I had made a commitment: to tell the story of the Le Briand mattress maker and the business founded in 1880. In doing so, I would also have to tell my own story at the head of the workshop, along with changes in the trade and in people’s habits…
It began when I posted a photograph from my archives on the Facebook page of La Fabrique de l’Histoire. By “archives,” I mean a motley accumulation assembled haphazardly over the years: I do not have a collector’s temperament.
But the other members of the group responded so warmly that I became caught up in it. When I learned that the France Culture program had begun just as I was putting myself forward to take over the company, the coincidence unsettled me. Remembering the serials that Mr. Laurentin regularly wove into his program, I modestly decided to create my own, right here.
So I begin… and I do not know where! Or rather, I do not know when. There certainly was a coincidence in September 1999, but I have to admit that, for me, it was not the real beginning: there was a before, and I cannot simply leave it out.
And before that before, there was yet another preamble, itself preceded only slightly by… Good grief, if I start unraveling this thread, I will have to discuss my parents’ wedding, the dead of the Great War, Constantine’s conversion… Adam and Eve… Heavens, claiming to be a historian is much harder than I imagined!
Even though I have the best witness imaginable at hand—myself—and aspire to little more than a simple company autobiography, I find myself trapped by a subject far broader than I first estimated, with milestones that are uncertain to say the least.
What could I do? Take the plunge and make a clean break: this story would begin in 1998 with a dismissal. There!