Exhibition “My dear little Jeannie”

From June 11 to 29, 2018
Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sète Marine Station, 2 Rue des Chantiers
Designed by the municipal archives department of Sète, the exhibition "Ma petite Jeannie chérie" (My dear little Jeannie) presents the correspondence between Bernard Collin, a biologist at the Sète zoological station, and his wife during the Great War. An intimate and touching testimony between memory and history.

Intimate correspondence during the Great War

Bernard Collin was a biologist at the Sète Zoological Station when World War I broke out. A non-commissioned officer in the 21st Infantry Regiment, he joined the front on November 7, 1914, near Béthune in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. He was killed during the Third Battle of Artois in the fall of 1915. He was just 34 years old.
From August 1914 until his death, Bernard Collin and his wife Magali wrote to each other almost every day.
Their correspondence bears witness to the intensity of their feelings, but also to the bloody conflict ravaging Europe. Magali Collin mentions their daughter Jeannie, born in 1911. Bernard Collin shares with his wife his reflections as a cultured and sensitive man on what he is experiencing at the front.
This humanist also addresses his daughter, to whom he sends sketches and drawings.

Traveling exhibition

It was based on this beautiful correspondence—more than 600 letters preserved by Bernard and Magali Collin's granddaughter—that the Sète municipal archives department created the exhibition
"Ma petite Jeannie chérie" (My dear little Jeannie).
A traveling exhibition consisting of a documentary film and 23 panels presenting numerous originals, including letters, photos, drawings, postcards, newspapers, archival documents, and more.
The result of meticulous collection work, they bear witness to an era and a wonderful love story that has been brought back to life today.