A couple walk down the alley that borders section 9. Stops, hesitates, and slowly ascends, looking even more carefully at each grave. ” She’s there “. It is true that at first glance, it does not look much, the burial of Georges brassens. “It is often that people pass by without seeing it before turning around, smile Christian and Eveline Mouisse, regulars of the place. There is no frills. She is as he was himself when he was alive, very simple. »And obviously without religious sign. The opposite would have been to betray the memory of this great anticlerical who amused himself with storms in a font.
Born on October 22, 1921, Georges Brassens would have been one hundred years old on October 22. But here, in Sète, on his native land where his body was brought back, “it is as if his presence had never stopped. I think there will never be an end, ”recalls Brigitte, the assistant curator of the cemetery. After all, let’s die for ideas, okay, but slow death … “All year round, there is not a day without a hundred people coming to pay homage to him, of all ages, of all the conditions, she continues. Sometimes you can hear someone strum a guitar. Normally, it is forbidden, but it is musicians who come to pay homage to him in their own way. It never lasts long. “
A mini-guitar, pipes, pebbles …
All these friends who have come to make affectionate curtsies on his concession sometimes make the wrong referral. In the marine cemetery, it is not uncommon to see people looking for friend Georges. Except that it is not buried on the slopes of Mont Saint-Clair, nor on the beach of the Corniche for that matter. But at the other end of the Singular Island, this nickname that Frédéric Mistral had given to the city, to the Py cemetery, the oldest cemetery in the city. With a direct view of the Thau lagoon, where he liked to sail. Rather friendly too.
And if his family vault, in addition to not being brand new, goes unnoticed, one only needs to look up to locate his last home. On October 31, 1981, the day of his burial, his friends planted an adult umbrella pine. The only one in the middle of a row of cypress trees. On his grave, on closer inspection, there is no lack of tributes. A miniature guitar, pipes, pebbles delicately placed on the tombstone on which pretty thoughts are inscribed. Until these words written on the stump of a tree branch: “Near my tree, I lived happily,” Hervé Charbit reads aloud. It was he who wrote this verse by Brassens. It is a principle of life. Coming especially from Dijon, he came with his wife France to pay him homage. “
Bus parade, summer
“This is his centenary, the opportunity to visit him. And he’s not the only one with this idea. If they are a hundred in normal times, it is currently a permanent parade. “We do not do any counting, but there are indeed 300 people who come to see him every day”, continues Brigitte. Like these third grade students from the Maison Familiale Rurale Valrance, in Aveyron, who came to finish their studies after working on the poet. And especially Bad reputation. Excellent choice, of course.
For a week, Brassens will be celebrated in his hometown, with concerts, meetings and even a procession on the beach of the Corniche, even if it means disturbing some undine. But for these tourists who come by bus, the tribute never stops. “We sometimes see buses arriving one after the other in the summer, we wonder where all these people are coming from…”, Brigitte still can’t get over it. No doubt they come looking for a little piece of paradise …