The Legion Unvarnished
Reborn Elsewhere

Walking slowly along the beach, I watch the sea and sky merge on the horizon, which fades into a hazy opacity, a monotonous pastel, a fleeting coupling lost in infinity. My cheeks, caressed by the last rays of a dying sun, burn under the sting of the wind. The moment is disrupted by the swirling wisps of fine sand, creating imaginary figures, familiar phantoms… The moon rises behind the dune.

My mind wanders, drawn by a distant question, as if attracted by the hope of adventure, strongly intensified by an intimate feeling, imbued with the sweet scent of surf, the iodine-rich aroma of surging waves, the daily, programmed animations majestically executed by the ceaseless rhythm of the tides. This intoxicating scent of sea breeze underscores the unreality of dreams.

The mirage abruptly vanishes into a light mist, an incestuous union of sea and sky with a lady of their own age, the Earth. This bewitching harmony is the backdrop to a natural theater where the unwitting actors display their own roles and where the nostalgia for passing time is silently expressed. An eternal human comedy, a perpetual source of inspiration, which compels the old women to gather daily on a bench, gazing at the sea. These true heads of matriarchal families, the consciences of a fragranceless society, speak only of a past composed of regrets that cannot be lived in the present but compels them to build the future. Thus, the days resemble all the other days…

I feel crushed by the feeling that “everything is but eternal misery”; everything is but powerlessness and monotony…

So, so! I stood up, feeling the need to move, to leave, to live another life, to change the image projected by my shadow.

Decision made, the adventure could take shape in a train station, a port, a train, or one of those great ships that huff and puff with impatience and carry us somewhere, anywhere, with the hope that the countries visited would be new, rejuvenating.

And so, I left the region of my childhood one day in late December, a little before Christmas, driven by the desire to see a land of sunshine, in the dazzling brilliance of an unfamiliar light.

I longed with all my heart to see the southern reaches of the desert, embodied, almost magically, by the image of the Saharan legionnaire who, in my youthful naiveté, was the epitome of what boundless freedom could be.

An irrevocable decision imposed on my subconscious by the reverie provoked by Flaubert's writings: "One can imagine the desert, the pyramids, the Sphinx, before seeing them; but what one cannot imagine is the head of a Turkish barber crouching before his door." I had to go and meet this character.

From the terrace of the Bas-Fort "Saint Nicolas" in Marseille, I felt my heart swept away by a new sensation before a city I was discovering. A gateway to adventures for millennia, it throbbed under the still summery sun, cheerful, with its marina lined with grand, decorated cafés, its people hurried, busy, and delightfully noisy. Marseille from the top of the Bas-Fort seemed intoxicated, with an accent that everyone spoke as a challenge to gloom. This alluring city sweated and lacked care; it smelled of garlic; it was alive!

In the distance, in the Joliette basin, the heavy ocean liners, their bows turned towards the unknown, waited.

Christmas, that family holiday, was fast approaching; it was the end of the year. My thoughts were clouded with a nostalgic haze; I relived in images the magical symbol of the birth of the Christ Child. Could a miracle still occur? After a short stay for administrative formalities, it was time to depart for Corsica, the start of my scheduled training.

I boarded the "Napoléon Bonaparte" on Christmas Eve. The vast ship left its home port, glided gently among its still-motionless sister ships, and left the harbor. The adventure began for me; I felt freer than ever.

A sign of my birth, I was reborn, setting off for a promising and unknown future: to become a legionnaire. It was a wonderful Christmas; I knew I would never again be abandoned in life. The image of the Holy Family, which every year at this time accompanied me in a moment rich with emotion, became for me forever a symbol of love, sharing, and brotherhood: "I was going to become a legionnaire!"