" The students of Le Prieuré insist that their demands be met at once! If they aren't, we will not attend classes on Monday! "
Nothing in this note indicated what these demands were. Nor was it at all clear that this anonymous student was speaking for the entire student body , or a selection among them , or was acting entirely on his own. As it turned out, the latter and most likely interpretation was correct. The whole thing was a prank. All the same many students wanted to use this note as a rallying point. Their plan was to quickly draw up a list of demands, then stage a walkout for Monday if they weren't addressed.
I explained to them that at the present moment we lacked the organization to take such unilateral action without even letting the faculty know what we intended to do. Not everyone on the faculty was unsympathetic to taking some sort of action at that time, even if nothing more than closing down the school for a few days in solidarity with the general strike. To most of the students of course, the thrill of going on strike just like their university counterparts was what mattered most. For them bringing in the faculty seemed to spoil half the fun. However, the opportunity for faculty involvement arose immediately. At lunch it was announced that there would be a special faculty meeting that afternoon to discuss ways of dealing with the insolence of the student who'd written the note.
M. Sylvain presided at the meeting, which included instructors M. Cohen, M. Mourni, M. Vigier, M. Sylvain, Mme Tissart, (the only woman on the faculty) , M Hearn, myself, and a few others . Holding up the note Sylvain began by saying: "That we are confronted with a grave situation cannot be doubted. It was inevitable that something like this would happen: the disease that has striken the rest of the nation has finally come into our midst. It must be quickly extirpate it before it gets out of control. Yet", he held up a hand, " we must also be tactful. It is our own students with whom we are dealing." Emphasizing that it was unsigned, he then passed around the note, this broken-winged pigeon of despair.
" I imagine", suggested Mme Tissart, after we'd all read the note, " that we should discuss how we are going to punish the boy who wrote this. Does anyone know who it is?"
" It's obviously Maurice." Mourni scowled , " He's always making trouble."
" Maybe he should be expelled", someone suggested. Sylvain disagreed: " That wouldn't be wise. If we expel him we run the danger of alienating all the other students. My suggestion is that we write to the boy's parents and let them know what he's done." Timidly, being someone clearly out of the loop, I asked:
" How do you know Maurice did it?" This produced a storm of voices:
" He's the school's biggest trouble-maker! "
" He's lazy and doesn't want to work. All he wants is a day off from school."
" He's too dumb to have come up with ths idea on his own. Words like "strike", "revolution", 'demands", have no meaning for him. He must have picked up this idea from talking to someone." Once again Sylvain objected:
" I don't think so. The students watch television. They know all about the barricades, the student leaders, the closed faculties and the general strike. They read the same newspapers we do. We shouldn't think of this as an isolated incident. It is", he reached for words, " a kind of - 'distemper' - that had taken possession of our youth. All over the world, from what I can see! It's not just a matter of outside agitators. "
Various proposals for punishing the already identified, judged and condemned author of the note were passed around. At the same time the atmosphere was over-laden with a vague uneasiness stemming from the fact that this student, however foolish his actions, had initiated a debate that the faculty had sought to avoid.
" It's my impression" , I reflected, " that almost every school in France is on strike in sympathy with the student movement. Perhaps...?"
" Pierrefonds will not go on strike!" Mourni barked with finality. But Vigier had his doubts :
" If Pierrefonds is the only school in the Oise which is not on strike, we'll be the laughing-stock of the region !"
One could read fear in everyone's face, in everyone's heart! Fear of opposing the Abbé. Fear of jeopardizing secure and well-paying jobs. Fear of moving beyond the point of no return.
" We can't strike! this is a private school."
" Education must be kept separate from politics."
" I think we need to find out what is happening in all the other private Catholic agricultural schools. Does anyone know? "
To this question no one had a ready answer. Postal services and telecommunications across France were closed down. No one had heard of any other school that had remained open . All of the schools in Compiègne, for example, were closed.
" You've only been here a short time, Mr. Lisker." M. Cohen said to me, " and you understand nothing about Le Prieuré . (Except that I already knew that Vigier and presumably others thought he shouldn't be teaching in it.) One must be very cautious in dealing with the Abbé. "
" I agree. However everyone I've spoken with has told me that the school has serious problems in need of correction." No one contradicted me, so I went on: "Although the school is private, isn't the course of study largely dictated by the government?"
Sylvain was not unsympathetic to the issues I was raising. He felt it was his obligation that I, as a newcomer, needed to be filled in on the situation at Le Prieuré. Without disparaging what I was saying it was important that I understand the real situation before casting judgement:
" The Abbé C .... " , he began, " is 73 years old. He is a man of tremendous energy. How he built this entire school from the ground up without any outside assistance or encouragement is little short of amazing . Unfortunately he is old, and set in his ways. We have made suggestions for improvement to him over the years, but he moves very slowly. This can at times , I admit, be very difficult to accept. Let me supply you with a few examples: there a television in the clubroom now. The food is much better than it used to be. I think you will agree with me that the meals you've eaten at the school are rather good. It was not so in the past. These improvements came about from being very patient with the Abbé over a long period of time.
"For the moment we can do nothing. To close down the school in sympathy with the ludicrous goings-on in Paris is out of the question. However I am in agreement with M. Lisker that this note represents something more than a childish prank by a badly behaved student. Our students have legitimate grievances that we ought to be paying attention to. "
I was amazed and impressed: the tone of the discussion had turned to a unusual, essentially positive direction. No longer was there any talk of punishing Maurice. At this juncture, M. Cohen made an important observation: the real offense in the delivery of this note was that he'd taken it upon himself to presume the role of leader of the rest of the student body. It was therefore beneath the dignity of the faculty to respond directly to this immature and defiant action. What ought to be done, he proposed, was this: each class could elect its own representative. He would be permitted to address the faculty. Following this, a list of requests could be drawn up and put into a report. What to do with this report was another question altogether that could not be decided at this meeting. In one form or another it would have to go to the Abbé himself.
M. Hearn sounded a cautionary note: it was of the highest importance that the students be instructed to elect representatives who were morally worthy to represent them. Following his usual custom, he concluded with a few words about his years as a researcher on the staphylococcus bacillus.
M. Mourni took it upon himself to talk his classes and supervise the elections. Everyone present was satisfied with this proposal and the meeting was adjourned. After I spoke to them and explained what had happened, some of the students were disappointed. There was nothing novel about writing a report. Exactly this had been done in the past. Suggestions for improvement were sent to the Abbé, who then did nothing.
For my part I considered it something of a victory that no disciplinary action was being taken against Maurice, or whoever it was that wrote the note-granted that it probably he. The willingness of the faculty to at least listen to student grievances was a positive sign, yet under the present historical circumstances perhaps not as radical a response as one could hope for. To promote such a response more information was needed: What was going on in the other agricultural schools? In the region of the Oise? In the private Catholic schools? If even a small part of Vigier's concerns were shared by the rest of the faculty, the embarassment of being in the employ of one of the very few schools in the country to remain open during the general strike, might incite them to action. I therefore resolved, on my next trip back to Paris, to do some independent investigating.
" Speak softly with the Abbé ", he cautioned, " He gets excited very easily."
We were shown into the living-room by his housekeeper, an elderly German woman. M. l 'Abbé stood awaiting our arrival in a small sitting-room to the left of the entrance. His reception was far from friendly, either to M. Sylvain or to myself. A gesture in the direction of the couch indicated that I was to sit there. Then he curtly dismissed M. Sylvain. At the beginning this appeared to be nothing more than a routine interview. Did I understand the details of my weekly schedule? Had my responsibilities been explained to me ? He invited me to bring up any problems that needed to be discussed with him. ( Parenthetically this was the time to bring up the issue of the work permit, but I'd assumed that Sylvain had seen to that. Long experience has persuaded me that it does no injustice to the truth to let sleeping credentials lie. ) My biggest problem, I said, came from having students together in the same class with anywhere from 3 to 8 years of previous study of English. In particular there was the matter of the student in Seconde who had been placed in English but whose background was in German. The news appeared to take the Abbé by surprise; he promised to look into the matter.
Was the salary agreeable to me? I replied that I still didn't know what the salary was. This caused us both to laugh, breaking the ice. Up until this point the Abbé had been playing the role of a jovial, benevolent cleric. Yet he was unmistakably tenacious. Never in the history of the school had he been known to back down once his mind was made up. Seeing him for the first time I understood this very well. As he spoke he gripped the arm of his chair. He never relaxed back into it, almost giving the impression that he was preparing to spring on you. Although his manner was merry enough his eyes were very hard and without humor. ( All the same, it is undoubtedly something of an exaggeration to say that he evoked the image of Velasquez' painting of Torquemada!)
Towards the end of the interview he brought up a delicate matter. He wanted me to understand that I wasn't required to do very much at the school: teaching English was quite enough: " You are here to instruct English." Other functions were being taken in charge by other teachers. In particular, to set up meetings, such as the one I'd organized the previous week, was definitely overstepping my authority. Schoolwork gave the students more than enough to worry about, without having their innocent minds distracted by the nonsense going on in Paris.
While appearing to be non-commital, I replied as honestly as I could that an educator's responsibility went beyond simple instruction in subject matter. He should also try to keep his students in touch with what was going on in the surrounding world. In his response to me, the AbbŽ brought forth a mechanical smile, one that was easily interpreted. It was quite simple: I was hurting his feelings. His smile was the outward manifestation of his Christian forbearance. Clearly it was not the first time he'd been confronted with an educator who felt that his vocation involved more than simple instruction in course material. No doubt he'd expected me to respond with something like: " Yes, your holiness, I understand." Any expression of independence was taken as an insult. Finally he reiterated what he'd said before: I'd been hired to teach English. It was easy work; I should stick to the job description. Then I was shown out the door.
Strange as it may seem, I rather liked the Abbé. He was a type, almost a stock figure. A very selfish man, not bad-natured at heart. Everyone, even a abbot, has a right to his little parcel of earth. If happiness for him consisted in being the dictator of a private agricultural high school, he was welcome to it. Yet he was sorely mistaken if he imagined that there wasn't going to be any friction between us.
The next morning I returned to Paris. My goal was frankly malevolent: to dig up the kind of information best calculated to energize discontent at the Abbé's personal possession. A psychologist might have remarked that my emotional profile was not all that different from that of trouble-making Maurice. I did not find in Paris what I was looking for; but what I did turn up was just as interesting.
There was more violence in this week than at any other time in the period known colloquially as the "Events of May, 68". I arrived on the day after the first major street battle since the skirmishes in early May. I'd watched the largest of these, the "Night of the Barricades", from the window of a hotel adjacent to the rue Gay-Lussac and the Luxembourg Gardens. At that time I saw students under the direction of middle-aged activists (almost certainly Trotskyists and Maoists) working with crow-bars and shovels to dig up all the paving-stones on the streets of the Latin Quarter, to be hurled in corvees onto the heads of the ranges of cops ringing the Sorbonne. Once the orders were given, the counter-attack of the police was swift and predictably brutal. Charles de Gaulle's policy of opening the ranks of the CRS, the French riot police, to the lowest elements of the police and the Foreign legion, had yielded an abundant harvest.
The following morning I walked along street after street in which every parked vehicle, without exception, had been gutted by improvised bombs and Molotov cocktails. It made me think that the students were more interested in playing at warfare than in accomplishing anything. This did not prevent me, a few days later from joining the march in which more than a million demonstrators , walked from the Place de la Republique to the lion at Denfert-Rochereau. It was at this time that the unions, the student organizations and the left-wing political parties occupied the main buildings of the Sorbonne. I don't recall how many days their coalition lasted. Two? Three? In France, at least, workers and students share very few common interests. We who live in a country free of class structure must consider ourselves fortunate indeed.(Such subtlety in sarcasm is rarely attained)
The day before my arrival the stock exchange had been burned to the ground and the Boulevard St. Germain trashed from end to end. For three days I stayed with the American Action Committee in support of the student movement, its headquarters at the Censier-Daubenton faculty. This was a lucky circumstance: the student cafeterias remained open all through the disturbances of this period, and the one at Censier-Daubenton has the best menu in the whole student cafeteria system. We produced translations of articles in French newspapers to send to news agencies in England and the United States. While I was there I was given several first-hand acoounts of the police brutality at the detention prison at Beaujon. At the same time I witnessed gangs of students racing out the doors of the building, armed with brooms, mops and baseball bats, to confront and fight the "fascists" reputed to be hanging out at a nearby street corner.
I was not about to join them.