« Dieu le fit » or the secrets of a Parisian lawyer's past in the face of History

In her previous novel The Silence of the Matryoshkas, Anne Bassi revealed to us the shocking family secret that united five generations of women at the end of a journey from kyiv to Berlin and ending in Paris, from 1885 to the present day.

With a pen as lively and alert as ever, and cleverly used flashbacks, the author invites us to follow in her new novel, between 1942 and the 70s/80s, the journey of the “son” of peasants from a small village. of Drôme Provençale, in his social ascension within the capital and his quest for identity which will bring him back to his village of origin. Car Dieu le fait (title broken down from the name of this village) is above all the story of the intimate journey of its hero, who became a tenor of the Parisian Bar, towards two secrets which will go well beyond the upheaval of his personal life and plunge us into the heart of a unique event in great History during which anonymous Heroes, called the “Righteous Among the Nations”, stood out.

Born in October 1943, Christophe grew up happily with loving parents in the middle of wild nature. If Christophe decided to come and settle in Paris from 1960, it was by choice, that of donning the robe of lawyering, by vocation and by refusal of any form and to change his social condition "I know deep within me that I will not limit myself to being a regional lawyer, certain from now on to be called much further than my forests and my hills.”

It is then that Anne Bassi, a lawyer by training, rightly invites us on a unique journey to a Paris, presented as "Babylon the Great" and little known to the general public, in any case far from that ordinarily described by the media . The reader thus accompanies Christophe into the Parisian world of law, a world which has its own codes, its ambitions, its betrayals, its worldliness, its struggles for influence, its power games (politicians of course, business leaders). company but also customers) and seduction “The months pass. Women too”, “affairs come to an end” but Christophe does not “know the pleasure of loving”. Thanks to a rhythmic and incisive style and a mastered and meticulous painting of the protagonists of this world, the writer gives us a story, in History, of the evolution of this profession over the last 30 years. Against this backdrop, she paints an endearing and empathetic portrait of an ambitious provincial who wishes to succeed at all costs in the capital, without forgetting, however, to always be grateful to those who gave him his first professional chance. in Paris or offered his first collaboration as a lawyer before promoting him to associate.

In the final part of her novel, where suspense and surprises mix, Anne Bassi plunges us into the revelation of the secrets that her hero carried within him, without knowing it, for more than 40 years. It is through an unexpected meeting with a childhood friend and a trial involving the bailiffs of his past that Christophe will be led to temporarily leave Paris and turn to his childhood, in search of his origins. In this wandering of identity, the hero will also learn the true history of Dieulefit, a center of the Resistance with barely 1,200 inhabitants at the start of the Second World War and several of whom were recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations": the village made up of Catholics and Protestants did not denounce any Jews during the war. During this intimate epic, Christophe will understand that his personal destiny is closely linked to the extraordinary rescue of the 108 Jewish children of Vénissieux in August 1942, made possible thanks to the courage and solidarity of anonymous women and men and to the ingenuity of fine jurists to spare these innocent children from a disastrous fate. This discovery will make Christophe aware that his future lies in the past and that this past will forever change his future life.