“There he is again!” smiles sadly Louis, who has the same name as his uncle. Louis Grangier, who died during the First World War in the Marne, at the age of 20. And to add: “I have never seen him. I was born in 38, he died in 18”, with a few tears that pearl. If he knew his relative had died in the war, he heard very little about it, “the ancients did not say that. Now he is near us all, the family is buried there and there” he says, pointing to the alleys of the Arlebosc cemetery. About 250 people gathered this Thursday, November 11, elected officials, descendants of the Grangier family and inhabitants of the town, for his burial.
– Damien Triomphe
During a thunderstorm in June 2019, dripping rain allowed a farmer to discover two skeletons in a field of Saint-Marie-à-Py, in the Marne. Experts are called by the gendarmes, and will confirm that both are soldiers of the First World War. One of them still wears a military medallion, with the 1953 registration number from the Privas recruiting office. This is the soldier Louis Grangier, who died just 20 years old on September 29, 1918, during a French offensive on the eastern front, defeated by German machine guns. 122 French soldiers lost their lives there. Comrades had buried him with another killed in a shell hole, but the place had not been marked. It will therefore have remained without burial for more than 100 years.
Brave soldier. Has always had an exemplary attitude at the front.
The time of appraisals and repatriation, the remains of Louis Grangier can therefore be found in his native village. This ceremony of November 11 allowed the burial, with military tributes. “Brave soldier. Always had an exemplary attitude at the front” read in his speech the departmental military delegate of Ardèche, on the basis of army archives, “this quote confers on the soldier Louis Ferdinand Grangier from the day after the war the military medal, with award of the Croix de Guerre, with bronze star “. He was part of the 22nd Infantry Regiment.
– Damien Triomphe
In front of the Ardèche elected officials and the prefect, but also the mayor of Saint-Marie-à-Py who made the trip, the mayor of Arlebosc Michel Gay pays tribute to Louis Grangier – whom he discovered to be his great-uncle – : “It is a great satisfaction to bring him back to his native village, where he will be able to rest with his family”. And they are many ! “200 direct descendants, if we start from the parents of Louis Grangier” exposes Solange, who made the family tree, herself a great-grand-cousin. Thirteen nephews and nieces, including seven still alive, 39 great and great-grand-nephews and nieces … the soldier, who left for the war in 1917, did not have time to have children.