Satie on the Seine: Letters to the Heirs of the Fur Trade

411 Pages·2020·2.425 MB·English

by  Gerald Vizenor

SATIE ON THE SEINE
Wesleyan University Press
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Middletown, CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
© 2020 Gerald Vizenor
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Typeset in Parkinson Electra Pro by Mindy Basinger Hill
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Vizenor, Gerald Robert, 1934– author.
Title: Satie on the Seine : letters to the heirs of the fur trade / Gerald Vizenor.
Description: Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan University Press, [2020] | Description based
on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020025023 (print) | LCCN 2020025024 (ebook) | ISBN 9780819579355
(ebook) | ISBN 9780819579348 (trade paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Indians of North America—Fiction. | GSAFD: Epistolary fiction. | Historical
fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3572.19 (ebook) | LCC PS3572.19 S38 2020 (print) | DDC 813/.54—
dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025023
5 4 3 2 1
Front cover illustration: Rick Bartow, Surprise, courtesy of the Froelick Gallery.
» «
IN MEMORY OF IGNATIUS VIZENOR
AUGUSTUS HUDON BEAULIEU
ELLANORA BEAULIEU
JOHN CLEMENT BEAULIEU
LAWRENCE VIZENOR
Ignatius Vizenor was born 4 May 1894,
son of Michael Vizenor and Angeline Cogger,
on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. He was
a dapper dresser, wore a fedora, and fought for a nation that
once inspired natives in the fur trade. The surname Vizenor
was derived from Vezina in New France. Private Vizenor
was killed in action on 8 October 1918,
at Montbréhain, France.
Ignatius Vizenor was buried at
Saint Benedict Catholic Cemetery on the
White Earth Reservation. The military coffin was sealed,
and no one at the funeral could account for his entire remains.
Thousands of soldiers were harrowed in the soil that
early autumn at Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne,
Ardennes, and Picardy in France.
CONTENTS
The Beaulieu Chronicles of Liberty « ix
Hand Puppet Parleys « xiii
1 » Liberty Trees: Sunday, 2 October 1932 « 1
2 » Poetic Bruises: Sunday, 23 October 1932 « 6
3 » Enemy Way: Thursday, 20 April 1933 « 16
4 » Stolen Scraps: Friday, 12 May 1933 « 26
5 » Cri de Coeur: Tuesday, 6 February 1934 « 33
6 » Comic Ladder: Thursday, 2 August 1934 « 40
7 » Cultural Mercy: Tuesday, 25 June 1935 « 52
8 » Bastille Day: Sunday, 14 July 1935 « 61
9 » Relay of Liberty: Wednesday, 30 October 1935 « 66
10 » Panic Holes: Sunday, 1 August 1936 « 73
11 » Stray Mongrels: Thursday, 22 October 1936 « 83
12 » Lebensraum: Friday, 5 November 1937 « 92
13 » Kristallnacht: Thursday, 10 November 1938 « 103
14 » Empire Primates: Monday, 4 September 1939 « 110
15 » Dream Doctor: Sunday, 24 September 1939 « 119
16 » Secular Barricades: Saturday, 2 March 1940 « 128
17 » Rabbi of Gordes: Friday, 4 October 1940 « 134
18 » Create Fate: Sunday, 6 October 1940 « 142
19 » Literary Haven: Wednesday, 30 October 1940 « 146
20 » Celebrity of Nothing: Tuesday, 2 November 1940 « 151
21 » Rocky Unions: Friday, 13 December 1940 « 161
22 » Karl May Coups: Wednesday, 18 December 1940 « 166
23 » Place de Grève: Wednesday, 25 December 1940 « 170
24 » Finnegans Wake: Tuesday, 14 January 1941 « 174
25 » Fascist Stains: Monday, 31 March 1941 « 181
26 » Booty Culture: Thursday, 25 December 1941 « 185
27 » Blue Nights: Wednesday, 31 December 1941 « 195
28 » Star of David: Sunday, 14 June 1942 « 198
29 » Spring Winds: Saturday, 18 July 1942 « 204
30 » Operatic Bay: Thursday, 13 August 1942 « 210
31 » Gestapo Cavalry: Thursday, 8 October 1942 « 216
32 » Existential Cues: Sunday, 18 October 1942 « 222
33 » Hearsay Maestro: Thursday, 12 November 1942 « 228
34 » White Rose: Wednesday, 24 February 1943 « 235
35 » King John: Monday, 10 May 1943 « 239
36 » Literary Revenge: Thursday, 16 September 1943 « 249
37 » Traitor of Lyon: Monday, 20 September 1943 « 257
38 » Empty Plinths: Friday, 3 December 1943 « 261
39 » Moral Duty: Sunday, 26 December 1943 « 265
40 » Faded Presence: Sunday, 20 February 1944 « 276
41 » Escape Distance: Saturday, 8 July 1944 « 286
42 » Jardin de Guerre: Saturday, 19 August 1944 « 296
43 » Solemn Repose: Sunday, 27 August 1944 « 303
44 » Standby Solace: Sunday, 3 September 1944 « 312
45 » Shadows of Shame: Sunday, 8 October 1944 « 317
46 » Clown of Sanary: Thursday, 12 October 1944 « 324
47 » Sleeve Stories: Sunday, 15 October 1944 « 330
48 » Morning Star: Wednesday, 25 October 1944 « 335
49 » Totemic Custody: Thursday, 26 October 1944 « 340
50 » Rolland of Ethos: Wednesday, 3 January 1945 « 345
THE BEAULIEU CHRONICLES OF
LIBERTY
Basile Hudon Beaulieu wrote fifty letters to the heirs of the fur trade
between October 1932 and January 1945. The messages were copied
and circulated to family and friends on the White Earth Reservation.
At the end of the war the letters were translated as native chronicles
in a six-volume narrative sequence, roman fleuve, and published by
Nathan Crémieux at the Galerie Ghost Dance in Paris, France.
The letters convey the mercy of liberté, the torment and solidarity
of Le Front Populaire, the Popular Front, an alliance of political
leftists, and the contest of ethos and governance in the French Third
Republic. Basile relates the massacres of natives and the misery of
federal policies on reservations to the savage strategies of royalists,
fascists, communists, and antisemites during the eight years before
war was declared against Germany, and to the end of the Nazi
Occupation of Paris.
The letters to the heirs of the fur trade during the war reveal the
cruelty and deprivations of the Nazi Occupation, the persecution of
Jews, the devious collaboration of the Paris Préfecture de Police, and
the eternal shame of the Vélodrome d’Hiver Roundup. Maréchal
Philippe Pétain, clever cringers of the Vichy Regime, and the betrayal
of résistance networks are condemned, and at the same time the
insurrection and liberation by Les Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur, the
French Forces of the Interior, and the littérature engagée and integrity
of Romain Rolland are celebrated in the last emotive letters.
The final six letters to the heirs of the fur trade were written after
the liberation of France and relate the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane,
the honor of Sénégalais soldiers in Sanary-sur-Mer, and the Galerie
Ghost Dance in Paris; and the last letter includes a hand puppet
parley between Romain Rolland and Adolf Hitler at Place de