Art reflects life, and vice versa
The Feb. 23 obituary for Simone Segouin, “As a teen, she fought with French Resistance,” revealed a remarkable life that many would not have known about otherwise. The obituary noted that she joined a ragtag group of armed fighters, marched into reclaimed Paris with Gen. Charles de Gaulle and earned the nickname “the Girl Partisan of Chartres.”
That medieval town’s cathedral now draws travelers and pilgrims, however, not for its “twin” spires but for its defiance of symmetry. In the 16th century, when one of its circa 12th-century Romanesque towers burned, the Catholic citizenry replaced it with one in flamboyant Gothic style. That commitment to living in the present also figured in the confident heroism of young Segouin.
Jean Lawlor Cohen, Chevy Chase