Isabelle is resistant to authority and unwilling to compromise her beliefs, making her a pillar of strength throughout the entire war. Given the code name 'The Nightingale,' she becomes famous in the world of both the Resistance and the Nazis, steadfastly determined to save as many lives as she can. She returns to Paris and joins the Resistance network, passing around flyers and helping smuggle dozens of British and American fighter pilots over the Spanish border. At the war's start, she moves to the countryside to stay with her sister, but finds herself unable to sit still while the war rages outside. Motherless, with an unstable relationship with both her sister and father, she has been expelled from a dozen boarding schools throughout her teenage years, unwilling to settle down and be the proper lady her father so desperately wishes her to be. Isabelle is the younger of the two Rossignol sisters, a fiercely rebellious girl who refuses to listen to other people's orders. A brave and maternal character, Vianne is devoted to her family and finds strength even in the darkest of circumstances. As the war goes on, however, and her money and food begin to run out, she finds herself first taking in the child of a dead Jewish friend and then saving dozens of Jewish children in her town. She initially wants nothing to do with the Resistance that her sister has becomes so besotted with, wanting only to appease the Nazis that occupy their town and quietly go about her life as normal so as to protect her family. She is a sensible, quietly intelligent woman, who believes that keeping her head down is the most surefire way to get through the war alive.

She lives with her daughter, Sophie, and her husband, Antoine, until the arrival of the Nazis forces him to the warfront as the French try to hold back the advancing Germans. Vianne is the older of the two Rossignol sisters and a teacher at the elementary school in her small, rural French town. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

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The nightingale vianne