Language and Silence: Some Aspects of French Writing and the French Resistance

Abstract

There is a story about a Paris art shop during the occupation. In the window of the shop were displayed two enormous portraits, one of Petain and the other of Admiral Darlan. In the corner of each there was a tiny label indicating that the former was vendu and the latter a vendre. The Germans who walked past the shop apparently noticed nothing. On I November, 1940 there took place. in the Champs Elysees a demonstration of students, the first of its kind since the Germans occupied the city. Each of the students was carrying two long poles, or deux gaules.1Again, the allusion was lost on the enemy.Each of these incidents, which in themselves may appear trivial and merely quixotic, points to a fact of considerable significance: language is the last line of defence of a defeated country. Political institutions and military capacity can be destroyed, a language cannot. Language remains as an invulnerable guarantee of national identity and may be used, for example if its ambiguities are exploited, as an offensive weapon. As Aragon wrote during the occupation: 'll ne restait de ce pays que son langage'.2 It is with the various forms of what might be called 'linguistic resistance' that I shall be concerned .here.If someone shouts at you in a foreign language, the natural response is to return abuse in your own. If, however, a foreigner makes a great effort to use your language, to communicate with you, then one tends to reply politely. This was the temptation facing Frenchmen in the early stages of the occupation, when German policy was one of blandishments rather than threats. The only effective way to resist the temptation was to remain silent.