Monsieur le Commandant Read Online Free Page A

Franco and the Church. My colleague Georges Bernanos, although a Christian, failed to understand the basic nature of the struggle, and we fell out. Happily, most of my colleagues in letters and ideas remained firmly on my side. The Académie Française, by the pens of eleven of its members, including me, had supported the action of the Italian Champions of Civilisation against the savage Ethiopians of Abyssinia. Maurras was elected to join us in the elite, where he naturally enjoyed my support. None of us hesitated to make our voices heard in the newspapers and weekly publications, where we expressed with righteous indignation what the vast majority of Frenchmen believed but kept to themselves: that the Jews were stealing work from our fellow citizens, illegally invading the country, and preparing for the ‘Jewish revolution’ in which Léon Blum was complicit. They would soon conspire to drag France, which was militarily unprepared, into their war of revenge and plunge us all into the abyss!
    In 1937, Stalin’s henchmen exploded bombs in the heart of Paris, in two buildings belonging to the employers’ council. Minister Dormoy and a few hacks in the pay of the Soviets attributed the attacks to a secret society known as ‘the Cowl’ in preparation for a coup thatsupposedly enjoyed support in the Army. Arrests were made even within the Maréchal’s inner circle, but it was all lies, shameless lies. Calumny spread by vermin!

    But let us move on, Monsieur le Commandant. The time has come for me to … My hand rebels against broaching the tale of the first of the terrible tragedies that struck us to the core.
    It was summer, late summer, 1938. Europe, you will recall, was awash with rumours of war. Hermione would soon turn four. My son was on tour in Scotland with his orchestra. Ilse and her daughter were spending the season with us. My daughter Jeanne – who had recently introduced us to her fiancé, a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure whose ideas were at odds with my own – was supposed to stay with us for a few days, by herself, and then join this boy in the South of France to meet his family before he was called up (all young men were expecting to be dispatched post-haste to the trenches).
    Whose idea was it to go for a boat ride that sunny afternoon? Certainly not mine; perhaps it was Jeanne’s, or Ilse’s. Both of them rose from their deckchairs and took the little one with them, with the intention of ‘doing a once-round-the-island’. I wasn’t especially concerned; the weather was fine, there was hardly a breath of wind, and my daughter and daughter-in-law were both excellent swimmers. Only Marguerite protested, in vain. My wife and I watched as the three of them went laughing through the garden gate, crossed Quai de Verdun and descended to the jetty where we docked our little boat in the summer.
    Half an hour later, I heard cries, and then the entrance bell jangling furiously. I saw Ilse ringing at the garden gate. Terrified, drenched to the skin and carrying little Hermione, who was also soaking and howling in her mother’s arms.
    I ran down to the waterside. Our boat had slipped its ropes andwas being carried away on the river current. Empty. I jumped into the water, but my artificial arm, heavy and useless, prevented me from getting very far. How I cursed that German mortar that day! I called out to some sailors, who came running, diving from their boats or the end of the jetty. Following Ilse’s directions from the embankment, where she pointed towards the site of the accident, these good men did their best … But the dark waters and the powerful current held on to their prey, invisible and lost. We searched until twilight before returning to land, death in our souls.
    My daughter-in-law explained what had happened. The wake from an enormous empty barge tearing along the Seine had rocked the skiff, giving little Hermione a sudden fright. The child had scurried to the side, and Ilse, afraid