MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON IFIND that some of my contemporaries, when I congratu- late them on the opening of a fresh delightful year, express apprehension and displeasure. They consider it unfair that our generation should have been condemned to two wars, a social revolution, an unparalleled .servant-shortage, the S.C.I.T., the Light Programme, the London School of Economics, the decline of Empire, Dr. Moussadek, the later manner of Picasso, and the Russian menace. Providence, they contend, should not in equity have accumulated upon the shoulders of a single generation so many burdens and threats, so many strains and stresses. They would prefer to spend the autumn of their days in a serene stillness, enjoying in the mornings the pattern of the cobwebs on the yew trees, and at night-time the sound of the last apple falling on the grass. It was, they admit, all very exciting on August 5th, 1914; but since then we have had our plethora of excitement and we now desire all the rush and rattle to cease. Must the wind, they ask them- selves, howl eternally round our chimneys? It is not sufficient to assure them, with M. Aragon, that the gale will one day be stilled, although probably not for us. Even less exhilarating do they find it when I remind them of their great myths and legends, of their miseries and glories. What other generation, I ask, has ever enjoyed such drama? Even to Thucydides it was not given to relate episodes such as the Marne and Jutland, such as Dunkirk and Crete, such as Munich anti Yalta. The fate of continents has been decided, almost by the spin of a coin, before our eyes. The tragedians can hardly have imagined reversals of fortune such as assailed Woodrow Wilson, Clemenceau, Venizelos, Lloyd George, Mussolini and Hitler. Even our love-affairs have been over life-size; in the mystery and crime section we have been provided with plots which, even if handled by Dorothy Sayers, would seem improbable. A magnificent generation assuredly. "Respondete," I beg them, " natalibus," " arise to your birthright." But they remain glum and cross. * * * * I enjoy adventure, especially when it is undertaken by some- one else. - I enjoy seeing virtue triumphant and vice receiving the punishment that it deserves. It remains for me a constantly renewed source of exhilaration that this small island should in 1940 have saved the world by her example. I can read again and again the stories of the pluck and brains provided by my gifted generation; even as again and again I can read of the great triumph of Odysseus and his bow. Of all the great dramas of the second war, the one that never fails, however weary I may be, to recur with enchantment is the liberation of Paris by the Leclerc armoured division. Few dramatists or epic poets could have devised a situation of such almost unbearable tension, followed by a situation of such ecstatic relief. Nobody knew exactly what was happening; the groups of resistants with- in the city were split up into sundered detachments, and the amateur transmitter in the Hotel de Ville could only send out shaky messages that were incomprehensible and uncertain. Then suddenly from the gates poured in General Leelerc's division; the barricades were removed and the tanks were decked with flowers. The Germans had either bolted towards the east, or were being herded like sheep into cages. In the hall of the Hotel Majestic German Generals and officers were grouped with their suit-cases beside them, waiting to be trans- ported into captivity. And in the Gare des Invalides General de Gaulle and General Leclerc accepted from the German Com- mander the surrender of the city they had freed.
* * * * All epics must have a central hero. Since I find it difficult to generate for the leaders whom I have known personally any very reckless emotional enthusiasm, I prefer to choose some minor character as my protagonist in the liberation of Paris. There are many such young heroes, men who held on desperately in the Hotel de Vile, men who crept out to join in battle and whose dead bodies still lay upon the pavements, like those of crumpled school-boys, when the flower-decked tanks roared by. But as a perfect epic pattern, as a model of symmetry in human endeavour and ambition, I recommend to all the story of Pierre Bourdan. I have been sent this week a study excellently written and edited by Jean Oberle in memory of his friend. It is published in a good illustrated edition by the house of Magnard at 122, Boulevard St. Germain, Paris. In reading this story again I experienced all the exhilaration that one derives from the life and death of a man who achieved his desires without living long enough to find disillusion. I knew Pierre Bourdan during the war. He was gay in his manner —(if any Frenchman could be gay during the dark years)— but it was a deliberate gaiety. He throbbed with impatient energy, throwing away one half-smoked cigarette after another, twitching with anger at the dissensions within the Free French Movement, pacing the room in fury at the delays of war, but confident always that the hour of deliverance would one day come. Behind this nervous energy of a strong young man, was something different. The eyes of Pierre Bourdan remain in the memory; they were quiet, ruminating, melancholy; his expres- sion was one of deep pity for the miseries and errors of this world; it was not contemptuous pity, but the pity of under- standing.
Pierre Bourdan came to London before the war and worked with the Agence Havas in Fleet Street. In 1940 he returned to form part of the famous team of broadcasters organised by that impresario of genius, Michel St. Denis. With Jean Ober16 and St. Denis himself he took part in the series of " Les Trois Amis,".assuredly the most brilliant propaganda feature ever devised by human ingenuity or anger. It was he who, with Jean Marin and Maurice Schumann. gave the daily commentary on the news. At first, they were unable to ascertain whether their broadcasts were attracting in France an audience prepared to face the penalties imposed on those who listened to foreign stations or patient enough to creep through the incessant jamming. Soon the denunciations hurled at them by the Vichy wireless convinced them that they were exercising some effect Within a year they realised that their broadcasts had become the only solace of their captive countrymen. " We used," Paul Claudel told me afterwards, " to squeeze round the wireless like a litter of small pigs." Pierre Bourdan possessed the essential quality of a good broadcaster, namely a passionate desire to convince. He never evaded bad news; he always remembered that, even in a London incessantly bombarded from the air, life was happier than in occupied France; his voice was vibrant with faith and sympathy. The introductory signal, followed by the famous words, "Ici Londres," acquired magic properties. Pierre Bourdan became a national hero, even though few had ever known or seen him. When he dropped out of the team in the spring of 1944, millions of French listeners jumped to the correct conclusion that he had joined some Free French division and that the hour of liberation was at hand. On landing at Arromanches, Pierre Bourdan stooped, and with a sacerdotal gesture took a handful of French soil. Having thrust this into his pocket, he discovered that it had a bad effect on cigarettes.
* * * *
Tired of waiting, he dashed onwards towards Paris and almost at once found himself surrounded by a German regiment. He was taken prisoner and sent off by train; he escaped miraculously; rejoined General Leclerc's division; entered Paris in triumph; became a deputy; and then a Minister, before he had reached the age of 40 or lost his appearance of an Olympic champion. Thereafter, having been acclaimed as the idol•of young France, he lost his life in a boating accident off Cap Negre. You may think from this that Pierre Bourdan was little more than a most gifted broadcaster who became a school-boy hero. But then, you never saw his eyes.
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