Released from the presses last October, “The Forgotten of History, in Occitanie”, written by Georges-Patrick Gleyze, looks back on a few men and women, unjustly erased from the tablets of history, despite an extraordinary destiny.
Who still remembers the prince of tango Carlos Gardel, born in 1890 in Toulouse, and more popular in Argentina than in Occitania? Who among us knows Henri Russell, the apostle of Pyreneanism? Who, apart from a few Rouergats, knows Clément Cabanettes, this farmer from Aubrac who created a surprising Aveyron colony in the depths of Argentina?
These are around fifty characters from our region, who despite their extraordinary lives, have gradually fallen into the twists and turns of oblivion. The author suggests rediscovering them.
Some people from Lot appear in this opus, notably the cyclist Jacques Dupont, born in Ariège, and Olympic kilometer champion in London in 1948, who has a French road champion title and two Paris-Tours under his belt. In 1960, he opened his Midica boutique in Cahors, specializing in the sale of furniture and decorative objects. He will be the caretaker of the “ciel & blanc” at the Stade Cadurcien, where his son plays. Retired in 1993, he returned to Lézat.
There we find the great theater and cinema actress Marguerite Moreno, born in Paris in 1891. A great friend of Colette, it was in 1921 that she bought the Source Bleue estate in Touzac. She died in 1948 and an epitaph adorns her tomb: “It is the forgetting of the living that causes the dead to die”.
We also discover Édouard Laval, born in Lacave in 1894, a “broken face” from the First World War, where he left his right eye. In 1929, he opened his garage in Saint-Sozy and, deploring the rise of fascism, joined the Communist Party in 1936. Entering the resistance early, he was arrested, then incarcerated in Albi, where the Maquis freed him. He chaired the Departmental Liberation Committee, then was elected general councilor of Souillac until 1949.
The forgotten people of history in Occitania, from Papillon Rouge Éditeur.
