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"Come in here, Josephine Baker, you and your procession of lights"

2021-08-24T14:14:44.020Z


FIGAROVOX / HUMEUR - The writer David Brunat imagines the letter that Marie Curie could have written to Joséphine Baker, the famous artist and resistance fighter of American origin, which will be transferred to the Pantheon on November 30.


My dear compatriot,

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A deep, physical and even radioactive joy - if there are any like it - came to me when I heard that you would soon be returning to the place where I have been lying for a quarter of a century.

A republican place whose austere beauty does not necessarily reveal itself at first to the layman, but which aims to sublimate the dazzling beauty of French genius and to keep alive the memory of the greatness of those who, like me, have elected eternal home under its high, cold and majestic vaults.

I say "those and those", but finally this republican temple has mainly welcomed so far representatives of the so-called strong sex.

My husband is one of them, and he was admitted at the same time as me.

You may know that I was the first woman to enter the Pantheon.

The first one ?

Not quite, because I was predeceased by the wife of the great scholar Marcellin Berthelot, Sophie.

But she owed it only to her quality of wife and not to her scientific titles or other personal merits.

Unlike the following ones, whose singular talents have been recognized and praised publicly.

We married France at the same time as a French husband.

And we became ardent patriots.

You from faraway America and I from remote Eastern Europe.

Marie Curie from the pen of David Brunat

To date, we are five women to have been admitted to this very selective circle: Sophie, Marie, Geneviève, Germaine and Simone. And soon you, which will bring our number to six! Coterie tightened, thin in terms of arithmetic, but custodian - I think I can say it without pretension - on the one hand of what is nobler, more inspired, more creative and more beneficial what we have custom of calling the fairer sex.

It is not only your quality of woman that makes me happy in the decision taken by the Head of State to transfer your ashes to the Sainte-Geneviève hill, a stone's throw from the street that bears my name and that of my husband. Nor is it just because you were, in every way, a quality woman. But it's also because your extraordinary destiny reminds me of mine ...

Yes !

Both of us were born far from our adopted homelands.

We were not "native" Frenchwomen, as the living say today.

But we married France at the same time as a French husband.

And we became ardent patriots.

You, from faraway America, and I, from remote Eastern Europe, have embodied a certain idea of ​​France and we have worked tirelessly to promote its planetary influence.

Read also Josephine Baker at the Pantheon: a message of fraternity

We have been pioneers in areas where we have distinguished ourselves.

We invented, tempted, risked, opened avenues, aroused vocations, created a school.

We have been criticized, contested, sometimes hated, even booed by some.

We have been the target of social or racial, xenophobic or other prejudices.

We were free, loving, generous women.

We have lived in the light of love.

Love of science or love of art.

Love for others.

Love of France.

And then we are not surly feminists, quite the contrary, and you will also know, like all of us, how to forge warm ties with many men of good company, there are a great number of them here.

Marie Curie from the pen of David Brunat

The circle that you will join in a few months will make you very welcome, do not doubt it. In particular, you will join your sisters in arms in the Resistance, Germaine and Geneviève. You will also certainly get on well with Simone, a committed woman. With Sophie, our dean, the current will also pass, she is gentle and considerate, elegant and racy. And then we are not surly feminists, quite the contrary, and you will also know, like all of us, how to forge warm ties with many men of good company, there are a great number of them here.

You were born the year my poor Pierre died, closely followed by Sophie and Marcellin Berthelot, who both died in 1907 at the same time - the same day, almost at the same time, what timing! In the paradise of heroes and heroines where we rest, it does not matter to die. Especially when we have the chance to rest together as a couple forever.

And then do you know, dear Josephine?

There is yet another reason that makes me look forward to your next installation with us.

It is that hardly admitted in this temple of the Republic where reigns a somewhat mortal atmosphere, you will certainly make us dance and sing.

We live in places without life, without pulsations, without music other than funeral.

These places are sorely lacking a magazine leader, a great dancer capable of swinging, waltzing, twirling all the residents of these dismal crypts.

In short, we badly needed you.

Your "pantheonization", as they say, is a blessing.

Come in here, Joséphine, you and your procession of lights, colors, sounds, laughter, emotions, passions and intense lives!

A former student of the École normale supérieure and a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, David Brunat has been a member of several ministerial cabinets. David Brunat is the author of ten books. These include

Pamphlettres

(Plon, 2015),

Giovanni Falcone: un seigneur de Sicile

(Les Belles Lettres, 2017) and ENA Circus (Éd. Du Cerf, 2018).

Source: lefigaro

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