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Incident in Arles: Regionalism, Resistance and the Case of the Statue of Frédéric Mistral

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2007

KIRRILY FREEMAN
KIRRILY FREEMAN*
Affiliation:
History Department, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3C3; [email protected].
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Abstract

On 11 October 1941 the Vichy government passed legislation mandating the dismantling and smelting of French bronze statues and monuments in the public domain. Crippled by copper shortages and bound by the terms of the Franco-German armistice, the etat français sought to ‘mobilise’ all potential sources of non-ferrous metals, including public statuary. The statue of Mistral in Arles was one of the monuments that were dismantled. The destruction of this tribute to the Provençal poet and founder of the Félibrige sparked considerable protest and opposition, but from an unusual quarter – supporters of Pétain's National Revolution. The case of the destruction of the statue of Mistral in Arles reveals the intersection of regionalism and resistance in wartime France and challenges many of our perceptions about both these movements.

      Ame de Mon Pays
      Ame éternellement renaissante
      Ame joyeuse, fière et vive
      Qui hennis dans le bruit du Rhône et de son vent!
      Ame des bois pleins d'harmonie
      Et des calanques pleines de soleil
      De la patrie, âme pieuse
      Je t'appelle! Incarne-toi dans mes vers provençaux!
1

Type
Research Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , February 2007 , pp. 37 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 F. Mistral, Calandal, chant I. Quoted in Gabriel Balme, ‘Mistral et la Patrie', L'Homme de Bronze, 8 Jan. 1942.

2 Kedward, H. R., In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942–1944 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 7Google Scholar.

3 See Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, and Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France: A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978).

4 See, in particular, Madeleine Baudoin, L'Histoire des Groupes Francs (MUR) des Bouches-du-Rhône de septembre 1943 à la Libération (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961).

5 See Guillon, Jean-Marie, ‘Les années 40 en Provence ou la lente émergence de l'histoire’, Annales du Midi, 104 (199–200) (1992), 477–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Monuments et Mémoire de la Résistance en Provence’, Provence Historique, 48 (193) (1998), 325–40; ‘Sociabilité et rumeurs en temps de guerre: bruits et contestations en Provence dans les années quarante’ Provence Historique, 47 (1997) (187), 245–58; ‘La Résistance Provençal: essai de synthèse’, Provence Historique, 44 (1994) (178), 429–40.

6 Guillon, Jean-Marie, ‘Vichy au Village’, Contemporary French Civilization, 23 (2) (1999), 249–64CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

7 This dynamic has also been documented by H. R. Kedward in his studies of resistance in the southern zone. In the emergence of resistance, Kedward argues, ‘no factor played quite such an ironic role as the internal policies of Vichy itself’. Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France, 82.

8 The base of the statue is decorated with a medallion of Mireille by M. Férigoule, sculptor and director of the Musée d'Arles. The statue itself was cast at the Fonderies Russeil, and weighed approximately 800 kilogrammes. ‘The casting process lasted almost four months, and was obviously very well executed since there are no [seams]. At the request of the artist Rivière, in anticipation of strong winds, the statue has been anchored firmly in its base. In addition to the bronze, the foundry has also sent to Arles the plaster cast of the statue . . . which will be assembled and displayed at the Musée d'Arles. It is in perfect condition and can serve, if need be, for a second casting.’ ‘La Statue de Mistral’, Le Forum Républicain, 12 June 1909. By late May the subscription for the monument had reached 17,493.75 francs. Contributors included Princess Marie of Greece, Librairie Hachette, the Countess de Noailles, Le Figaro, the Société archéologique, scientifique et littéraire de Béziers, the prefect of police for Arles, and Robert P. Skinner, US consul-general in Hamburg. Le Forum Républicain, 22 May 1909.

9 Sub-Prefect Arles to Prefect Bouches-du-Rhône, 9 May 1942. Archives Départementales de Bouches-du-Rhône, 7 T 3/3. All quotations are translated by the author.

10 Ibid.

11 Flamme, Jules, Le Palais du Félibrige, ou Museon Arlaten (Arles: A. Sabatier, n.d.), 3Google Scholar.

12 Le Forum Républicain, 5 June 1909.

13 Ibid., 3 April 1909 and 5 June 1909.

14 Ibid., 5 June 1909.

15 L'Homme de Bronze, 30 May 1909.

16 Le Forum Républicain, 29 May 1909.

17 Sub-Prefect Arles to Prefect Bouches-du-Rhône, 9 May 1942. Archives Départementales de Bouches-du-Rhône, 7 T 3/3.

18 See Lebovics, Herman, True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity, 1900–1945 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

19 Frémont, Armand, ‘The Land’, in Nora, Pierre, ed., Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, Vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

20 Regionalism never became a major political force under Vichy; the regime remained fundamentally centralised and authoritarian. But regionalism nevertheless remained at the ideological core of the National Revolution, pervading official discourse, and therefore continued to hold promise for much of the rural population.

21 Minutes, Commission of Regionalist Propaganda, July 1943. Archives Départementales de Haute-Garonne, 1945 W 16.

22 Halls, W. D., The Youth of Vichy France (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), 223Google Scholar.

23 See Christian Faure, 57; Halls, Youth of Vichy France, 222. The Occitan language enjoyed particular popularity in the regime's official youth organisation, the Chantiers de Jeunesse. Halls, ibid., 223.

24 P. Pétain, Paroles du Maréchal, Archives Départementales d'Ille-et-Vilaine, 502 W 7.

25 Halls, Youth of Vichy France, 222.

26 Gabriel Balme, ‘Mistral et la Patrie’, L'Homme de Bronze, 8 Jan. 1942

27 Sub-Prefect Arles to Prefect Bouches-du-Rhône, 9 May 1942. Archives Départementales de Bouches-du-Rhône, 7 T 3/3.

28 Sub-Prefect Arles to Prefect Bouches-du-Rhône, 2 April 1942. Archives Départementales de Bouches-du-Rhône, 7 T 3/3.

29 See in particular Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France and In Search of the Maquis.

30 See Wright, Julian, The Regionalist Movement in France 1890–1914: Jean Charles-Brun and French Political Thought (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as well as Kedward, H. R., ‘Contemplating French Roots’, in Cornick, Martyn and Crossley, Ceri, eds., Problems in French History (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000)Google Scholar.

31 Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France, 20.

32 The image that Vichy projected was ‘responsible for much of the early submission of the southern zone’ to the Pétainist regime. The ‘peculiar potential of Vichy [was that it] compounded . . . highly traditional social and political interests on the one hand and hopes of change and innovation on the other’. Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France, 82 and 89.

33 For an analysis of the myriad ways in which the Vichy regime alienated the rural population in the southern zone, see Kedward, In Search of the Maquis.

34 See the introduction in Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) for further examples of such ambiguities in wartime France. As Jackson asserts, ‘people who made different choices often did so in defence of similar values’. Ibid., 4. The public reaction to Vichy's bronze mobilisation campaign demonstrates that people also made similar choices based on the defence of conflicting values.

35 When the authorities first attempted to remove the statue in February 1942, the contractor encountered ‘serious difficulties in Martigues where the Mayor opposed the removal of the statue.’ GIRM to Prefect Bouches-du-Rhône, 21 Feb. 1942; Maurice Richaud to Sub-Prefect Aix-en-Provence, 10 March 1942; Memo ‘Monuments et Statues des Bouches-du-Rhône susceptibles d'avoir pu etre recuperées par le Commissariat à la Mobilisation des Métaux Non-Ferreux’ 1945. Archives Départementales de Bouches-du-Rhône, 7 T 3/3.

36 Mayor of Saint-Servan, 22 Jan. 1942, to Commissariat for the Mobilisation of Non-Ferrous Metals, Archives Départementales d'Ille-et-Vilaine, 501 W 12.

37 Police Report, 22 Sept. 1943, Archives Départementales de Cantal, 1182 W 5. Local legend also has it that the Salers police may have been involved in the removal and concealment of the bust, but this could not be substantiated with any documentary evidence.

38 See Nora, Pierre, ed., Les Lieux de Mémoire, 7 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1984–92)Google Scholar, and more recently Sherman, Daniel J., The Construction of Memory in Interwar France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)Google Scholar, and Ricoeur, Paul, Memory, History, Forgetting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 See Cohen, William, ‘Symbols of Power: Statues in Nineteenth-Century Provincial France’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31 (1989), 491–513CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 The statue was removed on 18 Sept. 1942 and yielded 528 kilogrammes of bronze. Archives Départementales de Bouches-du-Rhône, 7 T 3/3.

41 A decree instituted by the provisional government on 22 June 1944 upheld the stipulations of the 11 Oct. 1941 law for the mobilisation of non-ferrous metals that stated that destroyed bronze statues could only be replaced by new and distinct works in stone, and that the only compensation for the lost statues was the 30 francs per kilogramme that municipalities had received from the Vichy government. The statues were, therefore, not included in any calculation of reparations.

42 The mayor made many attempts to convince the government to fund the project, but all were unsuccessful. Arles Municipal Council, Deliberations, 27 Feb. 1948. Archives Municipales d'Arles, D163.

43 Le Meridional, 3 July 1948.

44 Arles Municipal Council, Deliberations, 14 April 1948. Archives Municipales d'Arles, D163.

45 Le Meridional, 5 July 1948.

46 See Rousso, Henry, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

47 Le Meridional, 3 and 5 July 1948.

48 The role of regionalism in the construction of postwar identities in southern France has also been touched on by Kedward. ‘It is certainly evident that the retrospective validation of the southern maquis as one source of inspiration for the revival of Occitanism in postwar Languedoc, and the dramatic swing of the [Occitan] movement away from the dominantly right-wing politics of Frédéric Mistral and the Félibrige, have given a new regionalist purpose to the search for the maquis in certain, mainly literary, writings.’ Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, 151. In fact, ‘post-war Occitanists were orientated by the very existence of the maquis: “La terre d'Oc a été une terre de maquis. Les combats pour la liberté ont été chantés en oc.”‘ Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, 286.

49 Jean-Marie Guillon, ‘Talk Which Was Not Idle: Rumours in Wartime France’, in Hanna Diamond and Simon Kitson, eds., Vichy, Resistance, Liberation: New Perspectives on Wartime France (Oxford: Berg, 2005).

50 Ibid., 74.

51 Ibid., 83.

52 ‘La rumeur participe à la reconstitution de l'unité nationale défaite avant guerre et en train de se refaire grâce à la Résistance et autour d'elle, une résistance à laquelle la plupart ne participent ni régulièrement ni même réellement, mais qu'ils assument verbalement en se positionnant comme les “nous” contre les “ils”‘. Jean-Marie Guillon, ‘Sociabilité et Rumeurs en Temps de Guerre: Bruits et Contestations en Provence dans les Années Quarante’, Provence Historique 47 (187) (1997), 245–58.