L'affaire Charles-Henri ou les aléas d'une généalogie franco-indochinoise de
Maxime BÂ (Ed. Amalthée 2011 out of print) suite....
10 years have passed since the publication of my "Charles Henri affair" and many elements have been added to this story, cancelling out certain hypotheses (from 2003 to 2011) and bringing at the same time their share of false leads, the craziest ones including the hypotheses of 2 mediums in Narbonne and Montpellier. Until the last few days when the DNA results clarified the ancient origins of some and others.
Let's start again from the beginning the scenario of this very real birth and of its very mysterious protagonists who nevertheless left tangible clues.
In October 1948, when I was placed at the DASS, the sorting station of Denfert Rochereau (like JL Lahaye, P.Sebastien or
Hervé Villard), the road to adoption began after 3 years of placements in a nursery in Morvan and Sarthe under the number "PARIS 268656". The certificate of abandonment was signed by my mother Fernande Madeleine LARRIEU and the birth report at the Bretonneau Hospital did not reveal anything suspicious nor any clue of a witness.
There was no trace of the sire, only the main witness, Annie, Mado's sister still living in Vence, and the genes would finally speak.
The various and regular testimonies of the 94 year old Auntie confirm that the one called "Charles-Henri" was neither called Charles, nor Henri, nor was he called that way by Mado, the little French girl who arrived from Pau in 1945. The Parisian meetings took place at the REX cinema and in the restaurants of Indochinese students around the rue
Bonaparte (Paris VIè)
Perhaps a stay at the Cité Internationale at the "Maison de l'Indochine" when
C-H arrived around 1945, then a room on rue
Bonaparte opposite the School of Architecture shared with a Frenchman (Paul or
Jean Paul).
The discreet and elegant stranger seduced Mado with his "drawing box under his arm" (without ever revealing its contents). His family, who had come from Indochina, made several appearances to break up a relationship that had become unsuitable for the parents: a father who was a "discreet and reserved literate mandarin" and a French woman who was "blond, of German or Austrian origin", authoritarian and extroverted, who terrorized her only son (it seems). She was probably the daughter of a colonist, a soldier or an administrator of the colony.
C.H. is thus French by his mother and Eurasian by his father. He probably disappeared in the summer of 1948 when Mado had already met an Armenian, Varquès Tavitian, who would train him from 1950 to 1975 in Beirut (with my sister
Rose Marie).
CH always declared that his future was in France and that he wished to "become a computer or electronic engineer" like his uncle, an aviator...
Is CH originally from Hanoi or Saigon? The leads are concentrated on the young Eurasian students of the Ecole supérieure des Beaux Arts in Hanoi (all brilliant students of Tardieu's class: Foujita, Nam Son, le Pho, Maï Thu, Vuo Cam...) All of them arrive in Paris and form a gang at the Maison d'Indochine and in the Cafés of Montparnasse. Some of them acted in films as actors or extras. (Maï THU, Dr Manh Don: the drama of Schangaï by Pabst)
Period photos are presented to witnesses such as Pham Nan (Ho Chi Minh's cameraman, who died in La Grande Motte) and Aunt Annie, but no faces are strictly identified.
The files of Indochinese students in Architecture, Painting and Art Deco at the CARAN -BNF and the police files at the ANOM of Aix en Provence do not give any serious lead, without a definite patronymic.
Let us not forget that CH is French and therefore not registered as an Indochinese or Eurasian student likely to be followed for political activities. This was the work of Dr. Manh Don on behalf of Emperor Bao Dai.
The ethnic results of my DNA confirm 26.9% Chinese and Vietnamese, 13.7% Thai and Cambodian and 8.4% Filipino Indonesian and Malaysian.
Other similar DNAs are in Vietnam, the United States and Australia and the surnames to study are VU, NAM NGUYEN and DZUNG NGUYEN.
The 5.9% of Scandinavian ethnicity could correspond to the French mother of
C-H "tall blonde Germanic or Scandinavian woman"? Only profile matching Truus Schuurman (NL)
How many "tall blond women of Germanic or Scandinavian origin" walk around Saigon (or Hanoi) in the 1920s and show off with a Eurasian husband in the French colony where everything is structured and ordered according to strict rules. This atypical couple must not have gone unnoticed in the governorate and in the settlers' circles. Did the marriage take place in France or in Indochina? All hypotheses are permitted.
The other ethnic origins are quite clear: 40.5% Iberian and 4.6% Askenazi Jewish for my grandmother Mathilde CASBAS from Huesca (
Aragon) and previously Marrano from Toledo.
The general