Search Results for “bourbaki” – Page 10

What happened on the Bourbaki wedding day?

Published May 15, 2011 by lievenlb

Early on in this series we deciphered part of the Bourbaki wedding invitation

The wedding was planned on “le 3 Cartembre, an VI” or, for non-Bourbakistas, June 3rd 1939. But, why did they choose that particular day?

Because the wedding-invitation-joke was concocted sometime between mid april and mid may 1939, the most probable explanation clearly is that they took a calendar and scheduled their fake wedding on a saturday not too far in the future.

Or, could it be that the invitation indeed contained a coded message pointing to an important event (at least as far as Bourbaki or the Weils were concerned) taking place in Paris on June 3rd 1939?

Unlikely? Well, what about this story:

André Malraux was a French writer and later statesman. He was noted especially for his novel La Condition Humaine (1933).

During the 1930s, Malraux was active in the anti-fascist Popular Front in France. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War he joined the Republican forces in Spain, serving in and helping to organize the small Spanish Republican Air Force. The Republic government circulated photos of Malraux’s standing next to some Potez 540 bombers suggesting that France was on their side, at a time when France and the United Kingdom had declared official neutrality.

In 1938 he published L’Espoir, a novel influenced by his Spanish war experiences. In the same year, Malraux and Boris Peskine produced a movie based on the book, filmed in Spain (in Tarragon, Collbató and Montserrat) : sierra de Teruel (later called, L’Espoir)

This wikipedia-page claims that the movie was released June 13th, 1945. But this isn’t quite correct.

The first (private) viewing of the film took place … on saturday june 3rd, 1939.

In august 1939 there was another private viewing for the Spanish Government-in-Exile, and Malraux wanted the public release to take place in september. However, after the invasion by Hitler of Poland and considerable pressure of the French amassador to Madrid, Philippe Petain, the distribution of the movie was forbidden by the government of Edouard Daladier IV.
For this reason the public release had to be postponed until after the war.

But let us return to the first viewing on Bourbaki’s wedding day. We know that a lot of authors were present. There’s evidence that Simone de Beauvoir attended and quite likely so did Simone Weil, Andre’s sister.

In 1936, despite her professed pacifism, Simone Weil fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. She identified herself as an anarchist and joined the Sébastien Faure Century, the French-speaking section of the anarchist militia.

According to her biography (p. 473) she was still in contact with Malraux and, at the time, tried in vain to convince him of the fact that the Stalin-regime was as oppressive as the fascist-regimes. So, it is quite likely she was invited to the viewing, or at least knew about it.

From Andre Weil’s auto-biography we know that letters (and even telegrams) were exchanged between him and his sister, when he was in England in the spring of 1939. So, it is quite likely that she told him about the Malraux-Sierra de Tenuel happening (see also the Escorial post).

According to the invitation the Bourbaki-wedding took place “en la Cohomologie Principale”. The private viewing of Malraux’ film took place in “Cinéma Le Paris” on the Champs Elysées.

Could it be that “Cohomologie Principale”=”Cinema Le Paris”?

Bourbaki and the miracle of silence

Published July 13, 2010 by lievenlb

The last pre-war Bourbaki congress, held in september 1938 in Dieulefit, is surrounded by mystery. Compared to previous meetings, fewer documents are preserved in the Bourbaki archives and some sentences in the surviving notules have been made illegible. We will have to determine the exact location of the Dieulefit-meeting before we can understand why this had to be done. It’s Bourbaki’s own tiny contribution to ‘le miracle de silence’…

First, the few facts we know about this Bourbaki congress, mostly from Andre Weil‘s autobiography ‘The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician’.

The meeting was held in Dieulefit in the Drome-Provencale region, sometime in september 1938 prior to the Munich Agreement (more on this next time). We know that Elie Cartan did accept Bourbaki’s invitation to join them and there is this one famous photograph of the meeting. From left to right : Simone Weil (accompanying Andre), Charles Pison, Andre Weil (hidden), Jean Dieudonne (sitting), Claude Chabauty, Charles Ehresmann, and Jean Delsarte.

Failing further written documentation, ‘all’ we have to do in order to pinpoint the exact location of the meeting is to find a match between this photograph and some building in Dieulefit…

The crucial clue is provided by the couple of sentences, on the final page of the Bourbaki-archive document deldi_001 Engagements de Dieulefit, someone (Jean Delsarte?) has tried to make illegible (probably early on).

Blowing the picture up, it isn’t too hard to guess that the header should read ‘Décision du 22 septembre 1938’ and that the first sentence is ‘Le Bourbaki de 2e classe WEIL fera pour le 15 octobre’. The document is signed

Camp de Beauvallon, le 22.IX.38.
L’adjudant de jour
DIEUDONNE

Now we are getting somewhere. Beauvallon is the name of an hamlet of Dieulefit, situated approximately 2.5km to the east of the center.

Beauvallon is rather famous for its School, founded in 1929 by Marguerite Soubeyran and Catherine Krafft, which was the first ‘modern’ boarding school in France for both boys and girls having behavioral problems. From 1936 on the school’s director was Simone Monnier.

These three women were politically active and frequented several circles. Already in 1938 (at about the time of the Bourbaki congress) they knew the reality of the Nazi persecutions and planned to prepare their school to welcome, care for and protect refugees and Jewish children.

From 1936 on about 20 Spanish republican refugees found a home here and in the ‘pension’ next to the school. When the war started, about 1500 people were hidden from the German occupation in Dieulefit (having a total population of 3500) : Jewish children, intellectuals, artists, trade union leaders, etc. etc. many in the Ecole and the Pension.

Because of the towns solidarity with the refugees, none were betrayed to the Germans, Le miracle de silence à Dieulefit.
It earned the three Ecole-women the title of “Juste” after the war. More on this period can be read here.

But what does this have to do with Bourbaki? Well, we claim that the venue of the 1938 Bourbaki congress was the Ecole de Beauvallon and they probably used Le Pension for their lodgings.

We have photographic evidence comparing the Bourbaki picture with a picture taken in 1943 at the Ecole (the woman in the middle is Marguerite Soubeyran). Compare the distance between door and window, the division of the windows and the ivy on the wall.

Below two photographs of the entire school building : on the left, the school with ‘Le Pension’ next to it around 1938 (the ivy clad wall with the Bourbaki-door is to the right) and on the right, the present Ecole de Beauvallon (this site also contains a lot of historical material). The ivy has gone, but the main features of the building are still intact, only the shape of the small roof above the Bourbaki-door has changed.

During their stay, it is likely the Bourbakis became aware of the plans the school had would war break out. Probably, Jean Delsarte removed all explicit mention to the Ecole de Beauvallon from the archives upon their return. Bourbaki’s own small contribution to Dieulefit’s miracle of silence.

Where’s Bourbaki’s Escorial?

Published February 8, 2010 by lievenlb

Early 1936, Andre Weil and Evelyne Gillet made a pre-honeymooning trip to Spain and visited El Escorial. Weil was so taken by the place that he planned the next Bourbaki-conference to be held in a nearby college. However, the Bourbakis never made it to to Spain that summer as the Spanish Civil War broke out July 17th, a few weeks before the intended conference. Can we GEO-tag the exact location of Bourbaki’s “Escorial”?

As explained in the bumpy-road-post, Andre Weil and Evelyne Gillet became involved sometime in 1935.
Early 1936, they made a pre-honeymooning trip to Spain and visited El Escorial. Weil was so taken by the place that he planned the next Bourbaki-conference to be held in a nearby college.

However, the Bourbakis never made it to to Spain that summer as the Spanish Civil War broke out July 17th, a few weeks before the intended conference. Still, the second Bourbaki-meeting remains often referred to as the ‘Escorial conference’. Can we GEO-tag the exact location of Bourbaki’s “Escorial”?

Claude Chevalley came up with a Plan-B and suggested they would use his parents’ place in Chançay as their venue. Chevalley’s father was a French diplomat and his house sure did possess a matching ‘grandeur’ as can be seen from the famous picture below, taken at the (second) Chançay meeting in 1937 (Weil to the left, Chevalley to the right and Weil’s sister Simonne standing).

Thanks to the Bourbaki archives we know that the meeting took place from september 16th to 28th, that each of them had to pay 16 francs for full pension and had to bring along their own sheets and towels.

But where exactly is this beautiful house? Jacques Borowczyk has written a nice paper Bourbaki et la touraine in which he describes the Bourbaki congresses of 1936 and 1937 at the Chevalley-house in Chançay and further those held in 1956, 1957 and 1959 in ‘hôtel de la Brèche’ in Amboise.

Borowczyk places the Chevalley house in the little hamlet of Chançay, called “La Massoterie”. The village files assert that in 1931 three people were living at La Massoterie : father Abel Chevalley, who took residence there after his retirement in 1931, his wife Marguerite and their son Claude. But, at the time of the Bourbaki congres in 1936, Marguerite remained the only permanent inhabitant. Sadly,
Abel Chevalley, who together with Marguerite compiled the The concise Oxford French dictionary, died in 1934.

Usually when you know the name of the hamlet, of the village and add just to be certain ‘France’, Google Maps takes you there within metres. So, this was going to be a quick post, for a change… Well, much to my surprise, typing ‘La Massoterie, Chançay, France’ only produced the answer “We could not understand the location La Massoterie, Chançay, France”.

Did I spell it wrong? Or, did the name change over times? No, Googling for it the first hit gives you the map of a 10km walk around Chançay passing through la Massoterie!

Now what? Fortunately Borowczyk included in his paper an old map, from Napoleonic times, showing the exact location of La Massoterie (just above the flash-sign), facing the castle of Volmer. If you compare it with the picture below from present day Chançay (via Google earth) it is surprising how many of the landmarks have survived the changes over two centuries.

It is now easy to pinpoint the exact location and zoom into the Chavalley-house, and, you’re in for a small surprise : the place is called La Massotterie with 2 t’s…

Probably, Googles database is more reliable than the information provided by the village of Chançay, or the paper by Borowczyk as it is the same spelling as on the old Napoleonic map. Anyway, feel free to have a peek at Bourbaki’s Escorial yourself!

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74 search results for "bourbaki"

What happened on the Bourbaki wedding day?

Bourbaki and the miracle of silence

Where’s Bourbaki’s Escorial?