France's liberation arrived from the west, with Paris freed during the final part of August 1944. The Provisional Government under Charles de Gaulle established itself in Paris on 25 August 1944. In Lorraine the important city of Nancy was liberated by the Third United States Army a month later. It is claimed that two days before the American army entered the city itself Grandval with his resistance forces had already extinguished the last remnants of the German military presence, but the truth of the matter is hard to pin down. There certainly was an ongoing fractiousness between Grandval and US military officers whom he came across during his subsequent career. De Gaulle visited the city on 25 September 1944 and personally greeted local resistance leaders including Grandval, on whom he conferred the Order of the Liberation. It was Grandval's first encounter with the General whom over the previous four years he had known only as a familiar voice emerging through the crackling of radio waves. Grandval could now style himself a Companion of the Liberation. In 1946 he was also made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.