Le Chant des Partisans

A deeper look — Written by Shankar G.

Shankar G

Interestingly, when the French soldiers of the “Garde Républicaine” carried away the coffin bearing the mortal remains of Mrs. Simone Veil, the Holocaust survivor, they chanted a German song: Das Lied der Moorsoldaten. (Peat Bog Soldiers). This hymn was composed in 1933 by Johann Esser and Wolfgang Langhoff, two German deportees in the concentration camp of Börgermoor, in Lower Saxony.

Das Lied der Moorsoldaten is so powerfully evocative and poignant that it soon was adopted by all deportees condemned to suffer hardship and death in the Nazi’s concentration camps. French, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Czech, Danish, Latvian versions were made, whispered, hummed, whistled, sometimes – but rarely – sung by deportees.

It was the French version, Le Chant des Marais, that was chosen to honor the Great Lady.

The last refrain expresses hope and aspiration for a new land of freedom, light and beauty:

“Ô terre enfin libre

Où nous pourrons revivre

Et aimer, aimer, aimer..”

(Oh land finally free, where we can live again, and love, love, love)

Had Mrs. Simone Veil served in the French Resistance, another song would have been chosen instead, Le Chant des Partisans (in English The Guerilla Song)

“ami, entends-tu le vol noir des corbeaux sur nos plaines...”

(Mate, do you hear the dark flight of the crows over our plains?

This popular hymn is somewhat connected to Sri Aurobindo, Pondicherry and Auroville.

Spring 1943, London. Two young French artists, soldiering in the Free French Forces of General de Gaulle, were looking for an inspiring song for the underground fighters [les combattants de l’ombre] of the French resistance. The older one, Joseph Kessel, was already an author of repute. His nephew, Maurice Druon, was destined to become a famous novelist and “Immortel” (member of the “Académie française”). With them was a young and pretty singer, Anna Marly, the “troubadour de la Résistance” as General de Gaulle called her.

Anna was born in Russia. Feeling deeply concerned by the fate of her compatriots, the Russian “Partisans” (who were hiding in the forest and bravely challenging the German army), Anna was playing the guitar while whistling a tune of her invention. Hearing this, Kessel cried out “That’s it Anna, you found it! It’s what the French need. Let’s get the wording now.” He and Druon started to work on the text. After a few trials, the “Chant des Partisans” was born. A few days later, Anna sang it into the mike of the BBC. It was heard all over France and was adopted by the French underground forces to become “Le Chant de la Libération”.

But where is the connection with Sri Aurobindo, Pondicherry and Auroville?

There is a “third musketeer” in the story. In London, Kessel and Druon were training with a close friend of theirs, François Baron [full name: Charles François Marie Baron], who was destined to reside in Pondicherry from March 1946 to May 1949 in his official capacity as the last Governor cum Commissioner of French India.

In Pondicherry, François Baron met Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, to become a faithful supporter and disciple. In those days, “Free French” (and all the others from various countries who had fought “the Mother’s War” in the Allied Forces, amongst them the American sergeant John Kelly) were welcome in the Ashram. Two other friends and brothers in arms of François were also there: Colonel Paul Repiton-Préneuf, who was second to the General Leclerc (the famous 2e DB – French 2nd Armored Division – liberated Paris in August 1944) and Doctor of Science Gabriel Monod-Herzen who, in 1942, was in French Indochina assisting Baron, who acted as De Gaulle’s representative. Later, Gabriel Monod-Herzen would become Sri Aurobindo’s first biographer in the French language. Published by the Ashram in 1957, his “Sri Aurobindo” has been in most part read and corrected by the Master Himself [whose French was flawless].

The nature of François Baron’s sadhana was a bit special. As he liked to put it in his stentorian voice: “In the Ashram, the devotees’ evolution goes up vertically. Mine is a spiraling evolution, going upward, but taking its own sweet time”...

In 1950, François Baron met a lively and attractive widow, Carmen Colle. She was born in 1911 in Mexico as Carmen Loizaga Corcuera y de Mier. Her parents were Mexican aristocrats, owners of a hacienda. Carmen had lost her first husband, an art gallery manager, Pierre Colle, two years before her encounter with François. She succumbed to the charm of this “solide Breton” and they got married. François introduced Carmen to his close friends and brothers in arms from the Résistance, Kessel and Druon.

Later, François introduced Carmen to India, Pondicherry, the Mother/Sri Aurobindo, and Satprem, whom she first met in Almora in 1952.

But what about Auroville?

From the 1970s to the 80s, first with François, then with her son Jean-Marie, Carmen made regular visits to India, Pondicherry and Auroville. In Aspiration, Carmen used to stay in a small hut, happily eating the insipid menu of the “Kitchen”. Carmen felt at home in Aspiration. Old timers remember her lively presence and joyful laughter.

None of us was aware that this “chic” white haired lady belonged to the “Tout Paris”: the likes of André Breton, Max Jacob, Paul Eluard, Louis Jouvet, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Christian Bérard, Derain, Christian Dior, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, Raymond Mason, George Auric, and many others, in addition to the Kessels and the Druons, were regularly calling upon her and were being invited to her various residences, in Biarritz, Garches, Maurely, Paris.

Carmen’s three daughters, Béatrice, Marie-Pierre and Sylvia, served as models for one of Balthus’ most famous paintings, “Les Trois Sœurs – The Three Sisters”.

It was in Carmen’s apartment, rue de Varenne, that Maurice Druon started writing his sequence of six historical novels entitled “The Accursed Kings – Les Rois maudits”. The American novelist, R.R. Martin, recognizes “Les Rois maudits” as the original “Game of Thrones” on the basis of which he wrote in turn his own famous series “A Song of Ice and Fire”.

Somewhere, the Mother wrote or said something to the effect that “the highest spirituality goes along with the greatest simplicity”. Carmen’s utter simplicity must have been a reflection of her most beautiful soul....

Carmen was in India when (26th March 1980) François passed away in Paris.

On October 9th, 1983, in Paris, it was Carmen’s turn to cross over.

Soon after, Satprem wrote: