UNE AFFAIRE DANGEREUSE

My name is Pierre Lasalle. I am old now, but when I was a younger man I was a teacher at the primary school in Douarnenez on our west coast. Before I am in my grave, I want to record the sad yet remarkable story of Georges Derain.

Georges was born in September 1884 into a poor farming family in a small village about ten kilometres to the east of Douarnenez. Doubtless, dear reader, you will know our pretty town and port on the coast of Brittany. You may even have heard of our fishing fleet, well-known for the multicoloured decoration of the boats. The departure of the little ships from the harbour at dawn, lit from behind by a low-lying eastern sun, cannot fail to bring a glow of pleasure even to the most saddened heart. Sometimes, waking early as I do these days, I will walk the short distance from my home to the harbour, where I will sit on the wall and contemplate the beauty of the masts, the sails and the hard working fishermen steering their gay boats into the rough Atlantic waves.

I knew Georges when he was a boy, as I taught him at the school. He was a nice-looking, if rather skinny lad with sandy coloured hair and a somewhat cheeky grin always on his freckled face. Even when young he showed a great intelligence at mathematics and was our star pupil until he left to go to secondary school at Quimper. When he was 18, he won a scholarship in mathematics to study at the old and well-respected University Paris