Emmanuel Mounier was not alone as an intellectual refugee in Dieulefit. Around sixty of them came to this village. Writers, journalists, musicians as we saw before and artists for stays that for some of them lasted the whole war. Marguerite Soubeyran was one of the pillars that set up this welcoming and as discussed before Hidayat Inayat-Khan provided meditation and contemplation daily teaching in her school which she considered as one of the most important aspects of the children’s education. This is to say that Hidayat knew of the people welcomed in Dieulefit and Beauvallon as he must have been holding vigil with them at Beauvallon listening to the radio from London.

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Among the intellectuals figured Pierre Emmanuel (65), Emmanuel Mounier (66), Andrée Viollis (67), Pierre-Jean Jouve (68), Henri-Pierre Roché (69), Emmanuel Bobovnikoff (70), Daniel Abramovitch (Daniel Anselme) (71), Fred Barlow (35), Willy Eisenchitz (73), René Char (74), Clara Malraux (75), Louis Aragon (2) and Elsa Triolet (2), Pierre Vidal-Naquet (63), Jean Prevost (78) and more. Pierre Seghers living in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, sixty miles south, came to see his friends Emmanuel Mounier and Pierre Emmanuel to get their poetry for his journal: Poésie 43, Poésie 44.

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The Brunschwig’s family took refuge in Dieulefit, Pierre Vidal-Naquet (63) stayed twice with them in August 1943 and April 1944, meeting the poet Pierre Emmanuel. After his last stay from September to October 1944, he came back to Paris with the Brunschwig where he lived until 1948. Gerard Brunschwig was in school at Beauvallon and was much impressed by Hidayat Inayat Khan as he attested in his talks with Sandrine Suchon-Fouquet (64). This shows that Hidayat was intimately connected and aware of the intellectual refugee community.

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Pierre Vidal-Naquet was 13 in 1943.  He became a historian and taught at the ‘Ecole des Hautes Etudes en sciences sociales’ (EHESS) in 1969. He was a specialist in Ancient Greece and the Algerian War (1954-1962). He stayed in Dieulefit at the Auberge des Brises.

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Noel Mathieu (May 3, 1916 – September 24, 1984) known by his pseudonym Pierre Emmanuel (65) was a poet of Christian inspiration. He was the third member elected to occupy seat number 4 at the Académie Française in 1968.

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Emmanuel Mounier (66) (1905–1950) was a philosopher, theologian, teacher, and essayist (62).

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Andrée Francoise Caroline Jacquet, known as Andrée Viollis (67) (December 9, 1870-August 9, 1950) was a journalist and writer. She received the French ‘Légion d’honneur.’ In 1938 she worked at the newspaper with ‘Ce Soir’ directed by Louis Aragon and Jean Richard Bloch. Louis Aragon will also stay at and near Dieulefit during the war. Close to communist intellectuals, she was part of the resistance and spent the war between Lyon and Dieulefit. She had a room at the Dourson boarding house in Beauvallon. In 1945, she worked again at the newspaper ‘Ce Soir’. She wrote many books.

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Pierre-Jean Jouve (68) (October 11, 1887-January 8, 1976) was a writer, novelist, and poet. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature five times. In 1966 he was awarded the Grand Prix de Poésie by the French Academy. During the 1940 exode, Jouve left Paris. He took refuge in Dieulefit and from there went to Switzerland for the duration of the war.

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Henri-Pierre Roché (69), (May 28, 1879-April 9, 1959) author deeply involved with the artistic avant-garde in Paris and the Dada movement. Late in life, Roché published ‘Jules et Jim’ (1953) and Two English Girls in 1956 both inspired by his life. Both were adapted as films by the director Francois Truffaut in 1962 and 1971. Jules et Jim’s popularity brought much attention to Roché’s novels and life. In 1941 his friend Fred Barlow (35) helped him discover Beauvallon boarding house in Dieulefit. He took refuge there with his wife and children. He taught sport and English at the Beauvallon School nearby. He helped Jewish children and resistants passing through. In Dieulefit he befriended Pierre Emmanuel, Emmanuel Bove, Pierre Jean Jouve, Robert Lapoujade and Willy Eisenschitz who made his portrait. The evening literary talks to which he participated helped to influence him continuing writing. With Wols, an artist hiding thanks to the ‘Mairie,’ (town hall) meaning certainly Jeanne Barnier, they shared a common interest in the philosophy of Lao Tzu. In 1943 he helped Etienne Martin, a member of the sculptor group from Oppède to create ‘Vierge au sable’ 24 feet of height today destroyed. In 1947 he presented Martin to Gurdjieff while studying with him. Through Etienne Martin, he will meet another member of the mystical group from Témoignage, the resistant painter Francois Stahly.

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Emmanuel Bobovnikoff or Bove (1898-1945) (70), was a novelist. In 1940 he was mobilized as a laborer and hoped to flee to London. He managed to escape to Algiers in 1942 where he wrote three final novels: le Piège, Départ dans la nuit and Non-lieu.

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Daniel Anselme (71) (1927-1989) was a poet and journalist. He fought with the Communist underground during the war. Son of a Dutch mother and Russian father, Leon Rabinovitch, who was a lawyer. In 1939 Leon boarded his two sons at a school in Dieulefit. He joined them after the armistice of July 1940. Daniel’s father joined the Resistance and had new identity papers forged by the secretary in the Mairie, Jeanne Barnier. That was the origin of the name Anselme. Like many Free French, Leon Rabinovitch changed his name formally after the war to match his wartime identity. In Dieulefit, still only sixteen, Daniel also joined the Resistance. Unlike his father, who was a member of the Gaullist “Secret Army,” Daniel was drawn into the partisan movement, the F.T.P. controlled by the underground Communist Party. Both father and son saw action at the Battle of Montelimar in July 1944 (72).

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Willy Eisenchitz (73), French painter of Austrian origin, has mostly represented the landscapes of Provence and Drome. His works are presented in many European museums. In 1943, fearing the police he took refuge in Dieulefit where he painted under the name Villiers. His son David was arrested by the Nazis in 1944.

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René Char (1907-1988), French poet and member of the French Resistance (74). In 1940, serving under the name of Captain Alexandre, he commanded the Durance parachute drop zone. He refused to publish anything during the Occupation but wrote the “Feuillets d’Hypnos” during it (1943-1944), prose poems dealing with the resistance. These were published in 1946 to great acclaim.

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Clara Malraux (1897-1982) (75), French writer and translator, she was a member of the French Resistance. She was the first wife of the writer André Malraux. In 1920 she was a translator at Action, Avant-Garde review where she met Blaise Cendrars, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Louis Aragon, and André Malraux. In 1940 Clara and her daughter headed for the Free Zone in the south where she joined the Resistance and took part in activities such as forging documents and trying to persuade German soldiers to be deserters (76). During this time she had an affair with another Resistance member, a German anti-Fascist named Gérard Krazat, who died by the Gestapo. She placed her daughter at the Beauvallon School (77). Her intellectual activities did not cease, she and her friends managed to discuss literature. She claimed that her struggles to save her child and her clandestine activities in the Resistance enabled her to become her own person, courageous and confident in her abilities.

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Jean Prevost (78) (June 13, 1901-August 1, 1944), French writer, journalist, and Resistance fighter, he was killed in a German ambush at the Pont Charvin, in Sassenage, in the Vercors, one hundred miles north of Dieulefit.  He joined the underground National Committee of Writers, created by Louis Aragon and his wife, and took part in the creation of the clandestine newspaper Les Etoiles at the end of 1942. He wrote a doctoral thesis, Creativity in Stendhal, which won the grand prize for literature at the French Academy in 1943. He was a resistance fighter under the name of Captain Goderville. This shows again how so many people were connected with each other from before the war and ended up in and around Dieulefit.

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Alain Borne (79) (1915-1962), was a 20th-century French poet. A lawyer in Montelimar, he lived relatively unknown to the literary circles in Paris. However, he was very close to Pierre Seghers. We saw before that Seghers was a friend of Pierre Emmanuel and Emmanuel Mounier (80). Louis Aragon saluted his writing in 1942. He was also part of the intellectual network around Beauvallon School and boarding house.

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Pierre Leyris (81) (1907-2001) who knew Pierre Jean Jouve in Paris became also part of this network. He was a French translator including Shakespeare, Melville, Jean Rhys, Yeats, Dickens, Stevenson, Hawthorne, and De Quincey. His four-volume translation of the works of William Blake earned him the 1974 ‘Prix Valery Larbaud.’

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Loys Masson (82) (1915-1969) is a poet and novelist, catholic of Mauritius island origin, he was a member of the French Resistance. His brother Hervé Masson is a well-known painter. As a British citizen like Hidayat, he was illegal and hid after the armistice. He helped Emmanuel Mounier in his journal “Esprit.” In the February 1941 issue figures Masson’s poems.  In 1941 he met Pierre Seghers, Pierre Emmanuel and others in Lourmarin and worked on the poetry journal “Poésie 41”. He married Paul Slaweska. His poetry was censured by Vichy. He became a member of the communist party in 1942 and went in hiding participating through his writing and activity in the Resistance with the Front National of Liberation.

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André Rousseaux (84), was a writer whose work was recognized by the French Academy before and after the war. During the occupation he was among Dieulefit’s writers as member of the Comité National des Écrivains (85).

Benigno Caceres (1916-1991) was a historian (86), in 1942 he met Joffre Dumazedier who was a resistant on the Plateau of Vercors. Caceres participated in training and fighting with the Vercors’ resistance.

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Georges Sadoul (87), critic and film historian, he was also in the resistance with Louis Aragon and responsible for the Intellectual National Front for the south zone from 1941 to 1944. He contributed to “Lettres françaises clandestines” and “Etoiles” both underground papers.

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Genevieve (88) and Jean-Marie Serreau (89) (1915-1973), both writers and film directors.

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 Jean Vidal (90), film director also took refuge in Dieulefit.

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Francois Lachenal (91), a Swiss diplomat who helped French resistance writers publish. Easter 1943 he meet Pierre Emmanuel (65) in Dieulefit.

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Max Springer, Heidelberg’s history professor, had his wife and two children staying at Beauvallon (92).

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This is not all-inclusive but shows the spread and status of so many intellectuals who took refuge in Dieulefit. The amount listed on historical sites indicates around sixty prominent people among the fifteen hundred refugees. The local population complicity with such surge remained without failure and almost everyone will survive until the end of war.

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Among few visual artists who settled in Mimande, a village twenty-five miles northwest of Dieulefit figured Marcelle Rivier who worked as a communication agent for Pierre Raynaud “Alain” the SOE Captain responsible for southern Drôme including Dieulefit. Raynaud did not spell her last name properly on his report, however, he gave her high praise for her contribution. In that village, she hosted three radio operators from the Buckmaster/Jockey circuit. In 1945 she received the Croix de Guerre. In that village, other painters included Andre Lhote, Lovenstein, and Garbell. The Jockey circuit was the most important British resistance network in that region.

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Sixty miles north of Dieulefit, Saint-Donat village hosted Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet from July 1943 to September 1944. They spent a few weeks in 1942 in Comps, near Dieulefit. Louis Aragon was responsible for the national committee for writers and the principal contributor to the newspaper “Les Etoiles.” Elsa and Louis created the newspaper “La Drôme en armes.” They were both for short period in Dieulefit.

Other intellectuals got involved in active armed resistance like Jean Prevost (95) who fought and was killed on August 1, 1944, in the Vercors.

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