2023-11-23 12:04:31
Professor at the Collège de France and general administrator of the National Library, the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has died. OLIVIER ROLLER / DIVERGENCE
Historian of the modern era, made famous by Montaillou, Occitan village from 1294 to 1324 (Gallimard, 1975), a bestseller on a medieval Cathar community and which testifies to his intuition on the importance of climate, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie died at the age of 94.
The original environment can be determining. Born on July 19, 1929 in Moutiers-en-Cinglais (Calvados), near Caen, in a traditional bocage landscape, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie belongs to a Catholic family from a bourgeoisie whose fortune was built up in the 18th century both in the world of the bar and in that of artisans and merchants. The father, Jacques (1902-1988), is a farmer, activist for social Catholicism in the wake of Marc Sangnier (1873-1950), and one of the promoters of agricultural unionism, co-founder, in 1934, with Louis Salleron (1905- 1992), royalist and theoretician of corporatism, of the National Union of Agricultural Unions (UNSA).
After the defeat of June 1940, Jacques Le Roy Ladurie joined Vichy and Pétain, whose earthly ideology suited him. He even became minister of agriculture and supplies in the Laval government in April 1942, but left his post in September and soon entered the resistance and joined the maquis in the forest of Orléans. Although he was not too worried during the purge, although threatened with a trial before the High Court, the agricultural activist, a recognized notable, nevertheless had difficulty finding a seat in the Chamber of Deputies under the Fourth Republic, before being pushed aside by the Gaullist wave at the birth of the Fifth. Gabriel (1898-1947), Jacques’ older brother, businessman and influence, banker strongly involved in the collaboration, was more exposed to the Liberation but died shortly after.
From the bourgeoisie to communism
Raised in the family manor of Villeray, acquired during the Enlightenment, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie had an uneventful childhood, protected from the threats of time by a cozy environment. He barely remembers, through his numerous “ego-history” testimonies, the episode of the exodus in June 1940 and the indignation of his people in the face of “this general who dares to be against the marshal”, as, later, the landing of June 6, 1944 – the family home is 30 km from the coast – and the requisition of the manor, transformed into a military hospital, which led the family to retreat to the Orne.
After attending the Saint-Joseph private college in Caen, the teenager went to Paris and the Henri-IV high school to join a preparatory class in October 1945. He failed the entrance exam to Normale-Sup, “repique”, but was dismissed as “disruptive”. He enrolled in the spring of 1947 at the Lakanal high school in Sceaux, which was a bastion of the Republican left. Rough transition. Another failure, but, if he ended up winning the sesame, he retained from his first contacts with Henri-IV the friendship of his fellow student Denis Richet (1927-1989), which soon led him to meet François Furet (1927 -1997), Pierre Nora (born in 1931), Jacques Ozouf (1928-2006), Jacques Le Goff (1924-2014) and Maurice Agulhon (1926-2014), the team creating lasting links of beautiful fertility.
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