Passadoc Gazette - No. 75

The Quiz!
We talk a little... a lot... passionately!
Did you say solidarity?... The winegrowers' revolt... Wild child... Les Blancs, hamlet of the village of Tarton... On the Ferrasses plateau... Brégançon Fort... Toleration Edition... Jacques Genthial, the father of the technical and scientific police... René Char... Catherine Dior…
Vagabondages... Images... words... music...
Photos from yesterday
Passodoc Library

André and François Abbe

The market...

Photo André Abbe 1970

Draguignan... In the small square, the women are in shawl... Men are chatting... Under the look of Baron d'Azemarles, leeks, salads, carrots await... And solex as well as the old van...

Giselle Penat-Lorde

All the memories of those 60s and 70s.
Internal to the state high school of young girls/ high school Jean Moulin, from Sept 1962 to June 1969, I knew this market well ... already in the 50-60s as we went with family regularly to Draguignan and often took advantage of it to take a tour of the market.
Since then, for a few years now, I have become a full-fledged fan of the market, although it has changed a lot...

I still had piles of crates/cagettes and trays, a few years ago, in the sheds of the family house in Roquebrune. I had some « customised » a few, much given from the right and left to neighbouring farmers, who still made good use of it ...
A car of « Proust madeleines » who « drop » Seeing the damn ones that my mother was wearing.

Under the plane trees... – Photo Provence Guide

Jeanne Monin

... Ladies with their shawl... And their skirts! Because the pants will only be feminine a little later...
And then the oval wooden crates now replaced by plastic crates.
If the stalls are still as colorful, the traders have become almost wise... The vegetable, the fisherman no longer boast of stentor the freshness of their goods...
For the girl I was, going to the market with Mom, it was both chores and pleasures...
Pleasure... the one to be with her, the one to take her time, the one to color, the one to smell... And chores because you had to go back to the Paris apartment, climb the floors with at the end of your arms, the heavy staves of vegetables and fruit! The roller bags will only come later...

The « Uncle » – Jacques Tati 1958

Claude Boyer

Did you say solidarity?

On July 31, 1929, the village of Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée in the Alpes Maritimes at the foot of the Col de la Bonette was the prey of flames.

The fire was circumscribed the next day, but it still destroyed half of the village, 95 buildings, 80 of which were rendered completely unusable.

Fortunately, no victims were deplored but 400 villagers were left homeless. Others had to settle in the surrounding barns, some even in a disused convent.

Click! The rest of the story is on this page.

The revolt of the winemakers

Since the mid-19th century, the Gard, the Hérault, the Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales have transformed the arid plains bordering the Gulf of Lion into superb vineyards, so that annual wine production continues to increase.

But...

Click! "Having so much good wine and not being able to eat bread"

Cecile Arnaud adds...

Clemenceau [...] has Ferroul imprisoned and the members of the wine committee of Argeliers, in Montpellier...

Marcelin Albert, farmer, carrying « a top, a black felt hat and a complete sheet »,
on 26 June 1907, accused « incitement to a crime ».
He was also released on 2 August 1907.

Wild child

Victor Aveyronnais
It is in the Tarn that we hear about it for the first time in the region of Castres. During the winter of 1797, a rumour began to roam the whole village, spreading like a sledge of powder throughout the canton: one saw a child about ten years old, hirsute, walking on four legs, who lives in the midst of the animals and has a smear across the throat, he eats acorns, chestnuts, roots, and climbs to trees like a squirrel.
Joseph the Malien
Joseph is three years old when he disappears. The whole village goes on its search, the wells and crevices of the ground are probed, the bush is searched in the vicinity, a three-year-old child could not go far the alert having been quickly given, but nothing, Joseph remains unobtainable.
Parents mourn, years pass... six years later, they learn that the hunter of a nearby village captured a child in the bush. Immediately they return and indeed they find their son who is now about ten years old.

Click... Both stories are on this page.

Marie-Odile Beraud

Whites, village hamlet of Tarton

The most beautiful vacation of my childhood...
The first written mention of Tarton dates back to 1199, but the castral settlement, which was perched above, is probably older. The lords who then bore the name of Tarton were under the domination of the Barons of Castellane, before passing, in 1226, under that of Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence. Since the Middle Ages, the habitat has been scattered over the territory in several hamlets, the most important of which, Plan de Chaude, appeared in the 16th century.^e Today, it is the capital city.

Click! The rest of the story...

On the Ferrasses plateau

Dominating the vast expanses of the Albion plateau and bathed in exceptional brightness, this village of Drômois producers surrounded by lavender fields has made the cultivation of bouquets its specialty. On the edge of the Albion plateau, this village, located at nearly 1,000 metres above sea level, is surrounded by lavender fields often delimited by almond trees and lime trees.
Here you will discover strange dry stone buildings called bories or sheepfolds that served as shelter for herds and their shepherds.
In order to be as close as possible to this authentic nature, the lavender botanical path that runs on foot will fill the curious as well as the lovers of landscape beauty in search of silence.

At Ferrasses, the cultivation of lavender bouquets predominates. Among the many lavender farms, two of them open their doors to share their know-how. The lavender festival celebrated each year on the 1st Sunday of July marks the beginning of festivals in Provence dedicated to this emblematic plant.

Finally, if you take the road to the Pass of the Dead Man, mark a stop at the gazebo to contemplate a superb panorama on the luminous plateau of Albion, the birth of the gorges of the Nesque and on the north face of Mount Ventoux.

These are my friends a walk that lacks neither color nor sweet fragrance.
I wish you a beautiful day with sun full of head and heart, and beautiful discoveries during your walks ... Be careful the heats are overwhelming... mandatory hat and bottle of water and avoid going out at the hottest hours.

Philippe Levieux

Brégançon Fort

The Presidents of the V^e Republic and the fort

General de Gaulle spent only one night (horrible because of mosquitoes and too small a bed) at the fort of Brégançon at the time of the commemoration of the landing of Provence on 25 August 1964. Without much appreciation for the fort, he gave it the status of presidential residence in 1968, especially to receive foreign heads of State in the south (which no prefecture allowed) and especially Mediterranean hosts in the tense political context of decolonization. Pierre-Jean Guth, architect of the National Navy, great prize of Rome, transforms the fort into a pleasant residence while respecting what remains of the old fortress.

Disturbing the site, Georges Pompidou opens the doors of the fort to the media and brings them into presidential privacy. He made Brégançon the residence of the presidents of the V^e Republic as the Vizille Castle for the Presidents of the IV^e Republic. He brought in artists and designers like Pierre Paulin to review the furnishings.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing appreciates fort Brégançon and establishes a filiation with its predecessors by staying there many times. He gives the dynamic image of a young president and comes with family.
Conversely, François Mitterrand does not particularly like the fort. From 1986, however, he was present for working meetings: he received the SNCF strikers at the beginning of 1987 and two foreign heads of state, Irish Prime Minister Garret Fitzgerald and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Jacques Chirac especially appreciates the fort because he is attached to the Var where he lived as a child. Moreover, while staying at the fort, he is part of the sonage of his mentor, Georges Pompidou. Finally, his wife Bernadette also joined the region and became president of Bormes-les-Mimosas' flowered Corso. On 16 August 2004, the President received Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Nicolas Sarkozy spent time at the fort and received Condolezza Rice, a specialist in Soviet Russia, during the management of the Russian-Georgian conflict in August 2008.
François Hollande has no special attachment to the fort, which is why he disables the presidential residence and opens the site to the public by entrusting its management to the National Monuments Centre.
While leaving the fort accessible to the French, Emmanuel Macron chooses to reactivate it regularly, especially during summer stays, which are as much an opportunity to rest with family as to organize working meetings, like the visit of British Prime Minister Theresa May in August 2018, that of Russian President Vladimir Putin in August 2019 on the eve of the G7 in Biarritz or that of Chancellor Angela Merkel in the summer of 2020.

Comments come from elysée.fr.

Bormes-les-Mimosas – Var.

Alain Cathala

The issue of tolerance of non-Catholics of November 1787, a major act for Languedoc.
[...] By throwing away the legacy of Louis XVI, the edict of tolerance which he signed in November 1787 was deliberately ignored and which, two years before the French Revolution, granted the Protestants of the Kingdom a civil status.

It should be recalled that until that date, at least since 1685, only marriages celebrated before the altar of the Roman Apostolic Church, the official religion of the kingdom, were valid. This, as one may doubt, was not without difficulties for inheritances and property transfers in Protestant families. Thus, all marriages celebrated in the Desert were of no legal value and the children, born of these unions, not carried on the parish registers of baptism kept by the servants of the Church of Rome, had virtually no legal existence and could be excluded from successions, to the great contentment of cousins and relatives who remained in the right religion.

It was through this recognition of a matrimonial bond that the many Protestant families who lived in a pseudo clandestineity were able to truly find themselves entitled to a city. This document guarantees them the right to live peacefully in the Kingdom of France, without being discriminated against under the pretext of their Religion. However, this edict did not grant them full equality with Catholics. They remained excluded from state office, as did military professions.

The ratification of this edict was the result of a long process which had begun in the late 1760s and which sought to ensure legal recognition of the « Non-Catholic ». This advance must be linked to two men: General de La Fayette and a Languedocian, linked to Nîmes and Montpellier familially, Pastor Rabaud de Saint-Étienne, but also to Minister Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamonion de Malesherbes. These three men fought tirelessly for the emancipation of Protestants.

The spirit of the Enlightenment, which had radiated to the United States, and which had been carried by the Encyclopædia, guided them in this desire. France, the country where they were born, had to be tolerant.

It should be noted, however, that this edict did not grant the official recognition of marriages in the Desert, but offered those who had married in front of a pastor the opportunity to declare this union before a royal judge or before the parish priest who had to register it as a registrar. The same was true for births and deaths... Thus, in the first months of 1788, there was a large number of statements of Protestant unions and recognitions of children who were previously considered illegitimate.

This edict was validated two months later by Parliament, which recalled, however, that the Catholic religion remained the official religion of the kingdom. It was not until the Revolution that Protestants could officially hold public office, join the army or teach. It was only with the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights of 26 August 1789 and with a constitutional law of 24 December of the same year that the French people were granted full and complete freedom of conscience... From there will be written all the stories of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially that of secularism...

Text by Fabrice Bertrand

Jean Paul Pourade

Jacques Genthial... the father of the technical and scientific police

He was my boss before he became a friend.
[...] Born on 3 February 1938 in Rodez, Aveyron, after high school at the Lycée Foch and at the Institution Sainte-Marie de Rodez, a master's degree in law at the University of Montpellier and a DES Sciences Economiques, Jacques Genthial entered the police force on 16 May 1965, exactly 57 years ago after having passed the Commissioner's competition.

He had climbed all levels of the Judicial Police of Deputy Commissioner in Office, then boss of the mythical Criminal Brigade before reaching the highest position of central director of the Judicial Police in 1995. But he will leave his name in the history of the Judicial Police as the founder of the modern scientific police.

It was under the impulse of Pierre Joxe [Minister of the Interior and Defence of François Mitterrand] – who had emerged from the cartons (where unwise hands had ranked him), the project to create a Sub-Directorate of Modern Scientific Police drawn up by Jacques Genthial – that the Judicial Police took a giant step in resolving the most complicated judicial investigations. The creation of the Automatized File of Genetic Empreintes (FNAEG) with the systematic filing of DNA of sex criminals in particular, the modernization of the loaded material, in the field to make technical findings, the sampling and collection of traces and indices, as well as in the development of the numerous files and software used by the investigation services.

[...] Jacques Genthial had not forgotten the terroir of his childhood and often took refuge in his house of Bruhnes near Bozouls where he made discover to his guests the customs and customs of the peasants of Aveyron. Thus he took great pleasure in taking his most famous visitors to the Fortified Farm of Seveyrac by his friend Jean Yves Rieucau where he had demonstrated to Pierre Joxe in particular the wealth of know-how of the breeders of the Aubrac breed who have made their country economically reliable and today internationally recognized.

By giving meaning to his life, Jacques Genthial gave meaning to his death... would have written Saint-Exupéry.

Philippe Natalini

René Char

French poet, fighting in 1940, resistant in 1942, passed to the maquis in 1943, he was one of the leaders of the Resistance in the Lower Alps.
Under the name « Captain Alexandre », it commands the Durance Zone Parachute Action Service and installs its headquarters in Céreste. After the war, René Char [1907-1988] paid tribute to the inhabitants of Céreste (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) who had on several occasions helped the group of resistors whom he commanded.
On 29 June 1943, at 5 a.m., Céreste was invested by the SS and Militia Extracts from the Sheets of Hypnos:

CEreste, 29 June 1943
The baker had not yet unstraped the iron curtains of his shop that the village was already besieged, gagged, hypnotized, put in the impossibility of moving. Two SS companies and one militia detachmentieThey held him under the face of their machine guns and mortars. Then the test began.

The inhabitants were thrown out of the houses and ordered to gather in the central square. Keys on the doors. An old, hard-eared man, who didn't pay enough attention to order, saw the four walls and the roof of his barn fly in pieces under the effect of a bomb. I've been awake for four hours. Marcelle came to me whispering the alarm. I immediately acknowledged the point of trying to cross the surveillance cord and win the campaign. I quickly changed houses.

The uninhabited house where I took refuge allowed an effective armed resistance at every end. I could follow from the window, behind the yellow curtains, the nerves of the occupants. Not one of mine was present in the village. That thought satisfied me. A few miles away, they'd follow my instructions and stay on the floor. I was hit, punctuated with insults. The SS had surprised a young mason who had come back to raise collars. His fear referred him to their torture. A voice was leaning over the tummed body: "Where is it? Drive us", followed by silence. And kicking and raining butts.

A senseless rage took hold of me, drove away my anguish. My hands communicated to my weapon their treacherous sweat, exalted his power contained. I calculated that the unfortunate one would shut up for another five minutes, then, fatally, he would speak. I was ashamed to wish his death before that deadline. Then came the tide of women, children, and old men from every street, going to the assembly place, according to a concerted plan. They rushed without haste, literally flowing over the SS, paralyzing them "in good faith". The mason was left for death. Curious, the patrol broke a path through the crowd and carried its steps further. With infinite caution, now anxious and good eyes looked in my direction, passed like a jet of lamp on my window. I was half-discovered and a smile broke out of my paleness. I cared for these beings by a thousand confident sons, one of whom was not to break. I loved my fellowmen fiercely that day, far beyond sacrifice.

Catherine Dior...

Did you know that the name of the iconic Dior perfume was inspired by an authentic Azurean resistant? Catherine Dior, Christian's sister, inspired the name given to the famous perfume.

For his first parade, Dior decided to perfume the salons of the fragrance show he had just created with Paul Vacher. But what's his name? Mitzah Bricard, muse of the designer, takes a hundred steps in the workshop when the door opens. It's Catherine, Christian's sister.
– Here's Miss Dior! exclaimed Mitzah. This will be called perfume.

What is less known is the epic of Catherine Dior. It's November 1941. Catherine's in Cannes. In a store, she meets Hervé des Charbonneries. It's the immediate lightning strike. Catherine marries the convictions of her companion and enters the Resistance.

Hubert, the son of Hervé, tells his memories at Dior House:
– My father belonged to a Franco-Polish network of the Resistance that operated in the South Zone under the supervision of Admiral Trolley de Prévaux. The mission of the network was to provide maximum information on what was happening in the South. Catherine was typing reports to the machine before they were sent to London.. Admiral Trolley de Prévaux was arrested in Marseilles in August 1944. The network is in danger. It's the leak.

Catherine sometimes stays with Christian who knows nothing about her activities. On July 6, 1944, she had a Trocadéro meeting with a friend of her network. But two members of the Gestapo come forward. Tortured, she will never deliver the names of her comrades. She was deported on 15 August 1944 on the last train to Ravensbrück. For nine months, the family will have no news. On May 28, 1945, finally, she returned to France, marked forever.

Miss Dior, this unobtrusive eternal, will be in bloom for twelve years. Proud of her brother's success, she will prefer to stay away from luxury and rhinestones. She died on 17 June 2008 in her house in Callian (Var) in the middle of her vineyards and garden she loved so much, at the age of 91.