What tribal memories come to mind when peoples are threatened with total annihilation? What did the traumatized Parisians remember when the Panzer units were racing through the lowlands and they saw their city in mortal danger? Paul Reynaud, who had become Prime Minister of France on March 21, 1940 after Edouard Daladier was sacked, made the brilliant and combative young tank commander Charles de Gaulle a member of the Cabinet as Undersecretary of State for National Defense and War (assistant minister of war). He also went to the Cathedral of Notre Dame with other leaders of the government on May 19 and participated in a service where, in the presence of the reliquaries of Saint Denis, Saint Louis and Saint Genevieve, the intercession of the great French saints was implored with a special petitionary prayer to Joan of Arc.
John Hellman (Sat,) studied this question.