Car Heartin addition to being an epic and true book, is also a story of filiation. It begins when Emmanuel, the author’s father, an ex-flambe, ex-ladies’ man who is now blind and severely impaired, asks Thibault to tell the glorious story of one of their ancestors. In this case Louis, great-grandfather of the writer who, on August 30, 1914, at the head of the hussars of the 7th regiment, launched a desperate charge against the German cannons and machine guns. Saber drawn, standing on his stirrups, Louis would have launched “Come on, bold! my children. For God and for France! Up there in the big blue sky, there’s room for heroes.”
“We always have complicated relationships with our parents”
Except that Thibault de Montaigu had almost never heard of Louis and the scraps of information that had reached him did not make a book. However, he lets himself be convinced, little by little. Firstly because the subject surprises him a little more day by day. Then because, at the same time, his father is slowly passing away. And even if Emmanuel has not always been the perfect dad, the words chosen by his son to evoke their bond are moving. “We always have complicated relationships with our parents and, above all, it annoyed me to have to take care of him when he was declining, admits Thibault. Writing this book also meant interviewing him, asking him questions. It’s fantastic to talk with your parents or grandparents, before it’s too late. Often, if the stories haven’t been told, it’s simply because they weren’t asked. Experiencing this with him was a strong moment that brought us closer together.”
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At the beginning, the author (and former journalist at Liberation) gropes. He doesn’t find much, it annoys him. When he goes to the battlefield site, at Attigny, in the Ardennes, all he sees are cars and trucks speeding past on the A34, a long ribbon of bitumen that cuts now the countryside. “Difficult to imagine two hundred cavalrymen with German tanks facing them“, smiles the writer.
What Thibault knew about Louis was that he had died a hero in 1914.”His son, Hubert, my grandfather, never spoke about him. He had suffered greatly from her death. He was only ten years old and he had to experience this ceremony of being awarded the Croix de Guerre posthumously…” A scene recounted in a French textbook, published in 1921 and intended for young Americans at Harvard. This incredible discovery will, for good, convince Thibault that he must dig to better understand the family roots.
What we say, what we keep quiet, what we leave to our children or, conversely, what we spare them: this is where we find the filiation that irrigates this Hearta book approached backwards and with leaden feet and which, today, Thibault de Montaigu speaks so well.
⇒ Heart | Novel | Thibault de Montaigu | Albin Michel, 336 pp., €21.90, digital €16
EXTRACT
“So I take his hand with its blue and deformed knuckles and, our fingers intertwined, I begin to pray. I pray that God will give us a little more time and bring us back one last time among the sun-studded waves, in the murmur of summer, as he hugged the little boy I was, whispering “my little guy, my little guy”; those arms so large, so powerful that gave me the impression that nothing was happening; could never reach me […] And even today, near this hospital bed, our two hands united in the same prayer, it is him that I seek to resurrect. It’s him I’d like to meet one last time…”
