An Original Example of Exploring the Inner Self Through the Archives of a Diary: André Fontaine, Jean Corentin Carré, The Youngest Hero of the Great War (1900–1915–1918)

Abstract

The archival exploration of the personal connected with the 1914–1918 war has brought to light testimony around the margins of the novels of Dorgelès and Barbusse or of the Calligrammes of Apollinaire. In effect, the literature of French youth offers examples of witnessing which are particularly interesting for research “between the center and the margins” of the Great War: thus, these micronarratives are illustrated by the Journal of Jean-Corentin Carré, the youngest war hero, published under the aegis of André Fontaine, an inspector of French schools. The account of Jean Corentin Carré occupies a critical place at the heart of a literature of juvenile witness thanks to aspects combining the child in wartime with the adult in post-bellum peace-time. This 1919 work, intended for French primary school and secondary pupils, show the progress of Jean Corentin, illicitly conscripted as an infantryman at fifteen years of age, and dead at eighteen as an aviator. He has known his “hour of moral agony”, his geographical exile from home, his goodbye to childhood and his alienation from himself. There is no other authentic 1914–1918 war testimony by a child soldier. Thus, Jean Corentin, better known under the name the “petit Poilu du Faouët”, turned himself into a diarist for 22 months. Thirty pages were enough for André Fontaine to recount his short life and death in heroic style. The task here is to identify the parameters which transformed this “corentine adolescence” into a memorable epic saga.