon us. The sun was about to rise by the time we had managed to reduce the acolytes numbers to merely one. With one lucky shot – one lucky shot that I will remember for the rest of my life – the last acolyte standing managed to strike my husband with the Killing Curse, and stole him from me. It was then the acolyte turned to me to try and finish the job. By my writing this novel, it should be evident who survived that duel.
I never believed Grindelwald could win, and luckily I was right. Our friend from England, Albus Dumbledore, managed to defeat him, and everyone in Paris was happy but I did not have the strength to enjoy happiness while my husband, who had died for the cause, could not enjoy it with me too.