Photographie originale

It was at La Borie Noble, in the Haut-Languedoc, at Roqueredonde, that Lanza del Vasto and his wife Chanterelle established the Arche community in 1962. Thirty years earlier, Lanza del Vasto had been traveling across Europe on foot when he crossed paths with Dietrich, on a bench in the Parc Monceau. He had not yet begun the initiatory journey that would take him to India in 1937, where he met Gandhi — an encounter he had longed for ever since reading Romain Rolland — and which would lead him, some years later in 1948, to found the Arche community.

Luc Dietrich, who died in 1944, did not live to see his friend’s wisdom take concrete form. He had earlier dedicated his masterpiece, Le Bonheur des tristes, to him, describing it in the dedication as “a path to salvation” that could not have come about without their meeting — though it was never entirely clear whether Lanza del Vasto was often looking over his shoulder as he wrote, for this book as later for L’Apprentissage de la ville.

Another photograph of this scene is known, often reproduced and almost identical: taken during the same session, it shows the two men leafing through the pages of a book.

These photographs were taken during the Occupation, in the splendid setting of Countess Lily Pastré’s estate in Marseille, where she “welcomed, sheltered, hid or facilitated the departure of artists in danger, or simply in transit, and played the role of patron.” In 1940 she founded the association “Pour que l’esprit vive” to help artists. Among the literary evenings and concerts she gave at Montredon, the most memorable was the “Songe d’une nuit d’été” in July 1942, at which Lanza del Vasto was among the audience. He would later recall it in the clandestine journal Fusées.