"Albéric Magnard, musical composer, born in Paris on the 9th of June, 1865; died on the 3rd of September, 1914, shot and burnt in his house while trying to defend it."
Celui-là qui, rebelle à toute trahison,
Et préférant la Muse à toute Walkyrie
A défendu son art contre la barbarie
Devait ainsi mourir défendant sa maison
Edmond Rostand,
de l'Académie Française.
(He who, revolting against treachery
And preferring the Muse to any Valkyrie
Defended his art against barbarity,
Was doomed thus to die, defending his home)
His inspiration entirely French, Magnard (as Rostand recalls in the above lines) had kept his art free from German influence.
His artist's sensitiveness made him suffer intensely from the horrors of invasion; he warned his friends that he was resolved to die rather than submit to the rule of the conqueror and that his revolver held four bullets for the enemy and one for himself.
He had sent his family back to Paris, only keeping his young son-in-law with him. The Germans entered Baron on September 2. On the 3rd at about 9 o'clock in the morning, a party of soldiers entered the grounds. The composer had locked and barricaded himself in the villa. After summoning him three times the Germans fired from the garden at the façade shown in the view below.
MAGNARD'S HOUSE (inner façade)
Magnard retaliated through the Venetian blinds of a window on the first floor, killing one of the soldiers and wounding another. The composer's son-in-law returning from a short walk, arrived at the beginning of this scene. Seized and bound to a tree, he only escaped death by passing himself off as the gardener. After having fired a few rounds the Germans awaited the instructions of the commander. The latter at first decided to burn the village as a reprisal but on the entreaties of the Public Notary, Me. Robert, modified the sentence and ordered that the incendiarism should be limited to the villa Magnard. After having hurriedly pillaged the composer's study, the soldiers set fire to the kitchen with straw and grenades. When the smoke began to rise Me. Robert and Magnard's son-in-law heard a report from the interior of the house. The author of Guercœur and of Bérénice had no doubt just died by his own hand. An officer then said to the Notary "He takes the best way out." Magnard's body was consumed in the fire. His revolver was found with three chambers empty.