Les Alpes de lumière n°109 Clermont des lapins - François Morenas

Les Alpes de lumière n°109 - Clermont des lapins, chronique d'une auberge de jeunesse en pays d'Apt (1940-1945) - François Morenas.

chronicle of a youth hostel in the Apt region.

An optimistic rebel.

One had to be determined to open, in 1936, a youth hostel in a remote farm in the Pays d'Apt. The birth of leisure, the rise of a certain naturo-pacifism and the image of this corner of Provence would do the rest: this is what François Morenas has already told us in his Hôtel des renards (Calman-Lévy), the story of the first Regain, a generous and joyful enterprise interrupted by the war.

But to persevere, in the stagnation that followed, was a matter of the highest temerity, either because the youth was occupied elsewhere, willingly or by force, or because the new policy of youth and leisure promoted by Vichy - closer to recruitment than to blossoming - could not suit our insoumis of the hills.

He would continue in his own way, setting up a new inn in a ruined priory - Clermont d'Apt -, feeding without counting on the meagre product of his crops, thus putting into practice Giono's philosophy of the return to the land. The years, the difficult days that he will have to go through will undoubtedly be the most heroic of his life. Because it quickly appeared to him illusory to be able to live, alone, in an ungrateful and prolific nature of its only beauty, and because more than ever in these historical circumstances the men revealed themselves such as they were: more often cowardly than courageous, selfish than generous, the author never evading in this field his own contradictions...

Editions Alpes de lumière.

Presentation of the editor:
In 1940, François Morenas opened his second youth hostel above Apt. The enterprise is reckless in the France of the Marshal and the Occupation. But this libertarian, animated by his pacifist convictions and his great thirst for friendship, succeeded for five years in keeping this place of welcome and meeting alive. He tells the story from his diary of the time.