Tower and Town, May 2016

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French Encounters

During the 1950s, as a young student, I stayed with two families in France and encountered two people I regard as personal heroes.

The first was a secondary school teacher, Valentine Charlier, a friend of my tutor who arranged for me to stay with some friends of hers, the Imbs family. Paul Imbs was at that time a professor at Strasbourg University, and he and his wife, Odile, had four daughters, which was great for me and we are still in touch.

Mademoiselle Charlier was a gentle, unassuming woman who was always there to help others and, as I got to know her better, I came to admire her greatly. When I returned later to study in Strasbourg, the first group of German students since the end of WW2 were back at the University, largely due to an initiative by Professor Imbs, thoroughly approved by Mademoiselle Charlier. Only later was I told that she had worked for the French Resistance during the German occupation, I believe as a wireless operator, whilst employed as a maid in the local German commander’s house. For me, she was a quiet hero who always stepped up to the plate.

The following summer my hosts in Auvergne were two sisters, Marguerite and Alice Teillard-Chambon. Their cousin, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, was a Jesuit priest and distinguished palaeontologist and philosopher. It was during his youth in Auvergne that he developed his interest in geology, leading on to palaeontology. I never had the good fortune to meet this hero myself, as he had died in the USA the year before, but members of his family told me a great deal about him. What appealed to me then were the stories of his remarkable work during WW1. He opted to be a stretcher bearer, declining promotion beyond corporal, in a regiment of colonial soldiers, mostly Muslim. He was in the front line for the battles at Ypres, Arras, Dunkirk, Verdun and the Marne. He survived unscathed and was called “Sidi Marabout” (something like “Sir Steadfast”) by the soldiers.

Marguerite, a writer herself, was Teilhard’s friend and correspondent until his death. She understood and shared his ideas on science and religion (ideas she tried without much success to explain to me), ideas which brought disapproval from his superiors and the church authorities at the time. This resulted in his virtual exile from teaching and publishing, a situation he apparently bore with fortitude, continuing his research in China and later living in a Jesuit community in New York State. After his death, Marguerite edited and published his Lettres de Voyage, and I still have the copy she gave me.

Heroes aside, how lucky and privileged I was, as a youngster, to be welcomed with such kindness into these two French families.

Louise Elkington