Paris-Manchester 1918
Conservatoires in time of war

PENAU Roger (VIDAL[3]), musician-stretcher-bearer, 160^th Line Regiment, C.H.R.,[4] 20^th Corps, Postal Sector 125

Your letter[5] did reach me, but it was very late. From Rue Gabrielle it went to my previous address in Rue Say, and from there it made its way to me here.

First of all, I’d like to say how much I agree with your plan for a gazette. The idea seems to spring from the warmest friendship, and I wholeheartedly support it.  .

You asked for some details of my life at present.

If you like, I can tell you briefly how the campaign went.

When I was called up,[6] I was already in Brittany, a region I love (being Breton, in my heart and by birth). I was at Beg-Meil near Concarneau, working on some projects – I wanted to put on a ballet, form a trio to play Breton popular music, rework some piano pieces and melodies etc. etc. . . .

Unfortunately the work I had started was cut short.

Alerted by the semaphore station, which had hoisted the green and white flag for general mobilisation, I left Beg-Meil immediately and returned to Paris via Quimper. Everybody already knew of the momentous event – alarm bells were being rung throughout the countryside, women were crying on their doorsteps, husbands and brothers were leaving for their depots.

I left the capital on 2 August. On the 4^th I was at the 160^th‘s depot, and there I met Frantz from the Opera and young Messager, the son of our dear director from the Société des Concerts.[7] I stayed at the depot until 24 August, and then I was sent past Nancy as far as Crévic, where I found my regiment badly weakened by the Morhange campaign and the fighting at Haraucourt.[8] While the Germans, in the hope of taking Nancy, were trying to break through our lines at all costs (without succeeding, by the way), the Battle of the Marne was being fought, and the fighting was starting to go our way.[9] We didn’t know that at the time though as no news had reached us.

On arriving I was assigned to the stretcher-bearer team; since then I have been on the front lines, and we’ve done our duty almost everywhere on the front.

We left the Nancy area around 10 September to go first into the Somme and Pas-de-Calais regions, before heading to  spend the winter in Belgium – that was a nightmare, and I missed death by a whisker a good many times. I passed through hours of horror and dread, and it was only thanks to some miracle that I escaped the danger I so often found myself in.

In December, our colonel decided to reassemble the regimental band. I offered my services and was given a baritone saxophone[10] an instrument I was already familiar with. We played music during our rest periods and continued our stretcher-bearer duties when the regiment was in action. And our repertoire?

It was what military bands tend to play in wartime – inevitably the dear old Marseillaise, marches for drums and bugles, a few concert pieces, some Rameau,[11] Berlioz,[12] Palestrina[13], as well as, happily, some Beethoven[14] and Mozart[15] – a German and an Austrian. Some fools complained about that, and how wrong they are – Beethoven certainly would not have welcomed this war, and even less would he have approved of the Huns’ mentality and their culture; you have only to read the final movement of the 9th to know that. I remember, when I was in St. Julien in Belgium, finding a piano in a house that the shells had almost completely demolished, and that was an infinite pleasure for me. The piano was not too bad; unfortunately, I had terribly stiff fingers and a failing memory, but I did manage to dredge up the two Arabesques by De Bussy,[16] a small piece by Schubert,[17] a few variations from Schumann’s[18] Symphonic Studies  (another German and yet I . . . careful– the censors would never allow me to say that) and every evening I would put on a concert, just for myself, even as shrapnel[19] bullets were crashing into the walls of my dismal quarters. That is one of my best memories.

Towards the end of April,[20] we went down to Equavic to get ready to attack la Targette and Neuville St Vaast[21] on 9 May. It was then that I had the great pleasure of seeing my friend Laurent Ceillier again, among the reinforcements sent to the 160^th; we’ve been inseparable ever since, and our conversations about music go on forever, although sometimes they are interrupted by differences of opinion with our bandmaster, who is nonetheless an excellent man. Ceillier is the best chap in the world – very intelligent, a born musician, learned, just the ideal companion for me; we share our dangers, and our friendship for each other does a lot to relieve our hardships.

Our final stage was the attack on the strongpoint at Beauséjour[22] on 25 September last.[23] And with that I come to the end of my story (quite a banal story, really, because every Frenchman is experiencing it), or rather the description of a stretch of my life, which I’ve been telling you about  for perhaps selfish reasons, because in return I hope to hear the stories of my friends and classmates. I know that several of them have given their lives for the freedom of our beloved France, adding to the glory of our homeland, whose thinkers and artists will henceforth, even more than ever before, be like a torch shining a light on the world.

I shall finish by congratulating you on putting such a splendid idea into practice, and send you my very best wishes. . . .