Egal & Cie – 1940 ads

I’ve talked about the great Roderick Egal before – the leader of Shanghai’s Free French during the Second World War (click here to see my post on French journalist Veronique Saunier’s articles on Egal and Egal’s grave in Hong Kong here). Egal was the nucleus of those French citizens in Shanghai who rallied to De Gaulle’s cause – sadly most of the rest were rampant Vichyites and collaborators. Anyway, Egal was also Frenchtown’s number 1 vintner with a branch in the International Settlement too. What is amazing about the three ads below was that they all ran in the North-China Daily News in June 1940, the month of the occupation of Paris and the Fall of France, a period of especial anguish to a great French patriot like Egal.