Paris-Manchester 1918
Conservatoires in time of war

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Last year, in keeping with a tradition that I have made it my duty to follow, I ended my address by paying tribute to the memory of those teachers and friends of the Conservatoire who had passed away during the school year. […]

This year, not only must I mourn the deaths of some eminent men, first-rate teachers who have left us after a brilliant career, but I must also salute previous prize winners or students who died for France in the prime of their youth. [. . .][1]

If our foes, blinded by a desire for dominion over all and driven by an insane pride, had not launched themselves on a Europe at peace, the roll of sorrow would have ended after the three teachers to whom, in the names of all here, I have just paid the tribute that was their due.

Yet, after a year of toil, our young students were called to arms in the very hour of their rest. They departed strengthened by youthful enthusiasm; full of confidence in the destiny of a country whose eternal greatness they, better than anyone else, had learned to love; convinced that our foes had erred in taking our generosity for weakness and our good humour for frivolity; and above all knowing that they were actors in the greatest drama ever staged, one in which the very life of France and the freedom of the world were at stake.

Their journey reunited them with their classmates of former times. Many have already fallen, and I wish to say their names, which shall be engraved over the threshold of your school so that future generations shall honour them and not forget:

Raymond Reynal, 1^st prize for comedy 1912, junior member of the Comédie-Française;
Marcel Casadesus, 1^st prize for cello 1903;
Léon Joffroy, 1^st prize for flute 1905;
Gabriel Mogey, 1^st prize for violin 1913;
Henri Garrigues, 2^nd certificate of merit for tragedy 1907;
Georges Letellier, 2^nd certificate of merit for bassoon 1907;[2]
Lucien Maillieux, 1^st prize for accompaniment 1905;
Charles Brion, 1^st certificate of merit for cornet 1914;
Lucien Lescure, student in the cornet class;
Charles Henry, 1^st medal for music theory 1913, student in a singing and lyrical declamation class;
Georges Barguerie, 2^nd certificate of merit for oboe 1914;
and Paul Thénard-Dumousseau, 1^st medal for violin 1907, 1^st certificate of merit for violin 1911,

all died on the field of honour.

I wish to express our deepest sympathy to their grieving families and to assure them that the memory of these heroes shall never fade.

How many hopes destroyed! How many young talents lost! How many painful breaches in the glorious ranks of our country’s artists!

The artists of France! Allow me to pay them the tribute that is their due. From the most illustrious to the most humble, every day, for many months, they have been fulfilling their duty at home as their comrades have been doing theirs so valiantly in the shadow of our flags. At hospital bedsides, artists bring our wounded a moment of relief from their suffering, and, at the first appeal from the organisers of benefit concerts, they come running without hesitation. They are both useful and generous. And something more: they are also staunch defenders of our masterworks, those that shall never perish and shall never be attacked by the sacrilegious cannons that destroyed our cathedrals. […]