From Notre Dame, I walked out across the beautiful, pampered battlefield of Paris. Baron Haussmann would have been proud to see how his great design had worked, opening like a sluice to flush disorder from the city. ‘Architecture is nothing more than administration,’ he once said, as he cleared the slums for his exquisite military scheme and his interlocking fields of fire. For him, planning cities was like sketching the outlines of a campaign, and all it needed was armies to bring it all to life. The only thing that would have surprised him about the battle of 1944 is that the forces of disorder were German, and that the Army of the Republic was barely French at all.

         I began at the Hôtel de Ville. Few buildings in the world have played such a pivotal role in convincing bureaucrats that civic duty shouldn’t look like work. Even in its name, there was no suggestion that this was the place in charge of litter, or licenses for drains. It was an outrageous spectacle of stone – towers, twiddles, drunken nymphs, poets tottering along the pediments, and philosophers in every niche. It seems that such confusion had served it well during the German siege. For five days it was pitted with cannonfire without anyone realising that – between them – the fonctionnaires had only seven firearms, most of which were harmless. Unless the city was to be pecked to bits, it was going to need some help.

At first, the town hall’s pleas were ignored. Eventually, however, with the revolt on the brink of collapse, Eisenhower dispatched a huge African army of twelve thousand warriors. It was commanded by a magnificent viscount, whose nom de guerre was ‘General le Clerc’. Amongst his men were footsoldiers from Chad, Moroccans, Senegalese, some pom-pommed marines, several hundred white officers straight from the desert, les Chasseurs d’Afrique and a detachment of Algerian mountaineers. They must have made an extraordinary impression as they tore through the Norman countryside, like something from the pages of Rider Haggard. At the very sight of them, Paris opened up, and that evening the first of their tanks reached the Hôtel de Ville, and there the crew got out. Despite their outlandish costumes, the crowd was surprised to discover that they were Parisians. They’d been on the road for four years, had fought across two continents and now they were home.

The city dissolved in pleasure. For a while the Hôtel de Ville almost disappeared in a cacophony of bells, gunfire, squeals and flags. The Germans even added a few sound effects of their own. Sensing that the end was near, their anti-aircraft guns opened up all night, even though there was nothing in the sky. It was like 1812 all over again, except this time France had won.

Actually, there was still a battle to be fought, and so I followed the Africans up Rivoli and into Place de la Concorde. With all its granite emptiness and crushing parallel lines, this has always struck me as the bleakest feature of the Haussman design. It’s fine for guillotines and cenotaphs but there’s not much here for the living. For several days, the two sides’ tanks slogged it out across this urban plain, crashing through the Tuileries and smashing up the trees. During one of these duels, a Panzer took a pot-shot at a Sherman, way off under the Arc de Triomphe, but his shell missed and fizzled harmlessly overhead. This was a fatal error; every French schoolboy knows that the Champs Élysées is exactly 1,800 metres long. The chasseurs turned their gun on the German, re-calibrated the sights and ruptured it in one.

         There was much damage in the spats that followed but Paris has worn its indignities well. The Quai d’Orsay was never a carcase for a long, and the twin clocks were now back in their towers goggling over the city. Gone too were the charcoal hulls and the wreaths, and the epitaphs written in soot: ‘Ici sont morts 3 soldats Francais’. Even the Grand Palais had recovered from a spiteful fire, and had risen again like a giant soufflé of glass.

From Concorde, I turned into Rivoli and walked back, along the arcades. It was now mostly just tourists here, grazing their way through the souvenirs. But, on 24 August 1944, it was the Tirailleurs de Tchad, flitting from arch to arch. They were looking for the Hotel Meurice.

         The Meurice was still surprisingly unobtrusive, considering it had been preening the rich for almost two hundred years. I noticed that, from the outside, the only sign of its stupendous hospitality was a liveried footman and a revolving door, made, it seemed, from gold. It was here that I paused, wondering whether they’d let me in, in my well-kebabed coat, and a pair of wintry boots. The Africans had held no such qualms, and had rolled a phosphorous bomb through the golden gates and then shot their way into the lobby. I can only imagine that this intrusion produced much the same reaction as my own, which was another line-up flunkies affecting a look of pleasant surprise.

         This seraphic welcome continued all the way inside. I think I’d expected that – at any moment – I’d be picked up in tongs, and dropped down a chute. But, of course, it never happened and, instead, I was swished through what seemed like several acres of eau de Nil and gilt. Almost every wall was covered in period hunting scenes, blushing shepherdesses and winsome young bucks like girls with guns. Meanwhile, entire orgies had floated up into the frescoes, and a cup of tea, I noticed, cost the same as a night on la Huchette. Like Hausmann’s city, it was all so overwhelmingly grand that, if a person wasn’t welcome, he’d usually work it out for himself.

         At some stage, I came across a list of those who’d stayed here. It was printed on thick cream card, and looked like a menu for people who eat kings and queens. I could see Queen Victoria, the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Maharaja of Jaipur and a handful of other imperial Zogs. The Meurice, it seemed, was also a refuge for those heaved out of their homes. Amongst the royal refugees, I spotted the Duke of Windsor, the Shah of Persia and the kings of Spain and Montenegro. Perhaps that’s why General von Choltitz, the old Kommandant of Paris, had stayed here. It was as good a place as any to enjoy one’s fall from grace.

         ‘He had room 213,’ said the receptionist, as if he’d just checked out.

         People were odd like this, in the way they remembered von Choltitz. I once heard a tour guide describe him as ‘The Saviour of the City’, when all he’d ever wanted was to save himself. His great advantage in life was that everyone assumed he was something he wasn’t. The Parisians held him in awe, assuming he’d destroyed Warsaw (which he hadn’t). Hitler, on the other hand, assumed it was the sort of thing he’d like to do, and therefore when Paris rose in revolt, he put von Choltitz in command. ‘Paris must not fall into the hands of the enemy,’ Hitler told him, ‘except as a field of ruins’. No monument was to be left standing, the population were to be pounded into oblivion and von Choltitz was to perish in the rubble. He even looked the type to carry out such a fatuous endeavour. He was ruddy and monocled and shaven like a walrus, and although he was middle-aged and stubby, he tended to bounce around as if he was looking for a fight.

         But von Choltitz was no philistine, saw no point in the destruction of Paris, and had little truck with Hitler. For a while, he kept his master happy by sending him ludicrous reports that only the saner staff would understand; he’d put three tons of dynamite under Notre Dame; he was about to topple the Eiffel Tower in order to block the river, and he’d be blowing up the Arc de Triomphe to provide clearer fields of fire. Von Choltitz, of course, was merely buying time. All he really wanted was for the Allies to arrive so that he didn’t have to surrender to the mob. He even sent them messages asking them to hurry (although he warned that Prussian honour forbade him from giving up without a fight). That night, as the Africans entered the city, he sent them directions to The Meurice, and settled down to dinner. He wished his officers well in the days to come, and – just for the record – told them to fight to the end.

         But, when – eventually – the Africans found the hotel and came bursting into the lobby, there was no-one firing back. Instead, their lieutenant was taken up to Room 213, where he found von Choltitz resplendent in his monocle.

         The lieutenant couldn’t think what to say. ‘Do you speak English?’ he tried.

         ‘Yes,’ said the Kommandant, ‘Probably better than you.’

         With that, he was taken away to the Préfecture. But it was not the last he saw of The Meurice. He returned in 1959, when the manager found him wandering round the lobby. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

         ‘I lived here for a while,’ said the general absently, peering into the gilt.

         It was immediately obvious who he was, and a strange scene followed. It was almost as if everyone had forgotten the roles they’d played in the past. Paris feted the general for saving the city but von Choltitz never looked comfortable in laurels. Although he was pleased to see the city restored, there was always a sense of shame. Against all his military instincts, he’d disobeyed his orders from above.