Douce France
Jun 30th, 2009 by oldfogey
One of Charles Trenet’s most famous songs, full of nostalgia for his childhood in rural France - La France profonde that every Frenchman and woman yearns for, but which never existed. When it was recorded, in 1943, France was defeated and much of it occupied.
The song has a strange double signification. It is the dream of an innocent France, one untainted by defeat; the dream of a purer France that he yearns to recover, a dream he is keeping alive for the days when he will be free again.
It is also the dream of that ideal France which underpinned the philosophy of the collaborationist Vichy Regime, where ’Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ was replaced with ‘Work, Family and Homeland’.
‘Sweet France, dear land of my childhood, sleepy, gentle, free from care. I have kept you in my heart. My village, church steeple, modest houses where children of my own age shared my happiness, I offer you this poem. Yes, I love you, in joy and in sadness. Sweet France.’
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