Chapter 11Saint-Pierre Church in Ploemeur was not large enough to accommodate all those who wished to pay their last respects to Michel, the local lad who had been killed by a twist of fate. His fellow aspiring officers from the Lanvéoc-Poulmic Naval School, dressed in full regalia, carried the coffin from the square in front of the church to the nave. Sitting in the church pews, his childhood friends, his friends from the football club, children, young adults, parents, all of those who had rubbed shoulders with Agnes the primary-school teacher were there to support her in her ordeal.
At the cemetery, Michel was laid to rest in the family vault, where his ancestors, soldiers as he was, already reposed. Each person placed a rose on the streaming-wet wood and left with a heavy heart, under
