Normalien, associate of history, doctor in theology and history, David Gilbert teaches the history of the Church at the Catholic Institute of Paris and at the House of formation of the Saint-Martin Community in Évron (Mayenne).
On May 30, in the twentieth arrondissement of Paris, the aggression of a modest procession of 300 Catholic pilgrims by a small group of “
anti-fascist
”
activists
hardly captured the attention of the media or moved the political class. Duly declared and authorized, this march was destined for the parish of Notre Dame des Otages, the name of which alludes to the fifty or so people imprisoned on rue Haxo, then summarily executed in May 1871, one hundred and fifty years ago, under the Commune, in a situation of great confusion.
As the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit recalled, in the column published in
Le Figaro
, the Christians who gathered on May 30th did not do so “
to demonstrate, nor to claim specific rights
”, even less to cry for revenge, but "
on a pilgrimage
”, To commemorate these deaths. Although they are not officially registered among the martyrs of the Catholic Church, their tragic fate, in a particularly troubled and bloody period in the history of Paris, marked the district and more generally the Christians of this city. It is right and appropriate, one hundred and fifty years later, that the faithful Catholics of this district, of all social conditions and of all origins, commemorate these elder brothers, unjustly accused, who suffered and died for their faith, like so many 'others, yesterday and today around the world. Living freely one's faith in Jesus Christ never goes without saying; even more than a civil right, it is always a grace.
At another level of reflection, the sad micro-event of May 30th recalls, if need be, the eminently complex relationship that France and the French maintain with their history.
This relationship is expressed, here as elsewhere, in memorial accounts which should not be identified with history.
Both communities and individuals have a memory: this is not a pure recording capacity, which would inevitably erode over time;
it is a faculty of re-elaboration, of permanent reprocessing of what has been lived.
It determines and inspires the relationship with the present and the future, in a constant interaction with the needs, desires and fears of the individual or the community.
On Saturday May 29, two memories of the Paris Commune, both marked by great suffering, came face to face: the “red” memory and the Catholic memory.
David Gilbert
The story that memory constructs can be transmitted from one individual to another, from one group to another, from one generation to another. Constantly taken up, enriched, truncated or altered, this story often founds and maintains a vision or a project of a political, social, religious or cultural type. The memorial story has a strong existential, even identity, and also practical aim, in the sense that it inspires action. In this sense, even the inflections, the occultations, the shortcuts or the additions made within the framework of the progressive elaboration of this account should not be understood first of all as falsifications, but as operations resulting from a certain logic. .
This applies in particular to the most violent, the bloodiest events: what meaning to find in horror, once it has passed, when it comes to continuing to live, to survive when so many others have died? ? What meaning can be found in life when it is marked by horror? While it is true that memory can preciously preserve the happiest and most joyous events, it also works in depth from the experience of injustice, failure, absurdity, defeat. , suffering and scandal, to integrate it into the construction - or the reconstruction - of the identity of the individual or the community.
On Saturday May 29, two memories of the Paris Commune, both marked by great suffering, came face to face: the “
red
”
memory
(we can qualify it thus without pejorative connotation, since the “
anti-fascists
” wore a large red flag, very clear reference to the Commune) and Catholic memory. The "anti-fascists" have clearly assaulted Catholics, verbally and physically. The cry "
down with the Versaillais!"
», Clearly audible on the videos, alludes to the name that the Communards gave to the government of Adolphe Thiers installed in Versailles and to his supporters. Versailles is obviously the royal city par excellence: the fact that the government of what was already the Third Republic had been established, even temporarily, in Versailles, was at least symbolically paradoxical, and naturally unacceptable and revolting for the "
reds
". 'as much as the majority of the National Assembly elected in February 1871 was of monarchist orientation. Versailles is also, in the current imagination, the citadel of a certain Catholicism considered bourgeois, conservative, traditional, even traditionalist. In this regard, treat of “
Versaillais
Pilgrims, many of whom came from the rather popular and multi-ethnic parishes of eastern Paris, denotes a deliberate and malicious ignorance of the reality and diversity of current French Catholicism, particularly in these districts of Paris.
The "
amalgam
" so often denounced is here fully at work.
This is what the hostages of Haxo Street recall: their tragic fate subverts the univocal memorial heroisation of the Commune specific to the radical left and partially taken up by official commemorations.
David Gilbert
Collective traumatic events generate multiple memories, at different scales, and often very difficult to reconcile, not only because they can be frankly antagonistic, but also and perhaps even more so because they are, when 'we look at it closely, infinitely nuanced and confusing by their plurality and complexity. This is especially true for World War II, or for the Spanish Civil War; this also applies to the Municipality. Therefore, the decisive question that arises - and to which the disruption of the pilgrimage of May 30th unfortunately gave a negative answer - is this: are we able to listen to the memory of the suffering of the other?
No one denies that supporters of the Paris Commune were victims of massive and fierce repression by government troops. And even if the web of responsibilities is often difficult, if not impossible to unravel, no one can deny either that the Communards were sometimes guilty or accomplices of unnecessary, hateful and murderous violence: the victims are not only victims, they can also be executioners, and that is the tragedy. This is what the hostages of Haxo Street recall: their tragic fate subverts the univocal memorial heroisation of the Commune specific to the radical left and partially taken up by the official commemorations, if we judge, among others, by this spring's exhibition,"
We the Municipality
», On the gates of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.
From this memorial treatment of the past, history stands out in an essential way.
As an intellectual and academic discipline, history is always an effort of construction, interpretation, narration.
Since the middle of the twentieth century, epistemological reflection on history, led by historians or philosophers, rightly underlines this "
effort, in a sense, the creator of the historian.
», To use the expression of Henri-Irénée Marrou. A historian cannot be a strictly neutral observer, who would aim for the only objective truth of the facts. He is not disembodied: he is a being of his time, with his personality and his convictions, his centers of interest and sometimes his commitments, his professional and institutional position, his audience as well. His subjectivity is fundamentally a motor of his research, of the exercise of his critical mind. "
History is inseparable from the historian
», According to another formula which has become classic by Henri-Irénée Marrou.
In a different style, the work of François Hartog, marked by a back and forth between the present and the past, shows how fruitful the approach of a historian can be who fully assumes the fact of asking questions of the past. that spring from the present in which he lives and works.
It is precisely this that makes the story interesting to a wider audience, useful, enlightening to the point of sometimes becoming some form of inner experience.
We can hope that a “memory in equal parts” will develop in our country, which integrates the often tragic complexity of the conflicts which have marked the history of France, without disqualifying or ignoring one memory rather than another.
David Gilbert
Useful, history can also be used, and we touch here one of its most striking ambivalences, in contact with memory. History and memory, eternal question, always to be taken up! Indeed, it never ceases to rest in new contexts. Today, a key word in the historical process is that of "
deconstruction
". The fact that it has become a tic of academic language, in the process of acclimatization in journalistic and political vocabulary, does not deprive it of all relevance: in history, deconstructing a "great story", a memory more or less mythologized, n t is not to destroy, but to analyze critically to update the implicit logics at work in the construction of a memorial narrative which is anything but neutral and which aims at certain objectives. History criticizes memorial constructions: it makes them its material, not to denounce them, but to understand them and make them understood, in an effort of dispassionate distancing, without fearing the "
conflict of interpretations.
», In the words of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. In doing so, it can contribute to appeasement in the confrontation of these memories: in particular, it can help to listen to the memory of the suffering of the other.
History, therefore, criticizes memories, but these, in their own style, even corrected, inflected or relativized by historical criticism, retain their vital utility as structuring narratives, both for communities and for individuals, particularly in view of the action. If we come back to the starting point of this reflection, namely to the aggression, on May 29, of Catholic memory by the “red” memory, two memories marked by the shedding of blood, we can then ask the question. next: what to do with this suffering, on both sides? What should memory do with this suffering? Commemorate only the suffering of his own, and hide, deny, even despise the suffering of others? Call for revenge? Or, while commemorating the suffering of his own,to be able to welcome the suffering of others as well? It seems here that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, offers incomparable resources for a truly inclusive memory of suffering, a condition for reconciliation and peace. This is what Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger underlined during the celebration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution more than thirty years ago, by promoting, in the name of a balanced, comprehensive and soundly critical vision of the Revolution. French, the full inclusion in the French collective memory of the countless Christians who died for their faith.offers incomparable resources for a truly inclusive memory of suffering, a condition for reconciliation and peace. This is what Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger underlined during the celebration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution more than thirty years ago, by promoting, in the name of a balanced, comprehensive and soundly critical vision of the Revolution. French, the full inclusion in the French collective memory of the countless Christians who died for their faith.offers incomparable resources for a truly inclusive memory of suffering, a condition for reconciliation and peace. This is what Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger underlined during the celebration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution more than thirty years ago, by promoting, in the name of a balanced, comprehensive and soundly critical vision of the Revolution. French, the full inclusion in the French collective memory of the countless Christians who died for their faith.complete and soundly critical of the French Revolution, the full inclusion in the French collective memory of the countless Christians who died for their faith.complete and soundly critical of the French Revolution, the full inclusion in the French collective memory of the countless Christians who died for their faith.
While many historians, on the most varied subjects, promote, according to the expression of Romain Bertrand a "
history in equal parts
Which allows for the multiplicity of sources and points of view, so that the writing of history also gives their place to those, whoever they are, who have so far been too little studied, read, listened to, respected, we can hope that a "memory in equal parts" will develop in our country, which integrates the often tragic complexity of the conflicts which have marked the history of France, without disqualifying or ignoring such and such a memory rather than a other. Catholic memory has the right of citizenship in France: it is even an irreplaceable contribution because, in this case, the hostages of the rue Haxo teach us that indiscriminate violence can quickly ignite. That one hundred and fifty years later, Parisian Catholics of all walks of life and of all styles were threatened becausethey wanted to peacefully honor their memory, scathingly reminds us that hatred and contempt are not extinguished, and that a poorly enlightened memory can lead to culpable errors of judgment on a concrete situation. Critical work on memories - all memories - remains essential, so that it is possible to listen peacefully and fruitfully to the suffering of the other.