Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed

Trocmé was quick to love and quick to anger; he was the primary moving factor in the Le Chambon resistance. In contrast, Theis was largely solid and consistent. Trocmé was born to a French Protestant father and a German mother (in the same area of Belgium in which John Calvin was born) and lived a far more cosmopolitan life than many French Protestants. His French relatives were upper class and fairly wealthy. He spent most of his childhood insulated from the world. One afternoon, while he was playing with his nephew, a poor man stopped at their garden gate. He judged the boys for being rich, and Trocmé discovered a gap between his experience and that of the poor. Rather than making Trocmé bitter, this experience led to his commitment to serve the poor rather than the upper classes.

When Trocmé was 10, his father lost his temper while driving in the countryside, and the resulting accident killed Trocmé’s mother. This was a formative event in Trocmé’s life that established his attitude toward the sanctity of life. Trocmé’s father believed (and Trocmé agreed) that he was morally responsible for his wife’s death. As a result, Trocmé’s dedication to nonviolence applied equally to victims and perpetrators of violence.

World War I and the German occupation of his city punctuated Trocmé’s early adulthood. Eventually, his family fled the city and experienced loss and hunger. However, during the occupation, Trocmé saw German soldiers exhibit massive cruelty toward Russian prisoners who were forced to work. He joined a Protestant union of students to help Russian prisoners while simultaneously finding an outlet for his emotions. Trocmé’s father was pragmatic and refused to discuss or give attention to strong emotion.

During the occupation, Trocmé struggled with anger toward the Germans and a strong sense of French patriotism. Two events strongly affected him and complicated his worldview. When he saw a group of German soldiers returning, wounded, from the front, one so badly that his jaw was made of bandages, Trocmé couldn’t bring himself to hate someone so desperately injured. Later, Trocmé met a German soldier named Kindler, who was temporarily living in Trocmé’s house. Kindler explained to Trocmé that he was a conscientious objector and, though a German soldier, carried no weapon and did his job without violence. Kindler had discovered a deep faith that negated the need to protect himself through violence and instead led him to trust in God.

Trocmé studied at the Union Theological Seminary of New York City. Though he admired the goals of the “Social Gospel” that the seminary endorsed (62), he missed the deep intimacy of a personal relationship with God that had led him to theology as a calling. In tutoring the sons of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., he discovered another element of Americanism: a nearly religious dedication to material success. When Trocmé met Magda Grilli, her matter-of-fact empathy and care for others impressed him. Although they disagreed on religion (given Magda’s experience of being forced into a convent), they found common ground in their core morality. They fell in love and returned to France in 1926 to marry.

Trocmé and Magda lived in two other parishes before going to Le Chambon. In the first parish, they started their family. The birth of Nelly, their first daughter, caused a massive hemorrhage, and Trocmé experienced psychological egoism firsthand. Although he was worried about his wife, he was surprised to discover how grateful he was that his life would continue.

While serving as the pastor of the poor mining parish of Sin-le-Noble, he helped the community rise above the challenges of a life in poverty. A man with alcoholism named Célisse initially appeared to be a massive success story. With Trocmé’s help, Célisse transformed, becoming Trocmé’s most vocal proponent, which aided him in helping others in the parish. However, Célisse could maintain sobriety only in Trocmé’s presence. When Trocmé and his family left for Le Chambon due to the children’s illness in the polluted environment, Célisse died by suicide because he couldn’t avoid temptation in Trocmé’s absence. Though the story of Célisse tells of a kind of failure, the text argues that it is also a testament to the deep change that Trocmé affected in Célisse.