The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris is set in the town of Compiègne in Northern France, which is a location of particular historical importance in the country. The town resides near the Oise River on the edge of the Forest of Compiègne. First built by the Romans in the 500s BCE, the town was an assembly location for the Merovingian Kings (the earliest monarchical dynasty of France) and was the location of Joan of Arc’s capture in 1430. A statue of Joan of Arc in the town commemorates her capture and execution. The town became important again in the 18th century when King Louis XV built a palace there, later restored by Napoleon, which now houses an art museum.

Compiègne is best known for its role in both World Wars. In WWI, French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the commander of the Allied Forces who is credited with the Allied victory, arrived in Compiègne by train and signed the Armistice that ended the war in his railcar on November 11, 1918. This railcar was preserved on location as a monument to the occasion. When the Germans occupied Compiègne and much of France during WWII, the German army used this same railcar for the signing of the 1940 Franco-German armistice, which signaled France’s capitulation to German occupation. This was a clear effort to embarrass and shame the French in retaliation for the German defeat two decades earlier. The railcar was later taken to Germany and destroyed in 1945 to prevent the Allied Forces from recovering it (Johnston, Mindy. “Compiègne.” Britannica).

During WWII, the Germans also transformed former French soldiers’ barracks into an internment camp where the German army imprisoned French resistance fighters, Jewish people, and others from 1941 to 1944. From this internment camp, many were transported to German death camps such as Auschwitz. Though the Jewish community represented the largest population of victims, the Germans also captured, imprisoned, and executed many other marginalized groups, including Romanis and members of the LGBTQ+ community. This is particularly relevant to the novel, in which Genevieve Moreau and her mother are in danger due to their Romani heritage, and Pierre Moreau lives in fear due to his identity as a gay man.