The Remarkable Story of Clotilde Bizolon — Lyon’s Forgotten Wartime Hero

Clotilde Bizolon was one of Lyon’s most extraordinary women — and yet today, very few people know her name.

During WWI, having already lost her husband and her son, she could have retreated from the world. Instead she did the opposite. She set up a makeshift counter at Lyon’s Perrache station and began serving coffee, wine, soup and whatever warmth she could offer to the thousands of soldiers passing through the city. She called it the Déjeuner du Soldat — the Soldier’s Lunch — and she gave it freely, asking nothing in return.

The soldiers adored her. They nicknamed her La Madelon and sang to her in gratitude as they passed through. For so many of them, she was the last kind face they would see before heading to the front.

After the war ended, Clotilde didn’t slow down. She took her late husband’s old cobbler’s shop and transformed it into a modest Lyonnaise bouchon, carrying on the great tradition of the mères lyonnaises — the remarkable women who shaped French cuisine long before the world was paying attention.

In 1929 she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in recognition of her extraordinary service and her contribution to the life of the city she loved.

And then in 1939, when war came again — aged 69 — she went straight back to her post. Because that was simply who she was.

Her story is one of the most moving and overlooked in French culinary and social history, and I’ve been completely gripped by it. The full story, with all the details including her life, her legacy and her mysterious death, is waiting for you over on the podcast.

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