BOOMERANG EFFECT

Chapter 5

Was I adult ?

If I stopped at this time to address this new chapter, it was because it was at that moment it seems to me that I began to enter the adult phase.

Like everyone, I was more likely have to put up with my life than I was going to master it. I was going to leave behind all the potential acquired in childhood and adolescence, for implementation.

Was I an adult? Did I one day became? I was going however play the role and assume the responsibilities of it.

Although I had received a very good salary for several years, I arrived at the army like the majority arrived there then, namely broke.

I would have much liked to be in paratroops commandos, to walk a lot, to run, to finally live! Remember my insatiable need to live when I was a child, to the point that for me sleeping was equal to dying. Well no ! I had been assigned to a regiment of the "Train" at Montlhéry, that is to say in troop or equipment transport, with puffing trucks. If they had been able to drive more than a hundred and fifty kilometers as I was able to do in the descent with my old Aronde ... If we had done long walks or useful things glorious ... But no! Nothing of the sort ! So as I could not give in the useful, I did in the harmful.

I got the pictures of some false permissions of Gilbert, my brother-in-law, some "exploits" of the same style of Jean-Claude, so I made worse than them. As soon as I arrived, I began anti-establishment. Oh! Not in front of the ranks, but by deceit I took pleasure in doing the opposite of the rules. I went thus over the wall several times a week, as well that I did me placed in repose in room by a friend of the infirmary. During these hours of "rest", right under sub-lieutenant's very nose who was not fooled, I went every day or almost, doing very long cross or bike training, which often led me to the edge of the auto racing circuit. At the time of the report, my distinguished sub-lieutenant was putting himself then in revolution and often promising me to have me, but I always escaped in extremis to his interventions. In view of my psycho-technical tests and the need for NCOs in my final assignment, he did not even have the pleasure of denying me access to that rank, although he made me know that he had noted to me at the lowest of what he was allowed to do.

My boastfulness had no limits and I was stupidly proud of it. I was even more so, after having been appointed to the rank of sergeant, I was transferred to the Reuilly barracks in Paris, in a military mail-post, as second in charge of the garage service. It was in this regiment that I lived, besides, my only whole weekend in the military quarters, for the whole duration of my service. It must be said that at the end of precedent week, I had suggested to my Marshal of army corps who refused me my permission that I will leave with or without his authorization. He had not really appreciated my promises, and even if he had not promised me anything in return, he had nevertheless given me ten days of simple stop for illegal absence one day of big maneuvers.

My insubordination and my boasting could take me to an extreme as in the other. It is thus that during my stay in this barracks, I prepared an ambush which I still consider to have been justified today, to my garage adjutant and his counterpart in the kitchens. One used the pieces of the army to maintain his personal vehicle and often those of his friends, just as the other was almost openly trading in food at the expense of troop food.

The ambush, that I had laid them then, aborted because of the notoriously unauthorized permission of which I have just spoken to you, and perhaps also because I had been too talkative about my intentions, whereas nobody had interest that the bargain becomes known in high places. I was therefore transferred by "disciplinary" measure, in a NATO barracks in Fontainebleau. A palace, a dream, a castle life ... Without dwelling too much on details that are not very glorious, I celebrated the end of my military service, the same day and with all my American friends, who were celebrating the departure of France, February 28, 1967. Oh dear! Our head the next day!

I need to make clear however in order to not astray you, that behind this veil, this artifice of myself, there was in me the one whose an author that I much liked said: “One finds oneself alone” by Jacques Brel. I was often this one, even if I always had the opposite attitude. Alone, somewhere in my heart, I was it, even if I tried to prove to myself the opposite by this form of whirlwind that I lived to convince me that I existed.

With the end of my military service, this inner loneliness became only heavier, because I had to take back my work as a postman in the office where I had left it.

If I integrated a little better this second time, it was not however because of the improvement of the atmosphere, but more because of my regrettable adaptation to depravations of this world. This is often unfortunately the progression of many.

Since I began writing, I sometimes wondered why I had not told you yet about Michel, my best childhood friend. He was a few years younger than me, but he was often a reference for me, as have been able my brother. There was, however, a profound difference between these two types of references. I think I always choose to follow the bad images that Jean-Claude could leave me, even if he had many good, as anyone, as for Michel, I think he never represented a bad direction in his sincerity still childish. I think he lived a healthy faith in Christ, at least in the period when we knew each other the most, and in my opinion, this explains that. In the spring of 1967, while we meet already no more often, he was going to be without knowing it, at the origin of the turn that my life was going to take then.

He had an older cousin of about ten, who lived in Paris. In his adolescence, this cousin Guy had come several times to spend a few days vacation to his uncle and aunt, our neighbors butchers. He had then begun to make road rallies car on a 403 Peugeot convertible, then had become a professional pilot for NSU. He was also, certainly a little behind my passion for car racing, which had been growing for several years. If I look for a little in me, this passion had to be embryonic since 1960, the year when we had the opportunity to go for the first time at the 24 hours of Le Mans with dad. I had been to Guy's house a few times to meet him, but he was always up hill and down dale. His wife was informing him of my visit and we were not going further than this I did not dare to call too much for fear of appearing unwelcome, but running June 67, I phoned him again at random. What was not my surprise when he informed me from an advertisement that two of his friends had published in review “Echappement” (exhaust) claiming a racing driver and he offered me to go to see them to Rennes and introducing me from him. No sooner said than done, I did not go to work that day and immediately headed for Rennes, the heart full of glee.  

I was very well welcomed by two professional coachbuilders, who had set up a small racing team. Formula 3 was then only in its first faltering steps. They had already raced the previous years and had built for each one a single-seater that year. They suggested me to put at my disposal their first realization and after receiving my license, to start on July 15 at Le Mans. Not completely ignorant of the body work, because of the repair of the Panhard, among other things, they was taking me as an apprentice with them, which allowed to consider a bound team.

I would certainly have seen myself better in a covered car, than in this small green cigar, but it was  a deal! I was only three months of my majority, twenty-one years at the time, so it would be, I thought, a formality with my parents to obtain their necessary authorization to apply for a license.

I believe that the small Dauphine that I had well relooked few months earlier, with its 1093 cc engine, did not roll anymore, but it flew. As at my usual and to use the expression of a friend Lyonnais, it must to come back, the foot in the right headlight (In England I think that is the left headlight). I was convinced that everything would be fine, even if it seemed so unhoped-for. As if the thing was too good to be true.  

So I immediately went back to Paris, gave my resignation to the post office and arrived quite late at night at my parents’ house. As soon as I crossed the threshold of the house my enthusiasm fell: I had not thought how to present them the thing...

It must be said in advance, for those who did not live those years, or from too far to remember, that the seasons of Formula One sixty-six, but especially sixty-seven were marked by the disappearance of so many pilots, that public opinion began to be moved by that. I arrived at my parents' house, late at night unexpectedly, to announce to them that I had just left a stable situation in which I had engaged almost seven years before, to enter in the unknown and what is more, to risk my life every day: understand that I was not very proud at this moment! Probably at my usual, I had kept a casual and cheerful attitude, but I think I remember that my explanations did not go much further than a shabby stammer.

After a time of reflection, a very small time, having themselves too well made the connection between the direct channel formula 3, formula 1, they made me understand that they wanted everything for me, absolutely everything except to have my death on the conscience. Of course, they had very much anticipated a career that might perhaps never have existed, but it was without remission: To get my license,  I will wait to have reached my majority.

This was undoubtedly the second great disappointment of my life, after that of this small priest with the tapered nose. As the first time I remained without strength, not even that to inform my friends of one day of my defection. Owing to my too great haste, I had no more work, my enthusiasm of an instant had flown away and I remained faced with the harsh difficulties of life. It seem to me that had lived until this day I had lived as being waiting this unconscious and unhoped-for luck, but whereas I had let it pass, what remained to me as hope? Nothing!    

In my village I fortunately had a girlfriend of whom the parents were restoring the straw-chair and cane chairs. I clung a little to them, who were very kind and I helped them in their tasks to pass the time. My parents did not drop me either, so I made masonry for them, mechanic for others, a little bike, few bike races, in short, nothing that can give a concrete motivation.  I was quite looking for a job in the office, thinking of my useful experience, but I did not have a really adapted training.

It was at this time that I heard about professional training courses for adults, for which I passed tests during which I was offered an internship fitter mechanic. This single word "mechanic" sufficed to me on the moment to eclipse from my eyes, all the other peculiarities attached to this formation. Only one thing, however to my eyes wend crazy over the possibility of going from a stage of the first degree, to one of the second, then the third. To my question on this track I obtained a rather negative answer, but no real prohibition, if not that of an interval of less than one year between two internships. The level reached was then about equal to two years of higher education, if I managed to go all the way. I knew that to succeed, the engagement would be severe, but just as the biggest trip always starts with a first step, I accepted this first internship. From that moment, even though I had only a very pitiful secondary education, I had two hopes, two goals anchored in me, which were actually only one:

1) I will be a designer draughtsman.

2) Since I had not been able to do car races when I had the opportunity, I would pay them myself.

It was therefore for me as my project to accomplish the one hundred and eighty kilometers at bike, at just over fourteen years old. I had the hope, the faith. And God allowed it.

A surprise was waiting me, however, because when I realized what the profession of fitter mechanic was, I really felt as if I had fallen into an ambush. I had retained only the word mechanic, but I would have done better to retain that of fitter. It was certainly better than a simple fitter, because the vocational training was more complete with a lot of various machine tools, but as for me, mechanic meant auto mechanic, I was all wrong. The die was cast, it was too late to go back, so I did eight months at the vocational training center for adults Olivet Orleans for this training.

I was also improving in other areas, because at the wheel I drove faster and faster, in driving techniques that refined. Speed regulation was not yet in force, but was soon to become so. I was mistaking the road for a car-racing track, and therefore complied with all the safety rules, except of course the speed limits. I imagined, moreover, that everyone acted like me, and that obviously brought me some setbacks. Thank God, I never had such serious accidents that there were deaths.

I also went out more and more to the balls of Saturday evening, to look for the good "fortune". We did not still talk too much about nightclubs or dancing in my area. For my part, I was soon going to find it, the good fortune, but it was going to be the beginning of a long ordeal of seventeen years for me and for her, not to mention the most unfortunate, our two sons who were to be born of our Union.

She was employed in the same company as my parents, and I had seen her going to the station after work, shortly before our first meeting. She had certainly not left me indifferent, but nothing would have occurred between us if I had not found her a few days later at the ball of the Kings on the early of the year sixty-height. We immediately sympathized, and even went a little farther as quickly, but until then nothing abnormal for what I lived at the time. In early April, I think, she told me she was pregnant. I do not say "Hallelujah", because at the time it did not touch my mind, but I was happy. I was going to have a child, and somewhere it was a very nice gift after the mumps problems I had a few years earlier. I was absolutely not disappointed to leave celibacy, and took this happy event with good-naturedly, convinced that I needed such circumstances to decide on one or the other of my conquests, that's all. The spell had fallen on "Annette", so the date of the marriage was therefore retained immediately or almost.

A few weeks passed in this serene atmosphere, during which I met my future in-laws and some of her friends, including one of my village, at the wedding of which we were invited. At the evening meal Annette was nauseous I had already seen my sister twice pregnant, and my sister-in-law once, so I was not alarmed by this unfortunate little detail, but tried to help her somehow. The hours passed and the atmosphere was warming up. As everyone Annette was in joy, when suddenly a frantic desire to jump took hold of her. I opposed it gently because of its condition; she did not take account of it. I wanted to reason with her, she continued ... The next day she was having a miscarriage.

It was a major shock to me, a return on myself. I immediately realized that I had been very much in love physically, but that I did not absolutely love her with a true and sincere love to live and build all life with her. We had in fact not any common point, no common aspiration, it was not possible: I had to break! I had always dreaded the suffering of others, and there, rather than meet face to face to inform her of my intentions, by cowardice to have to support her accusations, I then committed the blunder to write her my decision. A few days later, she arrived in the evening to my house in tears, visibly desperate. I was already very weak in the face of her distress, when my family interpreting my attitude towards her as a simple disillusionment, a simple lack of forgiveness, thinking well to do, joined her position.

This young girl, whose father was alcoholic at a very high-level, had elderly and almost destitute parents. She lived at their home, in a house that looked like a slum in relation to the immediate environment. I certainly had remorse for both of us, but because of her life of rejection, this daily misfortune that she had lived for so many years, I did not feel entitled to reject her further away.

I have believed then that if I abandoned her, considering the image she had of men through her father, she would not recover. I could not then afford it, and in deep despair, as if by sacrifice, I let myself go, I said yes. We were to one month of June 22, 1968.

During the four weeks that separated us from the fateful date, I thought an upheaval would happen. It was not possible, it would eventually happen something? An earthquake, what do I know? The more time passed, the more I was trapped, the more my anguish grew, but nothing happened. Only that fatal day that was approaching inexorably ... And it happened!

It was for me "The longest day", as in the movie of the same name, a day that never stops to pass. A day without sun! A moonless night! Despite the smiles that I tried to do to each other so as not to spoil their joy, distress was in the depths of my heart, implacable, inexorable...

Then there was a following day, then two days after...

Helped by all these good "sixty-huitardes" ideas, (anti-establishment brought about by the students' revolt of 1968), I succeed in convincing myself that it will be enough for me to be conciliatory and full of good will to attain happiness. I certainly did not know the word of wisdom that the reading of the Holy Bible could have given me in (1 Corinthians 13-1): If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.//

I was with my human good will, only this brass, this cymbal that is clanging. I put seventeen years before capitulating, seventeen years of suffering for one and the other. Seventeen years to see where the good will of man leads who confides in man, in himself. It is in his vanity as a man that he thinks himself evolved.

Obviously, everything was not going to be as negative as the final observation of failure that I'm describing, because we put a lot of goodwill on both sides. Only here, when one made an effort in the sense that it thought good for the other, the other never receive this as being good for him.

No doubt Annette loved me? No doubt I made her extremely unhappy by my behavior, her misunderstanding of me and perhaps herself. In any case, I believe she often felt guilty, thinking that she was not up to it. Oh! At the height, just like me she was not likely to be to the height, I understand today much better than yesterday. I had not wanted to reject her, thinking that she would not recover, that she would definitively reject men, because of the image she had at the time of her father. It was true according to a human reasoning, because subjects of complex, she had, and she had still, but I can assure you that in her place I would certainly have had more than she. Only, as I said, she did not trust God. This was indeed our grossest mistake, perhaps even the only one.

May God bless her, because I believe that He wants to bless us all. What He does not want, so as to protect us from pride, is that we do it on our own. He is acting out of love for us because He is Love. For us, even love can become a trap, but we will come back to it together God willing.

Life continued inexorably with its good and bad sides. In the weeks that followed I finished my fitter mechanic course brilliantly and was hired on of that, as a toolmaker adjuster about thirty kilometers from my parents. We rented to lodge us, a small furnished in the village of Condé sur Huisne, located halfway to my work and that of Annette. We formed, it seems to me, the image of the young standard couple, even if all the mutual misunderstandings would emerge quickly. What young couple do not they bring out these misunderstandings?

My salary was not the most stupendous and our hobbies were not numerous. I still did some cycling races, but soon I realized that my training left something to be desired. It became less and less compatible with my other motivations, especially since Annette was pregnant again and was living with many difficulties this new pregnancy. At the beginning of the year sixty-nine, I did not renew my license and gave up this passion which had been ousted by others.

I was still only toolmaker adjuster, but proud to be, because it represented for me the first step of the podium that led me to success. I was maybe even a bit too proud, and that would play tricks on me. I was working with two colleagues who were much more experienced than me, but I did not hide from them the career plan that I had drawn at which I worked hard every evening and especially every night. The more months passed, and the more I unconsciously perceived that the older of the two was like a danger to me, but with my naivety of the time, I was not careful. I had absolutely no intention of interfering in the hierarchy of this company, but he had probably perceived me as dangerous for his career, that is to say, the man to be slaughtered.

It was six months since I worked in this company, and even though I was not the most expert in my work, it seems to me that until then I was not too badly considered. This man, who held the position of team leader, undertook one day to do tidying up the workshop and found, by chance, panoply of hand screw taps that were no longer used, replaced for a long time by screw taps machine. He kindly offered them to me, and in my naivety I was almost flattered. I considered him as being part of the managers of the company, so I accepted them with many thanks, without realizing that this was done outside of all legality. A few days later, for a futility I no longer remember, I was thrown out like a messy, like a thief. I had been like a big fool accepting this "gift" poisoned, so I had more work.

A few days later, Annette was on sick leave and I dismissed, so we left our home become useless and expensive. We settled in the little house that had served as a workshop near my parents' home, and that in the meantime I had renovated well. This allowed Annette to benefit from my parents' closeness throughout the remaining of her very difficult pregnancy, as her mum did not have the health to help her and their home was too small to consider such a solution. My parents-in-law, however, was fortunate in these moments, that it was assigned to them by the municipal services, a beautiful little detached house in which the whole family happy, was busy to relocate them. They were both enjoying their beautiful little house in a beautiful little garden, when her mother's health worsened. Since I knew her, I surely realized that she did not walk normally, a bit like a drunken person, whereas she was not drinking. She suffered from atrocious headaches and was hospitalized because of an alarming hyper tension, twenty-eight, thirty. The doctor told us, however, that she was not so ill that she gave the impression, which she was playing comedy, that her loss of balance was only a simulation and that she had to be encouraged to walk more. We who were young and confident in medicine, we believed him, and with all the respect we owed to a mom, whenever we had the opportunity, we went of course in this direction, to "stimulate" her. One afternoon in June, sixty-nine, we visited her at the hospital, but, given her condition, we did not even dare to give her the kind of "encouragement" that we thought was right. The next morning when we returned, she had died of a brain tumor. She had expired alone, without the presence of a loved one at her bedside. We were one and other very distressed.

We both felt a deep resentment towards this man who knew the situation and who had hidden it from us. I do not know what motive led him to make us ruthless towards this woman, this mom whom we loved very much. The remorse of our mistake only increased our grief, especially that of Annette, but also of my father-in-law. I think he felt even more guilty of his state of complete dependence on the alcohol for which he was being treated, and thought himself fit to stay home alone. Eight to fifteen days later, this guilt having only led him to drink more, it was necessary to bow to the evidence. Annette was a few weeks away from giving birth, and since a long time incapable of self-sufficiency, a responsibility such as the supervision of her father was impossible and we decided to put him in a retirement home.

The time of pain and birth of the afterbirth had arrived for her. On the twenty-ninth of July 1969, a memorable day when the man first set foot on the moon, my first son was born. His mom wanted to call him Samuel, his dad Igor, a privilege was given to the mom. He was a beautiful big baby, with a good head of hair as brown as his parents, who would soon get him used to traveling. Fifteen days after his birth, he was already taking his first fresh marine air on the beach at Portivy, near Quiberon, where we used for the first time with my parents their new caravan, which they had bought empty and which we had equipped with my father.

Through my narrative, maybe you do not realize that my activities were becoming excessive. If there had been only the installation of this caravan in addition to all the events that we had just to live in a few months, moves, death, birth, it would have been conceivable. Since my dismissal of toolmaker adjuster, however, I worked sixty hours a week in a job of preparer in boiler making, and repaired damaged vehicles, in order to acquire new cars that I could not afford to buy in good condition. In a little over a year, I was in my second vehicle and somehow, I still continued correspondence courses. Needless to say, my days were already well filled.

A little more than a year had elapsed since the release of my first internship, and according to the schedule that I had set for myself, in September or October 1969 I entered an internship of draftsman, always in Orleans. So I found myself in a country of knowledge, one foot put this time on the second step of the podium. I worked assiduously again, but without producing however the amount of work that some provided, because the success was becoming familiar to me. I had always had a natural predisposition for technical drawing, which allowed me to emerge as brilliantly as the first and consequently, to find a job immediately after the end when I left. The work was still flowing at that time and although I did not have a great experience of study office, after a few months of interim work in Paris, I found myself promoted three steps above my diploma, that is to say, study two. We had obviously moved and had come to live a small furnished two rooms, street of Bagnolet in the twentieth arrondissement. It was really small this two-room with kitchen, it was only twenty-one square meters of living space, but it overlooked a public garden, street of the Pyrenees and almost represented the countryside in Paris. It was made smaller by the fact that it took us, from this period, to house my father-in-law six months a year. We had tried to put him in a retirement home, but after a few weeks of peaceful life, the temptation of alcohol had been manifested again. He was very unhappy, but as for anyone who comes to these extremes, it was stronger than him. As long as he had drunk alone and returned to his room, we had not had too much trouble. The real problems had started when he had trained others to do the same, so from a retirement home to a nursing home, we had finally opted for the solution to take him each it’s in turn.

It had always seemed to me that this would be the normal outcome. He thus stayed with us for six months a year, until his death in 1977. During this period, and despite his disability due to alcohol, he brought me a lot of masonry advice that I put into practice at my parent's house. He had indeed been a very good mason before falling into illness because of the drink. He was a very nice man, very peaceful, for whom the only subjects of conversation were the war where he had been taken prisoner, and the masonry. He had a Hebrew name, Lazarus. I do not know if it had anything to do with the suffering he seemed to have endured, because the human condition had not spared him. He was certainly drinking, but as a slogan said a few years ago: "The parents clink glasses, children will be the ones who suffer of it! (In French, play on words, because it's possible to use the same word to say clink glasses and suffer) He had been one of those children who had more particularly suffered than others. In his youth, he had often had to sleep with the knife under the pillow to protect his mother and himself from the excesses of his father's alcoholic angers. I will be careful not to judge him, I who had the chance to have much, much better.

In this small apartment two room, we had not many room, but our baby Samuel was grew well, and that was the main thing. As much as he had been brown at birth, he had become blond. One thing did not change, he was still cute! We could say that at that time we were almost a normal family. There were of course natural ups and downs, but nothing unusual!

Was I still a little according to God? Was I acting a little bit according to Him? I still believe a little, until this period. There were many years that I did not want to admit it, many years that I blasphemed, that I rejected God and all religions to which I assimilated Him. There was, however, still a small part, a very small part of me, still clinging to Him, still respecting His commandments, His precepts, though some of my actions already brought me to certain disorders.

I believe that at that moment, God was still holding out His hand to me before letting me go wherever I wanted. (Hebrews 3-7/8) tells us: Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness.//

I was already in the spiritual desert; I hardened my heart and began to live according to my precepts. But let me tell you again this verse which translates well what would happen to me later, precisely because of my refusal to follow the precepts of God. (Deuteronomy 28-28) The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness…//

Let's look together at how I then hardened my heart to the precepts of God, and then how I was going fall into blindness.

Being newly hired in this job as a technical draftsman, I had only a few vacations to take in that seventy year. My parents going themselves on holiday to Brittany in Portivy, so Annette went with them to give some outdoor time at Samuel. There was nothing more natural about it, but for me, who remained alone in Paris, it would unfortunately be my first opportunity of adultery. An opportunity to fall in addition to all the others, and I fell into it. I did not fall by chance, but because in the days before, I had expected in that to a great moment of freedom, for which I had quite provoked, and the departure of Annette, and the act itself.

I realize of course that things had switched to for me from this moment. By this act of too much, I had become in the eyes of God, this child who wanted to live according to his laws, his own precepts, in which he was going to let him sink. For my part, I did not want to respect anything of what I had hitherto received from Him and to be blinded I was going to be blinded. By what other means had could the Lord have brought me back to Him one day? If He had not let me sink enough, how could I ever have had enough of the adversity that would open my eyes to the utility of following His precepts? But let's not go too fast!

The first event that marked this blindness came between two temporary jobs. I leafed through the classifieds, when suddenly I let myself be challenged by this kind of proposal catches booby, "Quickly becomes a millionaire". That very afternoon, I jumped on the subway and went to the announced conference. Of the twenty or so new ones we were, very few had fallen for it hook the snowball system proposed, very well known and banned. For my part I was completely fooled and found even foolish contradictors not to know seize the opportunity of a prohibited system, which provided the opportunity to become rich quickly in all legality. I plunged into head first! Unfortunately for me, there was no water in the pool. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! I fell flat on me’s face!

The same evening, I was already relieved of a thousand francs, when I was not to earn more than two or three thousand a month at the time. I had no fear, however, because in my stupidity: I "knew" that it was only a short-term investment that would be amortized very quickly after some announcements similar to that which I had replied to. What a heresy! It would have been necessary for me that I first have a few centimes in my pocket to pass this announcement, and secondly, that I can convince some pigeon even more naive than me to be plucked. An advantage was, however, acquit that I liked particularly, the meeting place was near the Sacré-Cœur, on the side of Pigalle.

I began to suck more and more unhealthy desires and I was looking forward to this location. In addition I drove a lot, that was not done to displease me either. For four months, I did indeed fifteen thousand kilometers in Paris and its suburbs for my few personal needs and going to do door to door, but on all these kilometers, there was a majority for the needs of the "leaders" who did not have a car and I had paid to join them. No! You'll say! It is not possible that the blindness was up to this point? But yes! But yes! So will you tell me again, where did you get the money? Well, I borrowed it! Eh yes! I got into debt so that those whom I then took for bigwigs go to eat every meal, at eight or ten at the pizzerias or other restaurants on the Boulevard de Clichy. During this time, if I had one or two francs in my pocket, I would buy a piece of bread or in the great days a cone of French fries.

It took me four months of this diet, before I understood my heresy. Ah! As snow in the sun, they had melted my projects of purchase a boat with tanning quarterdeck and two large inboard engines. I assure you that I smile of my nonsense by writing all this, because I really measure how far blindness can go, for the man who places his trust in man, in himself.

The thing was not going to stop there, because a much greater evil was watching out for me then, and I will not laugh of it by telling you. The first had obviously not helped the the conjugal harmony, the other would not only destroy it slowly, but would bring my shame to such a degree, that still today I will have, I know, a lot of trouble to report it to you. I believe, however, that the Lord is asking me to do it, so I will bow.

If by this next testimony I can indeed make even one person aware of the mistake in which she herself may have fallen, then I will know that it was not vain. I am not of a different nature from anyone; some will say they have done a hundred times worse and others not the hundredth... Provided that no one, however, deprives himself of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ, who shed His blood for every sinner who repents, whatever his fault. Let's look together at what stratagem, the enemy was going to draw me in his nets.

In the fall, I who had then completely rejected the possibility that God exists, that Jesus could have been someone other than an alien, I was going to fall into a trap in which unfortunately many others, one way or another have fallen, I checked it. For me there were consequences of a kind, for others it will have been of a different type, because the enemy of our souls always traps us where we are the weakest.

So I was landing up from this sweet folly of getting rich easily, and found two weeks of work in a petrochemical research department, near Place Pereire in the seventeenth arrondissement. During all this interim, I was remaining alone with two other designers who had in my opinion bizarre conversations. All day or so, they talked about the master's theory, the way out of their bodies, astral travel, and so on.

At that time I was absolutely not called out to the spiritual, except possibly to criticize what I did not know. I took them first of all for mystical madmen, but as I have always been naturally curious, refusing ignorance, I began every day to listen a little more. I think they made it a game. After a few days, no longer holding of it, I began to ask them a few questions. They spoke to me then of a Tibetan monk..., of the transfer of his soul into another, of the third eye..., one might as well say bluntly, that it was not only Tibetan for me, but quite of the Chinese. By itself the word "soul" which I had only heard about at the catechism, was enough to make me refuse all of a block. I kept in memory only these weird names, "Third Eye" and "Lobsang Rampa". Many of you do not yet see where I want come as stopping-off point, which is why I am still asking for a little patience. The net was tense, but it was going to be a long time to close it. In this the enemy is more patient than us.

Towards that same period, more or less tired of the instability provided by temporary agency work, I found a job in a fixed position in the provinces. We left Paris, and came to live at Loué, in the department of Sarthe, where good chickens are raised. For my part, I was rather from kind of pigeon.

Our small furnished Parisian two-room and kitchen with its twenty-one square meters of living space, suddenly turned into a large empty housing HLM of one hundred and twenty square meters. There is no need to tell you how this apartment could look like empty, with only an old wicker trunk. It would have been possible to confuse it with a dance floor, it was really very harmonious. However, we did not have to make reckless placements after all my bad investments and the shortfall of the previous months, if we wanted to go on vacation the following summer. We no longer had a penny in our pocket, and so we did with the little we had, without letting us down. I turned into a joiner and built a living room that was awarded a price to the paper System D, what paid off the initial investment.

After a few months of work, these vacations was arriving when I received a convocation to present myself in September at the Formation Professional for Adults center of Champs sur Marne, in order to follow an internship of draftsman of studies in general mechanics. Through my dispersal I had completely forgotten the entry request I had made a year earlier, and I must admit that God Himself had taken care of the faith with which I had undertaken this pass way. It only highlights His loyalty that makes rain on the good one and the bad one.

When summer came, the finances were somewhat bailed out, so we went heroically, one month to Motril in the south of Spain. Once again we had to limit the budget, and although it was then particularly forbidden in Spain, we went wilderness camping. Samuel was two years old and was beginning to know what he wanted. When we were playing petanque, he could only say one thing: "Moi, é é agné! Moi, é agné! ". (Translation: Me, I winner!) Before leaving we had made a small supply of French books, one of which was with a coverage garnet red from by Lobsang Rampa, The cavern of the ancients, for want of having found The third eye. It was going to be for me an unparalleled clarity, an incredible revelation. Except for a few "Tintin and Snowy" and now the Bible, it was the only book I read several times. The enemy's net was soon to close on me.

At the resumption of September, however, I remained there of my readings, and passed to other objectives by my entry in internship. I had worked very diligently during the first, a little less seriously the second, as for the third, I did not really take it seriously. I was already in positions at a higher level than the one announced by its title, so I thought I was safe from failure. In a cavalier way I often took the practical teaching offhandedly, bringing only a few efforts to the theoretical teachings.

In parallel to the lack of personal investment, I had become very teasing towards my comrades. I do not mean that I was not at all beforehand, but if my jokes had always been in the sense of jokes more or less funny, they then became in the true sense of the term "harassing slightly to annoy". If I allow myself to recall this definition of the word teasing, it is in order to discuss it again in the second part. There was indeed in this behavior, a trap from which the Lord had preserved me as long as I wanted to follow Him. As soon as I wanted to live by my precepts, I fell unconsciously into it. I also realize while writing, that while watching me do, I did not understand myself at that time. I was surprised to do so, but irresistibly I entered this morbid game. I was no longer the one I had known before. I was somewhat punished, because I finished only second of this one-year internship, despite all the presumptions that I had to finish once again first.

Along with these emerging deviations, I began each day more, falling into sexual delusions and regret the time of the lost opportunities. I gradually strove not to miss a single opportunity to satisfy my passions, but I was making progresses shyly, however, into the wrong. Without premeditating it in the least, I mistook this attitude for caution.

At the following vacation, a year had passed since I had abandoned my "intelligent and spiritual readings". Our resources did not allow us to truly recover, so we set out again with the intention of wilderness camping, but this time in Austria. Samuel was three years old! The mountain was splendid! We had managed to circumvent the interdict of wilderness camping, but soon we realized that because of the precariousness of our equipment and our three-year-old baby, many distractions were made impossible to us. So we continued to the Yugoslav coast, and as it seemed difficult to do wilderness camping for fear of reprisals, we finally returned to settle in the region of Trieste in Italy. I spend a mountain of small details of no importance such as the theft of my wallet and my identity papers to remember only one thing: We have been never so happy after a vacation, to finally arrive at home, so nothing had been satisfactory. Conclusion, that year I had not had time to read.

For the all duration of my last internship, in order not to move out, I had made the round trips each week Champs sur Marne, Loué. At the end of this one, I found work nearby, but a few months later, with very few salaries received, this company, whose honesty was not the main quality, was placed under arrest for fraud. I had to once more, put me looking for a job.

It was then that I thought I had finally discovered the ideal workplace in Brittany, in Quimper! This region represented for me a universe of dreams by my sailing constructions and my holidays stays, what motivated me straightaway to settle us there permanently. The first foot barely laid down on the Breton soil, moved by my natural impulsivities, and without waiting a few money receipts, I began therefore looking for a real estate opportunity miraculous. I thought I had spotted it through an immense terrain covered with more or less thorny brooms, situated at the top of one of those imposing hills of the hinterland. Annette had sometimes expressed the desire to ride a horse, so in my excesses, it seemed to me to have discovered the intelligent and incredible opportunity to build a ranch. It must be said that behind this idea of ranch, another revelation had come graft even more attractive to me. If the ranch worked, why not add a nightclub. As soon as imagined, as soon as executed. Without searching once again, to know what would be the reactions of my wife, I went head down. Just as I had come back from Rennes a few years earlier to teach my parents the good news of my future Formula Three races, I went back to tell Annette pregnant of seven months, the good news of some of my ravings. She was certainly healthier than at her first pregnancy, but to share my enthusiasm, I trailed her on a day of deluge, to make the round trip Loué Quimper in the same day, nearly seven hundred kilometers of national uncomfortable road. From early in the morning until late at night, we trudged to make her discover in a lugubrious storm, in the pouring rain, the beauty of this wonderful site covered with prickly brooms... Incredible thing for me, she did not interpret it at all in my opinion??? Oh! I exaggerate nothing, believe me, but my incredulity was matched only by my blindness. In the understanding of what I called at that time the bad luck of the storm, I was often going to blame her for the mistake she made that day, deliberately refusing such an opportunity. However, I never enlarged on the bright idea of the nightclub, even if this motive had been the engine of much of my enthusiasm and then my reproaches.

In parallel to this context, I did not accept the segregation that prevailed in the design office of the company that got me a job, between the service staff and "Intellectual". I took my account three weeks later, because of this anomaly too unacceptable for me. As you can see, in both a good and a bad way, I always reacted excessively, and the bad sense too often outweighed the good.

A few days later, I found a job in a study office in Pithiviers in the department of Loiret. I arrived there in March of the seventy-three and lodged at the hotel the time to find an apartment. Annette had remained at Loué with Samuel and it was at this time that Igor decided to be born. I had dropped off the mom the maternity hospital in Le Mans on a Sunday evening in April and the next day at the end of the day, the delivery was unlikely. As soon as my work was finished, I could not take it anymore, but I came back to her and had only time to arrive to accompany her to the delivery room. I changed admittedly nothing, but this time I had the pleasure of seeing my second baby born. It was about twenty-two hours this Monday, April 16, 1973, when our little Igor uttered his first cry. One would have thought a Samuel number two so much he looked like him and was so cute.

Delighted that our family circle was widening by this happy event, we moved out some time later to Pithiviers. This nice city of the Gâtinais would unfortunately become for me a springboard for my moral decadence, even if the main incidents would not happen until sometime later. The neighbors women were not lacking, and under the pressure of my convictions, we was going both slip towards a form of free union, which never had free only the occasional faculty to have both mistress and lover. If I lived it for myself as an attempt at freedom, I do not believe that it was the same for Annette. I think that it was for her, more a self-defense, than a real search for freedom, and our disagreements already very marked grew because of her fits of jealousy, very understandable. So I began, because of this attitude, to search secretly, the "golden opportunities" of some complacent hitchhiker girls for example; every time I moved alone. I willingly provoked these solitary travels, but I was not going too far in the evil. However, I was going in the wrong direction, and there has been a lot of "opportunities".

If it was up to me, I would not go further in this testimony, because I feel much pain at the thought of what I will write in a few pages. Let me tell you in advance that I am not ashamed of this subject, but I feel suffering. Shame, I knew at the time and then tried to hide it. That's probably why I make the difference. The suffering I feel for the man I was, is the same that I perceive for humanity in general of which I am a part. The suffering of human misery that leads one to irrational acts in one direction, the other to irrational acts in another sense, a third in another sense and so on! That's why men kill each other instead of loving each other. One like me, does not know what led him to do what I did, the other, which led him to do what he did and so on. Be careful that no one deceives himself; everyone remains responsible for their actions before God and men. If I say that, it is because many human beings suffer silently from their own mistakes that they consider to be their own defects, and because of these errors, these flaws, some even go as far as suicide. They then lock themselves into excessive limits of tolerance or the opposite in the most total intolerance, as to better flog themselves or... No matter, the world suffers as long as it commits sin. But let's go back to our more down-to-earth chronology.

For the holidays we went that year, to join my parents in Torreilles in the Pyrenees Orientales. The beach was beautiful, Samuel took advantage of the presence of his grand-nieces to wade in the river mouth of the Agly, Igor chirped, my father-in-law took sunburns, we went up with family to Mount Canigou, finally brief, the mood was good. I had many other occupations for myself, because I would not have had the impression of living. I often started with morning jogging, followed by two or three hours of underwater hunting or bike ride in the Pyrenees. In the evening I was fishing with dad, but had to still fill a gap of the afternoon. So, I began again to read each time Annette and I went with the children to a naturist beach not far away. I had found in Perpignan all these famous books of Lobsang Rampa, except one which I read the following year. They seemed to me less attractive, less revealing than the first, having already long been in favor of this theory.

The enemy of our souls did not really have to rush the thing, patiently waiting for his hour, and reveling in advance of the destruction he was about to produce through the circumstances to come to which we arrive.

The small village where I grew up was quite far from my parents' workplace and their home too small to reunite the family. Several possibilities had been envisaged to remedy the situation, but their budget remained very low after their difficulties of the past years to consider a construction. The only conceivable alternative was to make construct the shell of building and make all the rest with the family. Driven by an impetus of solidarity, each one engaged in this way and the search for the ideal place began as soon as we returned from holiday.

We were just starting to pass the electrical ducts in the first floor at the beginning of 1974, when we were challenged by a swallowing problem that dad tried in vain to conceal. We insisted that he make an appointment with a doctor, and the diagnosis only confirmed what everyone feared without daring to admit, he had a very advanced cancer of the esophagus. On May 6, the day of his birthday, he was operated on Le Mans.

I would not say that the law of the series exists, but it is a fact that the same day, I undergo myself to Orleans, a removal of the tonsils. Fortunately for me, my operation had no common measure with his.

During my convalescence, we bought a used Peugeot J7 diesel that I went every evening of week to strive to convert into motor home. On weekends, we obviously reserved them for the construction of my parents, because there was a lot to do. Papa was so weakened that he could only guide us. They had both of them come to live near the construction in their caravan, so that dad could "take care" on weekdays. He was so anxious to die before the house was habitable, that he often tired himself out too much, although he considered doing very little.

In July he had jaundice, which was evidently a relapse of the disease. Once again, we believed what the doctors told us, although it was almost the same scenario as for my mother-in-law a few years ago: It was normal ... after such an intervention ..., it was not necessary to worry...

So we went on holiday to Portugal with our very new motor home that looked very fine for the time, without worrying about dad's illness. Igor, very brown at birth, had become as fair-haired as his brother and was four-legged in the sand. Samuel, meanwhile, released his first recording with "Ah! I saw, I saw! What have you seen? I saw a frog patrolling, and the sword at the side. Partner, you lie! ".

Through all my narrative, probably do not you really realize that in the couple an its relationship everything was deteriorating inexorably, because outwardly it is true that we could pass for a happy family. The disputes were, however, more and more frequent and more and more violent, and our children were already beginning to suffer enormously. For my part, but also I believe for Annette, we were spectators of it without knowing how to fix it, and our two little ones were living poorly their childhood. We then began blaming each other, and thus entered an infernal circle from which we never went out.

During the months before our departure in Portugal, tired of receiving a salary that I thought was insufficient, I had looked for a new job again. Upon our return, I therefore entered a position of draftsman designer, assistant to the head of the maintenance department and new works, within a bandage and absorbent cotton factory, located in Brionne in the department of Eure. This new stage was not going to be more glorious than the last, because in the hope of finding a new home, I unfortunately took advantage of my solitude to strengthen myself, not in this new function, but in everything that was bad. I was looking for the exits of my body by the astral projections, of which I had read the narratives in these famous books of Rampa, but also, by direct or indirect consequences, I gave in much more serious behaviors humanly, as in the voyeurism and exhibitionism. I thought then to show freedom... Do not believe, however, that I had become this libidinous and austere character, who always walks in large cloak at the exit of primary schools. No ! Absolutely not! I was the one who had such a double life, that everyone took me for someone very right at all levels. For many I was even an example ... but what example... This allows me to emphasize nevertheless that there is always a part that God sees in everyone's life. We are never so ignoble that the enemy of our souls would like us to believe it, but it is our sin that cuts us off from God, and in my case everything was already prepared to allow me to sink a little more.

Two young and charming secretaries of the company were working in an office next to mine, and one of them, the most attractive had also fallen into the same pitfalls spiritual and human that me. She was about my age, and I now believe that even in this life of debauchery the Lord preserved both of us from irreversible mistakes. Each time, in fact, that we planned closer contacts, or even closer together, circumstances prevented us from doing so. I was already deeply questioned at the time as the thing was repetitive, but I attributed it to bad luck.

At the end of seventy-four, dad's health, which had seemed to improve somewhat, began to deteriorate again very noticeably. They both lived in their new house, still somewhat in the work, but it's almost a joy to remember how happy they were. Despite dad's weakness, in early December, they managed to come to visit us. The journey was a hundred and ten kilometers long, so rather than to become aware of the reality about his state of weakness, we saw in this "feat" an encouragement to believe in his close and definitive recovery. Nothing seemed more natural to us after such an intervention. We wanted so much to believe what the doctors told us that we were once again completely blinded on the true course of the disease.

It was an uncle who opened our eyes at the beginning of January. We then measured all the immense atrocity of the situation and moved by the suffering of despair, we clung to what we believed just. I see in this a similarity with my grandmother who clung to what she thought to be good to protect his daughter. For us it was not occultism, but I obtained the treatment of Dr. Solomides and at the same time we found a nurse who agreed to inject the treatment.

I am obviously not qualified to attest to the value of this drug that was sold in the form of veterinary product. Nor am I qualified to judge the accuracy of the facts alleged against this man. I am no more able to discuss the real competence of this doctor, University Professor, proposed to the Nobel Peace Prize, which Georges Pompidou had publicly praised. I know on the other hand that some pharmaceutical companies were pursuing him at this time for illegal practice of medicine??? Still, that his product injected intravenously, seemed to do at my little dad the greatest good. It was certainly necessary, as before, to continue the injections of morphine to avoid the pain, but in spite of everything we still hoped a little. From day to day, however, the nurse had more and more difficulty finding his veins for the perfusion, as his weight loss was important in this terminal phase of cancer. On the first of February she had been trying for a long time already, when she capitulated. By the emotional shock of seeing her give up, he had a heart attack and his pain was shortened.

It was for me, and no doubt for all of us, a deep suffering to which was added a not less profound incomprehension towards those who, once again, because of the confidence we had given them, had succeeded in deceiving us. Who had to we believed in such a case? Those who, we knew from then, had been lying to us for months, pretending that we should not worry, that everything was normal in such a case; or this professor who seemed to have attacked richer than him. This professor whose even client file had been the only object of sabotage made one night by a "commando"... Some scandals were not necessarily communicated by the media at that time, as is the case today. It may have been good sometimes, but not necessarily for everyone. When money is the only basic value and by which any criterion is arbitrated by it, the Bible tells us in (1 Timothy 6 - 10): For the love of money is the root of all evil.//

How not to feel human injustice in such circumstances, and not to turn to what we believe to be good, even if it is the worst danger of all those who are lying in wait for us.

I had read in those red-colored, almost garnet-colored paperbacks, those Rampa books from which I had seemed to me, drawn so many good things, that it was easy to talk to the dead, so I did . This first night of mourning around this table in the kitchen, because of this deep suffering, this immense distress, I even invited each of mine to do the same. It was certainly without knowing what the word of God teaches about this in (Deuteronomy 18-10/12) There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.//