La chasse aux papillons
A monster passed away on Saturday.
When I first learned of the sinister character Papon, I, being new to the sounds and words of the French tongue, imagined a butterfly- a papillon. As incongruous as the two symbolically seem, I subsequently linked every mention of the man who came to embody the shame of the Vichy regime with a delicate, volitant insect, its unpredictable course entrancing chance audiences instinctively delighted by her gauzy rise and fall.
Strange, the neural connections forged in the mind. Papon the murderer, Papon the liar, Papon the man who "dutifully" sent women, children, and men to their deaths, Papon the coward who denied his role as a puppet for the Nazi regime in Bordeaux when it no longer suited his ambitions... and my brain conjures up a lovely migratory creature for whom I paraded through the streets of Pacific Grove as a child, in full Monarch regalia.
Will Papon be buried with the medal Président Charles De Gaulle awarded him as a member of the Légion d'honneur? The question seems outrageously absurd; here is a man - now deceased - who represents one of history's bleakest moments of ethical failure, his 1962 nomination to the Légion d'honneur befitting a scene penned by Jarry, and his attorney vows to see him decompose with a badge that is swiftly losing both its meaning and value.
When I first learned of the sinister character Papon, I, being new to the sounds and words of the French tongue, imagined a butterfly- a papillon. As incongruous as the two symbolically seem, I subsequently linked every mention of the man who came to embody the shame of the Vichy regime with a delicate, volitant insect, its unpredictable course entrancing chance audiences instinctively delighted by her gauzy rise and fall.
Strange, the neural connections forged in the mind. Papon the murderer, Papon the liar, Papon the man who "dutifully" sent women, children, and men to their deaths, Papon the coward who denied his role as a puppet for the Nazi regime in Bordeaux when it no longer suited his ambitions... and my brain conjures up a lovely migratory creature for whom I paraded through the streets of Pacific Grove as a child, in full Monarch regalia.
Will Papon be buried with the medal Président Charles De Gaulle awarded him as a member of the Légion d'honneur? The question seems outrageously absurd; here is a man - now deceased - who represents one of history's bleakest moments of ethical failure, his 1962 nomination to the Légion d'honneur befitting a scene penned by Jarry, and his attorney vows to see him decompose with a badge that is swiftly losing both its meaning and value.
Comments
For decades, people were not aware of it and that's why he got his "legion d'honneur". We all know now that he does not deserve it, but speculating about a dead man's decoration is a bit too much for me, knowing that there were plenty of men in the whole world that had decorations they may not deserve...
provocative last request.
And yet, while debating the finer points of awards of distinction protocol might seem like superfluous posturing to some, the issue has made headlines in most of the big French dailies (Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro, not to mention France24, TV5, and others), and for Papon's family members, as well as those he sent to the grave, government officials and the Légion d'honneur, the symbolic gravity of the debate goes beyond simple "speculation."
It forces one to consider that - as you noted - awards have and will certainly be doled out to undeserving recipients. Beyond recognizing this cynical fact, how do we rectify the error when the truth is revealed about the drastically incongruous reality of what the recipient actually stands for, and what the prize is meant to reward?