“The first time I spoke with Josiane, she was in tears,” remembers Yvan Barbieri.
This former photojournalist, passionate about history and very invested in the question of the duty of memory, represented this Friday, March 1, Josiane Allier, great-granddaughter of Séraphin Barrillon, who has been fighting since 2022 so that her grandfather can rest “with his Brothers in arms ".
A long-term fight for which an entire team was mobilized, and in particular Anaïs Poitou, student and member of the Urgence heritage association in Évreux, to whom we owe the most in-depth census of the inhabitants of the cemetery of Navarre psychiatric hospital, which will soon be exhumed before the cemetery is partially buried under the embankments of the new diversion.
Taken prisoner during the battle of August 8, 1914
Because the soldier known as Adrien Barillon, whose real name was Séraphin Barrillon, had contracted malaria during his service in Madagascar between 1898 and 1901. He had climbed the ranks throughout his career before succumbing on March 8, 1920, and his tomb, in the middle of the simple wooden crosses of the cemetery of madmen, was decorated with a chiseled slab bearing the words “Death for France”.
“But this mention did not appear on his death certificate,” specifies Yvan Barbieri.
“Barrillon was not indigent.
A former reserve lieutenant, he had been appointed commissioner of paperwork for the psychiatric hospital of Navarre in 1911 before, in 1914, being taken prisoner during the battle of August 8, 1914 like his entire regiment.
» After numerous efforts by his descendant Josiane, accompanied by Yvan, Anaïs Poitou and other people involved in preserving the memory of the place, soldier Barrillon finally obtained the precious mention last December, authorizing him to rest in the military square, not far from the soldiers who died during the First World War.
“An example for soldiers who have not been recognized”
This Friday, March 1, his grave is delicately excavated behind closed doors.
“The archaeologist responsible for the excavations, Anne-Sophie Vigot, asked me if she could photograph each bone found to include them in the research being carried out on the cemetery of the insane,” he says.
“The funeral services, like the archaeologists, were very precise and meticulous, very respectful of the reliquary.”
The photojournalist documents the scene for the family of the deceased, but will be prohibited by the town hall from publishing any image in the press.
“Then his remains were placed in a small coffin, no bigger than that,” says Yvan, barely spreading his arms, “and everyone was buried in the military square.
We had a minute of silence and I must say it was very moving.
“By being so involved in this business, I feel like he’s part of my family.”
The funeral services will try to restore the slab to place it above the square of earth where Private Barrillon now rests.
“A priori, we will pay tribute to him during a ceremony on May 8.
I am convinced that many of us will come to pay tribute to his memory,” predicts Yvan.
“This is an example for the soldiers who were not recognized for their service and all those who were never discovered.
It has become a symbol, the proof: he is the first whose grave was moved.
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