1. In the beginning
As soon as he was appointed choirmaster at the Sainte-Clotilde church in Paris, France, Franck had the ambition of becoming the titular of the Cavaillé-Coll under construction: one of his programs, a concert given on February 22, 1858 in Orléans, attested that “the piano will be played by M. César Franck, the choirmaster and the first organist at the Sainte-Clotilde parish in Paris.”1 During the official inauguration of the church on December 19, 1859, during which he played (as did Lefébure-Wély), the musical press presented him as the “organiste titulaire de Sainte-Clotilde.”2
In his biography of César Franck, Maurice Emmanuel justly reveals:
César Franck was choirmaster at Sainte-Clotilde (1858) where Théodore Dubois accompanied his choir. Imposed upon him by Abbot Hamelin, the parish priest, this choir could be compared to a loose-fitting overcoat whose sleeves hampered him from conducting. Franck was also organist in this same church, where he possessed one of the most beautiful instruments ever constructed by Cavaillé-Coll and whose admirable voices gradually aroused his genius as an improviser.3
Franck generously allowed Théodore Dubois to play this instrument occasionally when he conducted the choir, as on April 2, 1861, for the first performance of his three-voice Mass in A Major, op. 12 (1860) with orchestra.4 As Dubois has confirmed in his Souvenirs, it was only in 1863 that Franck was finally named titular of this most poetic instrument.5
Although Dubois left Sainte-Clotilde to begin his functions as choirmaster at La Madeleine beginning on November 27, 1868, he remained César Franck’s close friend. He strongly supported his nomination in 1871 as organ professor at the Paris Conservatory. He recalled this moment in his short speech given during the inauguration of the monument in César Franck’s memory, by Alfred Lenoir, in the square located in front of the Sainte-Clotilde Basilica on October 22, 1904:
When the position as organ professor became vacant following Benoist’s death, I went right away to see my master Ambroise Thomas, then director, and I said to him, “There is only one man truly dignified to now occupy this post: it is César Franck”; he responded to me: “This is true.” And he named him to this post.6
Dubois dedicated to Franck his Prélude, the first piece in his Twelve Pieces for Organ or Piano Pédalier (Paris, Leduc, 1886).
Among the liturgical works written for ceremonies at Sainte-Clotilde, Franck composed several choral works during the first decade of his service as choirmaster: in addition to his three-voice Mass, op. 12, a dozen offertories, motets and several hymns, his oratorio The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, finished on August 14, 1859, and notably his Dextera Domini, Offertory for Easter, op. 11, dedicated to the Abbot Pierre Ambroise Hamelin (priest from 1857–1883).7 In 1867, Théodore Dubois composed, at Hamelin’s request, his version of the Seven Last Words of Christ for Good Friday. This work was then traditionally performed each Good Friday at the Madeleine church. Samuel Rousseau, a musician who served this parish between 1870 and 1904, also composed religious music with harmonies openly inspired by Franck, which was used for the ceremonies at Sainte-Clotilde: two collections of his music even indicate this in their titles: Répertoire de Ste-Clotilde (Le Beau, 1887; reissued by Pérégally & Parvy, 1893–94) and Hymne à Sainte-Clotilde (1897, Pérégally & Parvy), with the text by Abbot Le Droz, which was dedicated to Abbot Gardey, General Vicar of Paris, the main priest at Sainte-Clotilde from 1883–1914.
2. The heritage
The Sainte-Clotilde musical tradition remains unique because it produced a group of musicians whose line of transmission from the professors to their students remains unbroken. The line of students of the titulars at Sainte-Clotilde who belonged to this tradition, listed below, is the most complete one to this day, without however pretending to be exhaustive:
César Franck (his organ students at the Conservatory)8
Samuel Rousseau (Nov. 1871; 2nd acc. 1872; 1st acc. 1875 ; 1st prize, 1877)
Guillaume Couture (Canadian) (1873 to 1875)
Charles Bordes (ca. 1880)
Georges MacMaster (ca. 1880), also a student of Théodore Dubois
Gabriel Pierné (Dec. 1880; 2nd prize, 1881; 1st prize, 1882)
Dynam-Victor Fumet (Dec. 1885)
Charles Tournemire (Dec. 1889; 1st acc., 1890)
Théodore Dubois (his students in harmony at the Conservatory)
Guillaume Couture (1873–1875)
Maurice Emmanuel (1st acc. 1883)
Léon Cazajus (2nd prize 1887)
Jules Meunier (ca. 1895)
Charles Tournemire (private organ and improvisation students)
Ermend Bonnal (beginning in 1904)
Maurice Duruflé (beginning in 1920)
Daniel-Lesur (ca. 1927)
Henriette Puig-Roger (ca. 1930)
Jean Langlais (1931)
Bernard Piché (1938–1939)
Jean Langlais (private organ students or those enrolled at the Schola Cantorum)
Pierre Denis (beginning in 1932)
Pierre Cogen (beginning in 1950)
Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais (beginning in 1966)
Jacques Taddei (1980).
The example of Théodore Dubois to Maurice Emmanuel
An example of faithful support of a professor to his students, that of Théodore Dubois to Maurice Emmanuel alone illustrates the quality of their relationship. At the time of Emmanuel’s nomination as choirmaster, on October 20, 1904, Dubois wrote him the following letter:
My dear friend,
I am delighted that you have accepted the functions of choirmaster at Ste-Clotilde. You have plenty of ideas, a cultivated spirit; you know how to manage, in these particularly difficult circumstances when we have imposed the “Motu proprio,” the departure of some good and of some bad. You will scarcely be the sectarian and uncompromising man from the “Schola Cantorum,” and you will neither glide to the side of worldly music, so-called more or less religious or rather more or less poorly written. You must be firm and active. You will have all of that, and in addition you are young. Please accept therefore my congratulations and my most sincere wishes, and you know that I am always affectionately devoted to you.
Théodore Dubois9
Two years later, on July 1, 1906, Dubois congratulated him for his actions within this parish:
My dear friend, I would like to express my complete satisfaction with the beautiful performance of my Mass in the Palestrinian style this morning at Ste-Clotilde. I congratulate and heartily thank you for your fine artistic interpretation. It is difficult to acquire the necessary suppleness in such a style. You must then encourage the singers of your choir and give them the compliments they deserve.
Congratulations also for the Plain-Chant [sic], which, thus sung and phrased, loses all of the cavernous severity that one is in the habit of giving to it, and which too often renders it disagreeable.
Beautiful organ pieces, well-played.
All my respects to Mrs. Emmanuel and affectionately to you,
Th. Dubois10
One year later, after Maurice Emmanuel resigned from his position as choirmaster at Sainte-Clotilde, Théodore Dubois wrote to him on April 2, 1907:
My dear Emmanuel,
That which you have told me does not surprise me! My long personal experience in this field where I worked for so many years of my life, has not hardly left me any illusions neither on the goodness, nor on the piety nor on the intelligence of those whom you know!
I was just going to write to you to say that I just learned about your resignation from Mr. Meunier, without a doubt the one whom you refer to with a M.— He just came to visit me, telling me this: “Mr. Emmanuel resigned from Ste-Clotilde, I am most certain; I am not less certain that my candidacy has a chance; I would be grateful if you would support me with a recommendation to the priest.” In these conditions, I could not refuse to write him this note, especially since I have known him for quite a long time. I therefore wrote a small letter to the priest conceived more or less in these terms: “I have been informed that Mr. Emmanuel has left his position as choirmaster at Sainte-Clotilde. If this is true, please allow me to etc. . . .”
Since I always tell the truth, I was going to write this to you, really certain that you did not take this solemn decision until after a series of all sorts of disgusting events in which you did not want to tarnish your dignity.
You remain a Christian and a believer; this is good! Strong souls support without weakness all human iniquities. You are among them!
The last phrase of your letter reminded me of my past. How many times my most sincere efforts remained unknown and were ridiculed and how many times I was treated unjustly and in a biased manner! But like you, I can say that I had “received sympathy from a minor elite, and that a sincere work in view of an elevated art is never entirely lost.”
Madame Dubois joins me and hopes that you will share with Mme. Emmanuel the assurance of our most affectionate sympathy.
Théodore Dubois11
The dedications
The dedications of works by composers from the Sainte-Clotilde Tradition to their colleagues demonstrate their mutual esteem and their fraternal relationships. Samuel Rousseau dedicated his Fantaisie, op. 73, “to the memory of my dear Master César Franck,” the Cantilena of his Fifteen Pieces (Paris, Leduc, 1892) to Léon Cazajus, and an Offertoire funèbre in this same collection to the Abbot Chazot, named second vicar at Sainte-Clotilde in 1889. Maurice Emmanuel dedicated his Three Organ Pieces (Paris, Lemoine, 1986) to his assistant Emile Poillot. Ermend Bonnal dedicated his Prayer and Chorale, op. 27, to the memory of his friend Samuel Rousseau. Gabriel Pierné dedicated the Prelude of his Three Pieces, op. 29, to the choirmaster Samuel Rousseau, and the second piece in this collection, the Cantilène, to Théodore Dubois, who became titular of the Grand Orgue at La Madeleine. Pierné also composed a Tombeau de César Franck for piano (published posthumously), based on one of César Franck’s improvisation themes.
Following Samuel Rousseau, Charles Tournemire dedicated his first important organ work to César Franck, his Triple Choral (Sancta Trinitas), op. 41, written in November, 1910 (Lyon, Janin, 1912) “to the memory of my venerated Master César Franck. This work renders homage to my master’s musical testament, his Three Chorals (1890).” For Tournemire,
the highest expression of organ music is manifest in the choral. The refined style which ensues gives it a special significance. This is not only a question of writing, its significance is higher: it is the result of a special state of the soul. . . . From the instant when the composer enters this temple perfumed with incense, he feels penetrated with dignity: his prayerful soul is filled with light.12
Tournemire’s Triple Choral contains three sources of inspiration:
1st Choral—You are grand, oh Father! You have created the world. You have regulated the grandiose rhythm. You have created life. We glorify you and we love you.
2nd Choral—The one who regulates the immense rhythm of the world, this power that is beyond all our comprehension, in order to save us took on our humanity, was born in a manger, grew up among men, lived a life in a miserable world, taught with sublime maxims, died on a cross between two thieves. Admire Christ’s ineffable sweetness and admire his unfathomable goodness and greatness. Love Christ.
3rd Choral—This grandiose manifestation of the silent march of the stars in space, the sublime act of Christ on the cross, all of these acts beyond our comprehension were dictated by the Holy Spirit.13
Charles Tournemire dedicated several of his works to his substitute organists: in 1930, to André Fleury, no. 15 of the op. 56 from l’Orgue mystique (Laetare), and to Daniel-Lesur, no. 16. In 1934, he dedicated no. 40 (for the XIVth Sunday after Pentecost) to Emile Poillot as well as no. 41, op. 57, from l’Orgue mystique (for the XVth Sunday after Pentecost) to Maurice Duruflé. Duruflé, in turn, reconstituted Five Improvisations for organ, which Tournemire had recorded at the beginning of 1931 for Polydor.
To his former student, substitute, and friend Ermend Bonnal, Tournemire dedicated several of his works: in 1895, Le Ménétrier (one of his Six Pieces for piano, op. 20—Marseille, Georges Kaufmann, 1900), an Offertory in G Major, op. 21, from the Variae Preces for harmonium (edited in Lyon by Janin in 1904, along with an Entrée in B Major, dedicated to Samuel-Rousseau) and in 1931, the 33rd office of l’Orgue mystique, op. 57, for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Paris, Heugel, 1931). In turn, Bonnal dedicated to his maître his Paysage landais (Paris, A. Durand & Fils, 1904), and to André Fleury, the third piece of his Paysages pyrénées, rebaptized Paysages euskariens, Cloches dans le ciel. Bernard Schulé dedicated in memory of Ermend Bonnal his Icône, the fifth of his organ pieces entitled Enluminures, op. 12 (Rouart Lerolle et Cie., 1946).
Tournemire dedicated his Fioretti, op. 60, no. 2 (Paris, Hérelle, 1932) to his friend Jean Langlais. It is moving to read the text written to his student, blind since the age of two:
You judge me well because, to punish me for my deep faults you weakened my eyesight and momentarily I lost my sight! Oh! Am I not only too worthy of these tribulations? And don’t I deserve even yet greater ones?14
Let us recall that it was with much emotion that Jean Langlais played this work at a concert at Sainte-Clotilde in homage to Tournemire on November 16, 1989 (to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his death). This was the last time that Pierre Cogen heard Langlais play in this church that he had served as an artist for 43 years. Too weak to go up to the Grand Orgue tribune, Langlais, who strongly wished to perform this work, decided to perform it on the choir organ. Jean Langlais dedicated his Rhapsodie Grégorienne (no. 9 of his Nine Pieces, op. 40, published in Paris by Bornemann in 1945) to the memory of his maître Charles Tournemire as well as his In Memoriam, op. 231 (Paris, Combre, 1987).
In September, 1986, Langlais dedicated his Three Antiphons to the Holy Virgin, op. 242, for solo voice (or for unison choir) and organ (Pro Organo, 1991) to Father Joseph Choné, who had just been named head priest at Sainte-Clotilde, as well as several works to his colleagues: to his former student and substitute organist Pierre Denis, Hommage à Landino from his Twenty-Four Pieces for Harmonium or Organ, op. 10 (Paris, Hérelle, 1939) and his Suite française, op. 59 (Paris, Bornemann, 1948); to his disciple and substitute organist Pierre Cogen in 1973, “Oh oui, viens Seigneur, viens Seigneur Jésus,” no. 4 from his Five Meditations on the Apocalypse, op. 175 (Paris, Bornemann, 1974); and to the choirmaster François Tricot, Dominica in Palmis, op. 83 (Paris, Schola Cantorum, 1984). Pierre Cogen dedicated several works to his maître: in 1988, Offering (Paris, Combre, 1990) and his Two Chorales (Paris, Combre, 1993); in 1980, he dedicated his Hosanna in exsilio to François Tricot (the first of his Two Hosannas on Gregorian texts; Vienna, Universal, 1985).
To his student and second wife Marie-Louise, Jean Langlais dedicated his “Il était, Il est et Il vient,” no. 2 of his Five Meditations on the Apocalypse, op. 175, and his “Feux d’artifice,” no. 4 of his Rosace, op. 211 (Paris, Combre, 1981). In turn, Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais wrote a biography on Langlais and his work: Ombre et Lumière, Jean Langlais, 1907–1991 (Paris, Combre, 1995). To Jacques Taddei, Jean Langlais dedicated, in 1988, “He is Born,” no. 6 of his Christmas Carol Hymn Settings, op. 243 (H. T. Fitzsimons, 1988).
Improvisation
Improvisation on the Grand Orgue played a primary role in the music at Sainte-Clotilde. As Joël-Marie Fauquet emphasized,
the fame of César Franck as an organist was founded on improvisation. . . . As a composer, he rarely put himself in the forefront. . . . Of the six hours of his class each week, the Master devoted at least five of them to improvisation. This says everything. . . . Franck intended to bring it to a level of perfection that had never been achieved, thus transcending the liturgical requirements which motivated this transient art.15
His two books of improvisation themes, which later belonged to Gabriel Pierné, were used especially at Sainte-Clotilde. This art served as a springboard for his imagination, which he expressed with fluidity, poetry and lyricism. Franck transmitted this art to his students. It is notably Charles Tournemire who understood so well his improvisations and their relationship with specific aspects of the Cavaillé-Coll at Sainte-Clotilde. Maurice Emmanuel was a first-hand witness to this transmission:
Please allow me, as one of Charles Tournemire’s comrades, to share a past experience during a heroic moment when, at Sainte-Clotilde, we attempted to charm our parishioners with music that was far too austere. Several weeks ago, while listening to the brilliant postlude he improvised, this brought back distant memories of how amazed I was when I listened to Tournemire’s musical commentaries during the service; on certain days, during the Postlude, his playing produced furious outbursts from the organ: for this mystic is also a genuine dramatist. If his art voluntarily brings serenity and peacefulness, it can suddenly break forth with energy: and, trembling, he attacks the keyboards, which previously sang meditatively, in response to the liturgical functions.16
Tournemire transmitted this art to his students; his pupil Jean Langlais relates:
His pedagogy, as admirable as it was, was not lacking in originality. For example, concerning a plan for improvisation: First, create the atmosphere . . . Secondly, impose it on your listeners, so that the central part is rich. Rise . . . Rise . . . then, your public will follow you . . . They will begin to pant . . . no longer able to breathe . . . Then play for them two brief and dissonant chords on the entire organ . . . Observe a long silence . . . The audience is dead . . . Then, open the gates of heaven with a poetic conclusion on a Bourdon 8? and a Voix Céleste . . .17
3. In conclusion
All of the musicians who served Sainte-Clotilde during the past 150 years had personalities and religious beliefs that were strongly different. César Franck, who kept Ernest Renan’s The Life of Jesus on his bedside table, loved the splendor of the worship services,
that which exalts the exemplary and transcending quality of sublime drama, above all human, as the pediment of Sainte-Clotilde shows, where the sculptor represented Christ showing his wounds, according to the sad bent of the piety that it thus affirms.18
Samuel Rousseau was kind, cordial, obliging and elegant. His compositions were easily accessible to the parishioners. Gabriel Pierné was neither a practicing nor a fundamental Christian, a true contrast to the great mystics Dynam-Victor Fumet, who was closely associated with anarchists and who married into a family close to the founder of the Theosophical Society, and Charles Tournemire, an emotional eclectic fond of the writings of Ernest Hello, Joseph Péladan and Dom Guéranger. For Tournemire, “all music which is not written to glorify God is useless.” This last statement puzzled Jean Langlais who dared to ask his master in 1931: “But what do you do with Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartók?” “USELESS, he responded dryly.”19 A firm Christian believer from Brittany, Jean Langlais was attracted at a young age by the ideals of his professor at the Institute for the Blind in Paris, Albert Mahaut, the author of the book, Le Chrétien: l’homme d’action.20
In spite of the many difficulties encountered throughout the history of this parish, the musicians of Sainte-Clotilde were able to respond as best they could to the aristocratic parishioners’ taste for worldly music, to the various reforms of church music (notably to the separation of the church and state in December, 1905, to the restoration of plainchant and Gregorian chants and to Palestrinian music and much later, to Vatican II). They also kept their artistic ideals, in order to strongly adhere to high-quality music. Maurice Emmanuel, who did not succeed in accomplishing his mission within this parish, remains “historically victorious”21 because he later did so in other contexts, notably in the circles in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and in his classes at the Paris Conservatory, where he formed an entire school of church musicians, notably Olivier Messiaen. His lucidity concerning César Franck and Charles Tournemire sums up the role of the musicians in the Sainte-Clotilde musical tradition:
If Franck ignored the joys that the least of artists can ever know, he was conscious of their force and of their liberty. The survivors of the time when the Saint-Clotilde organ sounded under the fingers of a master, his happiness in playing, his improvisations that he delivered, was recalled by privileged listeners, . . . In his organ loft, Franck was king. It took several minutes for his power to break forth in all its fullness, and it brought forth an orchestral tumult, in which the master played an imposing prelude. To compel him to intone the triumphal hymn, he seemed to shake the keyboards; suddenly the hymn appeared in a grandiose construction . . . More than once the horrible bell, rang by the singers’ accompanist “to tell the organist to stop playing,” announced the end of the offertory and the necessity to conclude . . . Franck, who had just played a series of evocative arpeggios, then began to proclaim: “I have not yet said anything!” or if indeed he was completely inspired: “What a shame.” But he obeyed the bell. During the Vespers, the verses of the Magnificat gave him the opportunity to create brief masterpieces in spite of the clergy’s reprimands and the congregation’s impatience, totally insensitive to the splendors of this art. It is at the organ that Franck spent his best moments when his energies were renewed, where the disdain of his contemporaries no longer troubled him, where the dignity of his life without intrigues received in the Lord’s house its supreme reward.
Art is made of new beginnings, the destiny of artists as well. Franck was not the last of musicians for whom life was sparing of favors. The most noble ones, with character and talent, those who avoid pushing others around, meditate, and only claim of their works that they be written, remain ignored for too long. César Franck, the service finished, delivered treasures to them. Have the times changed? The parishioners, do they listen to the artist who today (1926) through a close alliance with liturgy and with art, equally respecting the religious and musical functions, constructs an edifice built on the themes taken from the service of the day that is as disciplined in its structure, as those by César Franck, of whom he was one of the last students? His master bequeathed to him the gift of these contemplative and impassioned improvisations, sometimes serene, other times tumultuous, and which are like mystical dramas conceived in the secret corners of the soul. The successor of the master of the Beatitudes also buries himself in the meditation of his work and only emerges to express the thousand voices of his organ with much lyrical rejoicing, which the congregation does not seem to understand . . .22
For more information concerning the musicians of the Saint-Clotilde church in Paris, France, one may contact the following associations:
Association E. Bonnal
“Héritage Musical”
Chemin des Jardins
30700 St. Victor des Oules, France
www.bonnal.org
[email protected]
Association Théodore Dubois
Christopher Hainsworth, président
Rue de la Fontaine
34800 Lacoste, France
[email protected]
Les Amis de Maurice Emmanuel
Anne Eichner-Emmanuel, présidente
30, rue Céline
92160 Anthony, France
[email protected]
César-Franck-Gesellschaft E. V.
Internationale Vereinigung
c/o Dr. Christiane Strucken-Paland & Dr. Ralph Paland
Berrenrather Straße 134
50937 Köln, Germany
tel: 0049-(0) 221-5103355
[email protected]
L’Association des Amis de Jean Langlais
Brenda Dean, Présidente
3, rue des Moulins
35560 La Fontenelle, France
www.jeanlanglais.eu
Monsieur Denis Havard de la Montagne
“Le Moulin blanc”
87300 Bellac, France
[email protected]
This article first appeared in French in L’Orgue 2007, II-III, no. 278-279, pp. 177–185.
Acknowledgements
Carolyn Shuster Fournier warmly expresses her gratitude to Francis Dubois, Anne Eichner-Emmanuel, Denis Havard de la Montagne, Helga Schauerte and to the Ruth and Clarence Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund for its grant in 2006.
Choirmasters and Organists at the Sainte-Clotilde Basilica, Paris
The following list was established with the kind assistance of Denis Havard de la Montagne (substitutes and assistants are indicated in parentheses).1
Choirmasters
1857–1863: César Franck
1863–Nov 1868: Théodore Dubois
Nov 1868–1869: Edouard Marlois
1869?–1875: Stéphane Gaurion
1876–1882?: Alexandre Georges
1882–1904: Samuel Rousseau
1904–1907: Maurice Emmanuel (Emile Poillot)
1907–1946: Jules Meunier, replaced during the war by Etienne Audfray (Pierre Besson and Robert Vincent)
Dec 1946–June 1987: François Tricot
June 1987–Sept 1988: Yves Castagnet
Sept 1988–Aug 31, 1989: Philippe Brandeis
1989–1993: Pierre-Michel Bédard
1993–June 1994: Marcel Bardon
Organist Accompanists
1857–1863: Théodore Dubois
1863?–1869: Stéphane Gaurion
1870–1878: Samuel Rousseau (Guillaume Couture)
1879–1887: ? (Dynam-Victor Fumet, organist of the Catechism Chapel in 1884)
1888?–1890?: Clotaire-Joseph Franck
1891–1923: Léon Cazajus (Emile Poillot)
1923–ca. 1964: Pierre Besson
ca. 1964–June 1987: François Tricot
June 1987–Sept 1988: Yves Castagnet
Sept 1988–Aug 31, 1989: Philippe Brandeis
Sept 1989–1993: Pierre-Michel Bédard
1993–Dec 2003: Sylvie Mallet
2004: Olivier Penin
Titulars of the Grand-Orgue
1863–1890: César Franck, but already in 1859 he played the Grand Orgue (Gabriel Pierné, after 1885)
1890–1898: Gabriel Pierné (Georges MacMaster in 1893–1894)
1898–1939: Charles Tournemire, numerous substitutes:
Ermend Bonnal ca.1910
Roger Stiegler ca. 1920
Maurice Duruflé 1920–1927
André Fleury ca. 1922–ca. 1930
Daniel-Lesur 1927–1936
Henriette Puig-Roger in 1929
Antoine Reboulot ca. 1935
Bernard Piché in 1938 and 1939
Bernard Schulé 1938–1945
Dec 1941–Aug 1944: Joseph-Ermend Bonnal (Bernard Schulé until 1945)
Nov 4, 1945–Dec 1987: Jean Langlais (Pierre Denis 1945–1972; Pierre Cogen 1972–1975, then titular; Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais 1979–Dec 1987)
Jan 1976–June 21, 1994: Pierre Cogen
since Easter 1988: Jacques Taddei (Olivier Penin)
