Marc bloch - Dilexit veritatem

To mark the pantheonisation of the historian Marc Bloch, the Château de Voltaire presents a dramatised reading of L'Étrange défaite (The Strange Defeat) with the participation of :

Annick Gambotti - Françoise BiélerFrançois-XavierVerger - Roland Rougier Hervé le Pivert - Eric Dalhen

Written between July and September 1940, this work was not to be published, in Marc Bloch's mind, until France had been liberated from the occupying forces. This happened in 1946, but posthumously, the author having been shot by the Gestapo on 16 June 1944.

Considered one of the major books on the causes of the French debacle, "The Strange Defeat" is also the testament book of a combatant in both wars, a citizen and just as much a historian. Three qualities that he brought to their highest degree and that enabled him to write: "We read, when we read, to educate ourselves: which is all very well. But we don't think enough about the fact that we can, and must, use our culture to help us when we act.

Born into an Alsatian family with a long-standing attachment to the idea of the Republic, Marc Bloch gave his life to ensuring that France remained free in the face of Nazism and that the thinking of its citizens could be based on rigorous criticism of sources and facts. Freedom and criticism are the key words that guide and illuminate Marc Bloch's career as a researcher and teacher. From the benches of the École normale supérieure (1904) to Saint-Didier-de-Formans (Ain), where he was tragically murdered forty years later, he strove to reconcile his words with his deeds.

On 23 June, Marc Bloch will enter the Panthéon. In so doing, France will pay tribute to a great figure of resistance in the Second World War. The Centre des monuments nationaux, in charge of the Panthéon, is proud to be working towards this recognition, decided by the President of the Republic on behalf of the nation.