Epilogue: 30 November 1938

On 1 December 1938 the front page of Le Matin carried a single photograph, a photograph of children leaving school (Fig. 28). The event shown is not distinctive; it is entirely banal. The school is unimportant; it is not even identified, although one can make out that it is in the second arrondissement. The photograph itself is unremarkable; it does not isolate a dramatic exchange, or reveal a telling detail. The composition has a studied neutrality, approximating the glance of a passer-by on the other side of the street. Yet the editors of Le Matin were not alone in adopting this form of coverage on 1 December. Similar photographs — of different subjects but equal banality — appeared in a number of newspapers. These papers included Le Figaro, Le Journal and Le Jour-L’Echo de Paris.1