HIDDEN GARDENS OF PARIS
The square is named for a victim of a modern regime, Suzanne Levy Buisson, born in 1883. At the rue Girardin entrance, a Histoire de Paris plaque identifies her as a martyr of the Resistance and secretary of the Women's Socialist Party.
Arrested and tortured by the Nazis, she revealed nothing about the movement. Deported, she died in Germany, the date of her death not known. So little is known about Suzanne Buisson and the other Resistantes, her story and the near anonymity of the plaque's profile inject a dissonance into this hilltop place so filled with light. We stand at the entrance, wanting to know more yet grateful to come upon the memory of two people who, in ancient and modern times, had the courage to resist the ruthless force of empire and fascism, two who were murdered for their courage. Again, a musical analogy comes to mind, the jangling harmonics of, say, the French composer Maurice Ravel (who knew Montmartre). In the face of a personal disaster, Ravel once said. "I firmly believe that joy is far more fertile than pain." In this Montmarte homage to the memory of Suzanne Buisson and Sain-Denis ... in this pretty corner of Paris ... there is in their courage a distinct vibration of joy.
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