MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IWENT to Grenoble last week to attend the six-hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the Dauphine in France. I
am unaware of the reasons for which in 1349 Count Humbert, Dauphin of the Viennois, sold his magnificent lands to Charles de Valois, King of France. In spite of repeated enquiries made on the spot, I remain ignorant of the circumstances .which induced the Counts of an inland mountain province to adopt as their title the name of a large Mediterranean fish ; nor is it clear to me why, when Charles de Valois had bought the Dauphine, he conferred that curious title upon his eldest son. All that the Grenoblois could tell me was that many eminent men had devoted their lives to the . study of this problem and that there existed a learned paper upon the nature and the origins of the title Dauphin composed some years ago by Monsieur Prudhomme. Art is long and life is short and I do not propose to consult the work of Monsieur Prudhomme ; the day will come when one of those people who collect odd facts, as other people collect snuff-boxes or green ivory, will explain to me the origins of the word Dauphin and will conclude his explana- tion with the wounding, but in such people habitual, phrase: "I thought everyone knew that." My ignorance of the facts and circumstances did not preclude me from sharing the pleasure which the people of the Dauphine found in their celebration of an event which took place six hundred years ago. The sun shone, there were flags on the public buildings, the professors and doctors of the University walked in procession through the streets clad in the most beautiful togas, the Mayor entertained us with an oration and champagne, and there was an excellent banquet which lasted for two hours and a half. It was an auspicious and enjoyable occasion, and all those who took part in it, and who profited by the lavish hospitality of their French hosts, were warm with satisfaction at the thought that the Dauphin of the Viennois 'sold his possessions to the House of Valois in 1349.
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I have for long cherished a special affection for the city and university of Grenoble. It is a gay and pretty. town, its gardens spreading outwards along the valley of the Isere, its approaches flanked by precipices and backed by the great ridge of the Belle- donne Alps. Its climate and vegetation combine the lush richness of the Alpine type with a touch here and there of the aromatic scents and the glowing light of Provence. It was the home of Bayard, of Champollion, of Stendhal. The latter, it is true, is not warmly regarded by the Grenoblois, since his loathing of his own father and of his aunt Seraphie induced him to depict his native city (in La Vie de Henri Bru/ard) in terms too disparaging to be disregarded or forgotten. Yet there is a special Beyle museum at Grenoble which contains a portrait of Stendhal in full consular uniform and many of his illegible manuscripts. In spite of what Stendhal wrote, Grenoble has always been a centre of high intellec- tual activity and of a virile and combatant liberalism. The Grenoblois were among the first to acclaim the French Revolution, It was on the outskirts of Grenoble that Napoleon gained his initial iind decisive triumph during the Hundred Days, and during the Italian and German occupations in the last war the citizens of that sturdy town were active in flouting the invader and in Organising resistance in the Vercors. The University has always attracted a large number of foreign students and holds a high place
today in the academic world. I like southern cities which are old, ■ active, tough and gentle. * * * *
In the spring of 1940, during the last few days of the phoney war, went to Grenoble and gave a lecture in the amphitheatre of the university. We were expecting at the time that the solemn pause hich had lasted through the winter of 1939 could not for long be • rolonged and that with the melting of the Snows some highly rganised attack would be delivered. We did not foresee that the onrush of the German armoured forces would carry them within a few weeks through Belgium and Holland and down to the Pyrenees ; but we were certainly conscious of a hush before an impending storm and our nerves were strained. The students on the afternoon of my lecture were crowded upon the rising tiers of the amphitheatre, and the heads of those on the top tier were out- lined against the bright windows behind. It is a tradition among the Grenoble students to be vociferous and amused ; they shout loudly, their laughter is unrestrained and they have a curious habit of synthetic clapping, similar to that which is known as "Kentish fire." I told them of our war preparations in England, I assured them that our assistance when it came would be formidable and prolonged, I begged them to believe that the period of appeasement was over and that a mood of grim pugnacity had come to steel our resolution. I exhorted them not to be disheartened by the inactivity which had marked the early months of the war, not to become Maginot-minded, but to anticipate grave and sudden dangers in the immediate future. They responded to these exhortations with cries of delight. When I got back to London I read that Belgium had that morning been invaded: The Germans rushed through France and Grenoble was occupied. Through the dark years that followed there remained imprinted on my memory the picture of that amphitheatre with its rows of ardent faces. I never despaired of the youth of France.
It was a strange and moving experience to return nine years later to a Grenoble, mourning its martyrs, but proud of the part that it
had played. The period of the Italian occupation had been an almost frolicsome interlude. The Italians had behaved with gentle- ness, not feeling that victorious self-confidence from which arrogance is derived. The children in the streets would attach feathers to the coats of the sentries ; the young men would laugh aloud at the Italian patrols ; no bitterness at all survives from that diffident occupation. But then came the day when the German armoured columns thundered into the town ; the heavy boots of the true con- queror echoed upon the pavements and cold winds of fear and anger howled through the streets. A curfew was imposed ; the town was hushed at night-time ; hushed,,cxcept for the sound of patrols clanking, hushed except for the dread echo of some door-knocker being banged by the secret police, hushed except for the distant rumble of an explosion in the hills. The citizens of Grenoble would crouch in their darkened rooms trying furtively to disentangle the B.B.C. messages from the jamming of the wireless, whispering strange stories to each other of the rising force of the Resistance, of the young men who were gathering together up there in the Vercors. Then finally the day came when the Germans shambled out towards the north with their hand-carts and their perambulators and the whole city burst alive iii. an ecstasy of freedom. Today Grenoble has recovered its own nature ; gay, proud and stubborn it will remain.
It is important for us, who always forget our enemies and our defeats, to realise what a scar those years of occupation have left upon the French consciousness. There stand crosses and memorials in the rich valley of the Isere marking the places where patriots were done to death. There linger personal and family animosities against those who, when the ordeal came, behaved with cowardice or worse than cowardice. The students of today can shout and sing as lustily as their predecessors who filled the amphitheatre on that spring afternoon of 1940. But the older men have not for- gotten and will never forget. The Dauphinois are a stubborn inde- pendent race of men ; they will not easily forgive the years when their independence was taken from them, when their leaders were removed as hostages and their young men tortured and shot. The French have indeed cause to celebrate the day when this vigorous population joined them, when the Dauphin of the Viennois sold his Dossessions to the King of France.
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