Podcast Summary: Le Cours de l’histoire

Episode Title: Après la bataille, ruines et mémoires de guerre 3/4 : 1919, voyage de noces sur les ruines de la Grande Guerre
Host: Xavier Mauduit (France Culture)
Guest: Clémentine Vidal-Naquet, historienne
Date: December 27, 2025
Duration Featured: ~00:00–57:55

Overview:

This episode explores an unusual honeymoon taken in 1919, when Gérald, a former World War I combatant, and his wife Berthe, traveled through the scorched landscapes and ruins left by the Great War. Using a richly detailed photo album discovered in the Historial de la Grande Guerre at Péronne, historian Clémentine Vidal-Naquet reconstructs their journey. This micro-historical approach examines how couples related to the past after the trauma of conflict and how personal and national memories intertwined in the aftermath.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Marriage in the Aftermath of War

• The protagonists:
  • Gérald Hébert (former soldier, born 1896 in Rosendael near Dunkirk)
  • Berthe (born 1894 in Fougères, Brittany)
  • Met during WWI in a bourgeois milieu, likely during Gérald’s convalescence or military leave
• Context of their union:
  • The marriage took place on September 4, 1919, in Paramé (now part of Saint-Malo), Brittany
  • The war had just ended, yet its presence lingered even in regions far from the front (02:12)

"On est dans un endroit éloigné du front, mais la présence de la guerre déjà et encore se fait évidemment sentir."
— Clémentine Vidal-Naquet [02:12]

• Origins:
  • Not both Bretons; Berthe is from Brittany, Gérald from the North
  • Met through wartime interruptions in normal life; their relationship only possible due to the war’s disruptions

2. Gérald’s War and the Nature of the Marriage

• Gérald’s military path:
  • Volunteered at 17 in 1914 (patriotic motivation, not to avoid danger)
  • Served in various regiments, wounded several times, including a severe jaw injury in October 1918 (05:45)
• Nature of the couple and unions in postwar France:
  • Not a totally “typical” couple, given lack of preserved correspondence; Clémentine’s main source is a photographic album (05:55)
  • Contrary to expectations, not a marriage of family arrangement or necessity alone; strong indications of a marriage of affection, evident through:
    • Berthe being two years older (unusual),
    • A religiously mixed union (he Protestant, she a devout Catholic),
    • No contract of marriage, but a community of goods—rare for bourgeois couples (11:00–13:20)

"Ils se marient sans contrat de mariage, sous la communauté de bien, ce qui est beaucoup plus rare, même à ce moment-là."
— Clémentine Vidal-Naquet [13:20]

3. The Honeymoon Album: An Extraordinary Historical Source

• Discovery and description:
  • Album weighs 8 kilograms, contains 550+ photos and postcards, each precisely labeled and arranged with care (14:31)
  • Gift from Gérald to Berthe for their first anniversary
  • Held at the Historial de Péronne, it provided the launchpad for Clémentine’s microhistorical study
• Methodological challenges:
  • Lack of written correspondence postwar; war-time letters reveal attachment but postwar ordinary life often leaves fewer traces unless couples experience trouble
  • The album allows access to what is usually invisible: daily life in the immediate postwar period (06:52–08:06)

4. The Honeymoon Journey: Between Private Memory and National History

• The itinerary:

  • Begins at Mont-Saint-Michel, then Paris, then a carefully orchestrated circuit of both spouses’ hometowns and significant places (Fougères, Rosendael, Paris, Rennes, Le Mans), as well as key battlefields
  • The route is meticulously planned, possibly by both spouses—while Gérald’s war footprint dominates, Berthe’s family and childhood roots are acknowledged (19:17–22:27)
  • They traveled by train, bicycle, car, and on foot, as documented on hand-drawn detailed maps inside the album (27:39)

• Visiting the battlefields:

  • Key destinations: Reims and Berry-au-Bac (where Gérald fought), Arras, Lille, the Yser front, Belgium, Saint-Quentin (where he was wounded)
  • They follow two intertwined threads: visiting places tied to childhoods and family, and following Gérald’s war path (23:09–29:55)

• The album as both a honeymoon and a war document:

  • Superimposes three temporalities: their childhoods, the war, and their journey together
  • Includes photos from the front, carefully composed, juxtaposed with contemporary images, “before/after” shots reminiscent of the war guides of the era (32:51–33:20)

"Moins j’étais certaine qu’il s’agissait véritablement d’un voyage de noces, mais plutôt d’un album de guerre en fait."
— Clémentine Vidal-Naquet [32:58]

5. The Social Context: Tourism, Pilgrimage & the Memory of Ruins

• Postwar battlefield ‘pilgrimage’:
  • Contrary to modern surprise, battlefield tourism was widespread in 1919—among bereaved families, the curious public, and surprisingly, for honeymoons (35:53–38:38)
  • These trips combined personal mourning, collective memory, and even nationalistic propaganda fostering unity and legitimizing the war
• The shocking normality of the exceptional:
  • Despite the aura of uniqueness, Clémentine found evidence of other couples doing similar trips in the years following the war

"Voyage de noces dans les tranchées tout juste abandonnées... En même temps… c’était de l’ordre du possible."
— Clémentine Vidal-Naquet [38:16, 39:28]

• Role of propaganda and “justifying” the war:
  • Battlefield guides, especially those from Michelin and the Touring Club de France, were both touristic and ideological, guiding visitors emotionally and ideologically through the devastation (46:51–48:11)

6. Methodology: Reading into and around the Archive

• Historicizing photographs:
  • The album features staged and spontaneous moments; both the image and its placement are loaded with meaning (24:55, 25:00)
  • The act of selection and assembly by Gérald is itself a statement—what is shown, and especially what is omitted, tells its own story
• Making sense of silences and omissions:
  • The absence of certain stories or the silences about shame (such as Gérald being demoted for a 4-day unauthorized absence in 1918) are crucial to reading the historical document (54:38–57:11).

"Je travaille sur l’expression de l’intime... finalement l’intime se perçoit dans tout ce qui n’est pas exprimé."
— Clémentine Vidal-Naquet [54:38]

7. Personal & Historical Endings: The Fate of Gérald

• The shocking coda:
  • In the course of her investigation, Clémentine discovers that, during WWII, Gérald joined the Waffen-SS and was killed by the French Resistance in August 1944 (acte de naissance annotation)
  • This late-life reversal starkly contrasts the anti-German, patriotic sentiments in his 1919 album
• Interpretive caution:
  • Clémentine stresses the complexity of individual destinies and urges caution against easy retroactive interpretations: the album must be understood in its own historical (1919) context (52:39–54:04)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the mix of intimacy and national trauma:

  "La guerre s’imprime, est une empreinte sur la longue durée... c’est un peu l’idée dans leur relation conjugale." (49:24)

• On historiographical method/scope:

  "Je pense que vous avez raison de dire que c’est une histoire aussi qui est très attentive au non-dit. Parce que lorsqu’on travaille sur l’intime, ...j’ai l’impression que finalement l’intime se perçoit dans tout ce qui n’est pas exprimé." — Clémentine Vidal-Naquet [54:38]

• On the revealing end of the story:

  "En 1944, il est tué en effet pendant les combats de la Libération, mais parce qu’il est alors Waffen-SS, et repéré par le Maquis, et abattu sur le champ." — Clémentine Vidal-Naquet [52:18]

• Personal commitment to the archive:

  "Ça fait partie de ces sources que j'appelle entêtantes, celles dont on n’arrive pas à se sortir et dont il faut faire quelque chose..." — Clémentine Vidal-Naquet [15:22]

• On the landscape of postwar France:

  "300 000 maisons ont été détruites. 3 millions d’hectares de terres ravagées... La France porte le deuil de 1 400 000 combattants morts dans la fleur de l’âge." — Xavier Mauduit [35:07]

Timeline of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Section | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–03:22 | Introduction to the marriage and protagonists | | 04:15–05:45 | Gérald’s war experience and biography | | 05:55–08:27 | Source material, the album, and the postwar ordinary | | 10:10–13:20 | Social conventions, nature of the union | | 14:31–16:26 | Discovery and significance of the honeymoon album | | 19:17–22:27 | Itinerary and journey organization | | 24:55–27:21 | The challenges of using photos as historical evidence | | 27:39–29:55 | Detailed travel logistics and battlefield visits | | 31:42–33:20 | Superimposed temporalities: war, childhood, honeymoon | | 35:53–38:16 | Battlefield tourism and the “normality” of such trips | | 46:51–48:11 | Propaganda and the “pèlerinage national” after the war | | 49:24–50:51 | Concluding reflections on memory and the couple’s fate | | 52:18–54:04 | Gérald’s postwar destiny: collaboration and death in WWII | | 54:38–57:11 | The importance of silences and the work of the historian |

Conclusion

This episode unravels the intimate, national, and archival dimensions of remembrance in post-World War I France—a deeply personal story seen through the lens of a single, mesmerizing honeymoon album. Clémentine Vidal-Naquet’s meticulous approach shines a light on the everyday and the exceptional, the spoken and unspoken, in the weaving together of personal and collective memory amidst the ruins of war.

Host: Xavier Mauduit
Guest: Clémentine Vidal-Naquet
References:

• "Noces de cendres. Un voyage dans les ruines de la Grande Guerre" (La Découverte, 2022)
• Historial de la Grande Guerre (Péronne)
• Guides Michelin et Touring Club de France (Champs de bataille, 1917+)

Listen to the full episode on Radio France.