Hello everyone. This is the continuation of the story of my French family.

The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 12

Léonce Adult Life

After his return from Rome in September 1907, Léonce got a bachelor of law ("Licence en droit") in 1908.
He then started to work for two government organizations' archives: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ("Ministère des Affaires étrangères") and the Historic Research Center of the City of Paris ("Centre de recherches historiques de la Ville de Paris")
Léonce also taught auxiliary sciences for history at the Institut Catholique de Paris.
Finally, in February 1909, he was hired as an archivist by the Archives Nationales, where he stayed for the rest of his working life.

The Archives Nationales are located in several buildings in the district of Le Marais in Paris, including the Hôtel de Soubise.

Hôtel de Soubise (source)

The Archives Nationales preserve the national archives of France, except for those of the ministries of defence and foreign affairs. They have been created in 1794, during the French Revolution, first to preserve the pre-revolutionary historical documents of the various levels of governments in France.
The Archives Nationales keep the documents related to the central government of France. In each French département, there is also archives ("Archives Départementales").

Being well established, Léonce got married in November 1911 with my grandmother Marguerite, that I have never known as she died in 1940 at the age of 50. The young couple, like my maternal grandparents, were "professional Catholics" and decided to have many children. They will have eleven: 7 boys and 4 girls.

Two sons were born before World War I: Charles in 1912 and Henri at the beginning of 1914.

During World War I, Léonce was a soldier for four years. He became a poilu ("hairy one"). Poilu is an informal term for a French World War I infantryman. In familiar language at this time, it designated someone that was courageous and virile. Also, it was common to have a beard or a moustache.

A poilu

Being a soldier did not prevent him to have more children. My father Paul was born in 1915 and my aunt Françoise in 1916.

After the war, in the 1920s, Léonce bought a house in the city of Le Chesnay near Versailles. This is the same city where Henri, my maternal grandfather, bought a house in the 1930s. And this is how my parents met.

Continue to Part 14

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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12
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