Page 302 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 1 Fig. 2
THE BEAU-RIVAGE.
A PEACEFUL HAVEN FOR
A FAMILY AT WAR
Gabriel JARDIN
Saturday, 11 September 1943. They had left Vichy that same to the ‘suspicious’ activities of a number of unnamed people. Among
morning, on a gloomy day. The journey had been bleak, if not them, Jean Jardin was easily identifiable (fig. 2).
downright sinister. Accompanied by their two older sons, Simon Some high-up but sympathetic friends, who had hoped to
and Pascal, my parents had left for Switzerland ‘on an exploratory keep him in his post as long as possible, realised that something
mission’. They were travelling towards the unknown, a new country needed to be done. It was decided to give my father an overseas
they did not know, in the middle of the war. It already felt like an posting. There had been talk of the Vatican, or Madrid; in the end
exile (fig.1). Switzerland was selected, a neutral country, miraculously spared by
Jean Jardin, my father, was a high-ranking civil servant whose the war and home to all the international intrigues, both the official
loyalty towards the state he had always served had brought him to (it was, we should not forget, one of the rare states that maintained
Vichy. Nevertheless, since France’s defeat, he had forged many links diplomatic relations with both the warring Axis powers and the
with the various facets of the French Resistance. Not a combatant Allies) and the most secret.
in the physical sense of the word, but still resisting the occupiers in Before deciding upon the precise nature of the posting, they
his own way, he had not hesitated to aid and support the Gaullist asked my father to come here with the objective – not acknowledged,
dissidents. He had provided funds and false identity papers, hidden but understood by my father, nonetheless – of contacting the French
Jewish friends under threat of arrest in his home in the village of leaders of both sides, the Vichy Regime and the Resistance. At the
Charmeil, found seats on fully booked planes and organised border time, the only official embassy representing France was that of the
crossings into Spain. His activities had eventually come to the notice Pétain government, in Bern. All the same, an unofficial Resistance
not only of his superiors, who more or less turned a blind eye to office operated out of Geneva, with the full knowledge of the Swiss
them, but also of the collaborationist circles and even the occupying Federal Council. Lausanne was therefore a natural destination for an
forces. The threat became more tangible: the head of the Vichy initial and very discreet exploration of the options.
France Milice, the very powerful Joseph Darnand, issued continual ‘We must resign ourselves to entering this ghastly luxury hotel!’ This
warnings against my father, while Geissler, the head of the Vichy odd remark was made by my brother Pascal, who at the time was
Gestapo, sent a report to Berlin drawing his government’s attention experiencing all the ups and downs of La Guerre à neuf ans [the war at
Jean Jardin, his wife and sons Simon and Pascal near Rougemont,
winter 1943-44. Photograph.
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Fig. 3
nine years old], as the title of one of his best books would later recall. of its European competitors, destroyed, requisitioned or, at best,
My father, half irritated, half amused, muttered a vague reprimand.
converted into hospitals if possible (fig. 3). My parents remained at
My mother smiled, remembering how she, who adored her own the Beau-Rivage Palace for about ten days. They were given rooms
home and the intimacy of dinners with friends more than anything 250 and 251 on the second floor, overlooking the lake. While my
else, had on many occasions pilloried the ‘ghastly luxury hotels’ of
father busied himself establishing very discreet contacts, my mother
Vichy in front of her sons. These had been used by the government reread the poems of Rilke in the park, filled with wonder and
to house – as best it could – its ministers, its administration and its melancholy. My brothers lost no time winning over the staff. By
backstage manoeuvring, often made to look derisory by events. the end of the first five days, they knew practically everyone, from
One hour earlier, the family car had crossed the border at the kitchens to the attics. Here the porters, head waiters, sommeliers,
Pougny-Chancy, the only authorised crossing point. The black chambermaids and valets replaced the secretaries and civil servants
15-cv Citroën Traction Avant, bearing the official sticker of the they had glimpsed around the large, requisitioned hotels of Vichy.
French government, had just climbed the road (deserted at that Contrary to all expectations in such troubled times, the Beau-
hour) that is made up of a series of perilous bends from Pont-d’Ain Rivage Palace was not deserted. Around sixty guests peopled it
to Nantua then passes through the narrow gorge of Fort-l’Ecluse with their comings and goings. In the dining room, located at that
to enter the Geneva region. On one of the bends, at Val d’Enfer, a time in the large central rotunda, depending on the day, you might
band of Resistance fighters had captured a German armoured car, have rubbed shoulders with local dignitaries and Geneva bankers,
and it now stood in the middle of the road, its doors wide open. Romanian or Polish princes, Italian or Belgian industrialists and
The bodies of its uniformed occupants lay under the vehicle. My aristocrats, Portuguese or Greek businessmen, or Brazilian, Czech or
father, with one hand on the wheel and the other on a large-calibre perhaps Cuban diplomats. The impassive expression on some of their
revolver, had slowed down, driven around the obstacle and noticed faces could just as easily have been because they were on the run,
that the small group of partisans… was saluting him. At the customs or on some top-secret mission. Mr de Steiger, a federal councillor,
point, the German military police had examined their visas carefully came on two successive Sundays with his wife and a number of
and suspiciously, holding the car for several interminable minutes. political and diplomatic figures came, like him, from Bern. The
They had finally crossed the Rhone over the narrow bridge, and Prince of Monaco made a brief appearance there, accompanied by
reached the other side, entering the country of freedom. the conductor Igor Markevitch, while in the corridors some Jewish
My brothers stared avidly at the manicured Geneva countryside. refugees (practically the only ones there with children) crossed
Night had almost fallen by the time they reached Geneva, and all paths with a Berlin doctor with a forbidding expression whom my
four of them saw what so many people around the world had not brothers had immediately dubbed a ‘terrifying Nazi spy’. There was
seen for years, and what these two eleven- and nine-year-old boys an Italian count at odds with the recently deposed fascist regime,
no longer had any memory of: a city all lit up – and intact. Their very troubled by the 13 September news of Mussolini’s liberation
arrival at the harbour revealed a sort of apparition, an illuminated by a German commando group. Nevertheless, it did not stop him
fountain straight out of the fairy tales, that was to recur all along the casting languorous glances in the gardens at my mother and the wife
lakeside, up to and including their arrival at Ouchy. of the Swiss envoy to Budapest.
If their entry into Switzerland already had a dream-like quality During this brief stay, Jean Jardin made friends with a rich
about it, imagine the effect a large, prestigious hotel must have had tobacco merchant, an Armenian Turk. I was to meet him myself as
at that moment, one that had been spared the fate inflicted on most a child, long after the war, and his rapid, imperious way of talking
Jean Jardin at the start of the war when he was Principal Private Secretary The hotel foyer as it was during the Jardin family’s stay.
to the Minister of Finance. Photograph.
303