Low life | 15 November 2018

The monument to this French village’s war dead is a plain white stone block with the head of a grizzled old French infantryman chiselled on top. His big capable hands are gripping the block’s edge, as though he is peering intently over the parapet of a trench. On Sunday we assembled around him to honour the 53 local men, from a population of 1,800, who lost their lives in the first world war. Schoolchildren queued at a microphone to sing out their names. A ladies choir sang a plangent song about Verdun. The state bell tolled for 11 minutes. The major made an interminable speech in the rain. Everybody sang the Marseillaise.

Around 300 people turned out (beneath about 100 umbrellas) from a winter population the same size as it was 100 years ago. A regular soldier with a machine gun and a rakish beret patrolled vigilantly, his eyes peeled for Islamist terrorists. Apart from the final singing of the rousing national anthem, this young man and the peering poilu were the only military notes. No medal-boasting veterans were present; the only uniforms were those of the fire brigade. Otherwise it was all anoraks flapping in the squalls. The prevailing atmosphere was light-hearted, I would say. People on the outer fringes chatted and smoked and at the slightest provocation — the trendy teacher failing to control his daft children, for example — everyone laughed.

Yet one wondered. One wondered especially about the small plaque that had been fixed to the monument comfortably within living memory dedicated to ‘Nos glorieux martyrs de la Résistance’. Five names are inscribed on it: Albert Benzo, Jean Gautier, Félix Maille, Léon Gérard and Gabriel Philis. The plaque is modest, the lettering less well done. The circumstances of the deaths of Léon Gérard and Gabriel Philis are these.