Paul Colette

Paul Colette , born the August 12th 1920 with Mondeville (Apple-brandy) and deceased on January 5th 1995, is resistant French.

During the Inter-war period, Paul Colette militated with the Volontaires nationals, the youth organization of the Cross-of-fire.

He engages in the army in 1938 then, after the opening of the hostilities, takes part in the combat of 1940. May 20th, it takes part in Dunkirk to try the loading in England but its ship is bombarded then run. Repatriated in France, demobilized, it wishes to join the Free French Forces but does not find any die of passage towards the England, nor even for North Africa.

The creation of the L.V.F in August 1941 gives him the idea to begin and, according to him, to benefit there from the circumstances which could arise to implement an attack against the leaders of Vichy. The reasons of its gesture remain obscure.

During her engagement, Collette learns then, that the following day, on August 27th, at the time of the departure with the face of the East of this first unit, a catch of weapons must take place in the Borgnis-Desbordes barracks with Versailles and that eminent personages, to mark this first stage of active collaboration, will be present.

When Pierre Laval arrives, accompanied by Jacques Doriot, Marcel Déat, from Fernand de Brinon, Collette draws on the group five balls from 6,35. The weakness of the gauge, the distance, inexperience undoubtedly, explain the relative inefficiency of the gunner. None of these targets will be mortally touched. In the scuffle which follows, Collette is brutally controlled by the gendarmes. In its memories, he tells: “the Légion naires which had slipped by, also return them to all legs, now that the danger is isolated. They hustle me, insult me, spit me with the figure, strike me. Their blows reach me everywhere, and I feel two long trails of blood which run on my face”.

After a few weeks of imprisonment, Collette is Condamné to died the Wednesday the 1st er October 1941 by a Emergency court (sorrow commuted to forced labors with perpetuity by Pétain) and will be held in several French prisons, then off-set in Germany. He dies of his beautiful death, on January 5th 1995, at 75 years, after, in 1984, being made knight of the Légion of honor.

The authorities then the historians were lost in conjectures about the direction of this attack. The leniency of Vichy seems particularly astonishing if one takes account of the practices of time. Seeing the hand of the Communist party initially, the government thus immediately shot three members of the PCF. Then, one suspected a plot of MSR (ex-Hood). Lastly, the engagement of Colette near the colonel François of Rocque (resisting and future deportee), Croix of Fire then member of the Parti social French (PSF) did not contribute to clear up the direction of its gesture.

The gesture of Colette is isolated, her real effectiveness is limited, but its repercussion is immense.

Literature

Jean Anouilh, like very whole France, is struck by this gesture, as insane as heroic. He sees in this act of resistance, a revival of Antigone. For him Colette, represents the Individu, abruptly emerged of the Peuple, which is only drawn up, “death with the hand”, against the Totalitarisme.

For Anouilh (as he will explain it in 1945), such a gesture, as vain as heroic, has in him the gasoline even tragedy. Nourished traditional culture, he thinks then of the part of Sophocle, it (Re) translated, works over again it to produce the gasoline of the genius, amalgamating, integrating magistralement, 25 centuries an old text in a contemporary event. Beginning 1944, Anouilh assembles Antigone , with André Barsacq, on the scene of the Comédie of the Fields-Élysées, Suzanne Flon playing the part of Ismène. It is a clap of thunder! Does not need one an amazing courage to produce this part of revolt in full heart of the occupied France!

As much of other events ( Carmen , blue the Danube Beautiful …) Antigone is very badly accommodated at the time of its first:

nobody applauds;
at the end of the part, Anouilh and Barsacq even regret having written and having assembled Antigone, saying that it was “ a true catastrophe ”;
criticism was divided, the part had a strange, ambiguous resonance. Moreover, one evening, of the leaflets of the Résistance were distributed, with their agreement, which astonished the spectators, because the clandestine press showed them Collaboration. Anouilh declares, a little later, in a text to save the writer collaborationnist Robert Brasillach (editor association of the disaster I am everywhere during the Occupation) who am condemned to died all the same in February 1945: “ I never, even by far, sympathized with the Nazis and their sad accomplices, but I acknowledge to have some Compassion for overcome and fears excesses of purification ”.

In spite of these affronts, Antigone will remain at the top of the masterpieces of Jean Anouilh.

Random links: