CHILDHOOD AND EXODUS 1940
To penetrate Poucette's personality is to take up a hell of a challenge because like any great personality, she is everything and its opposite, whole and full of contradictions.
Could Poucette's uncontrollable and savage passion be an echo of the frustrated loves of her mother Madeleine Polis ? The latter allegedly fled to Switzerland with a thief who had committed an armed robbery. Shortly after, she returned to the country, the affair was hushed up and she met her future husband at the military ball, Robert Fauconier .
They had two daughters: Marie-Louise (Milou) and Suzanne (Poucette) ,
first name that she will never wear.
Poucette describes herself as a lonely child, with an avid curiosity, having difficulty in supporting the social and family protocols imposed on her. The mere fact of having to obey causes in her a feeling of revolt that she cannot control.
Very young, she has the impression of not belonging to this family and of being completely misunderstood.
The Fauconiers live at 23 Avenue Delleur in Watermaal Boitsfort in a house on the edge of the Sonian forest. Hence Thumbelina's immense attachment to the forest.
To escape the “grazing” visits to the adult world, Poucette takes refuge for long hours in her room and frantically draws all the little events of her life.
The boring visit
Household chores
On the way to school
Thoughts on the return
Schoolyard
Later, in 1940, it was an old uncle who urged her parents to register her at the Academy of Fine Arts and Decorative Arts in Brussels.
But before that there will be The War, the Exodus to Dunkirk.
As Poucette's father is a soldier, Madeleine and her two daughters will benefit from a military convoy to leave Belgian soil while he will resume his service. The family will go three long months without hearing from each other.
Spectacle ambulant
The old lady telling a story to her attentive animals