L'épaulette: Souvenirs d'un officier

The narrator recalls childhood encounters with an elderly veteran whose blunt habits, vivid battlefield anecdotes, and strict belief in military honor pervade family life and conversation. Episodes shift between domestic detail—meals, medals, mourning visits—and public scenes such as parades and political debates, where the veteran denounces pacifist or humanitarian ideas. These memories trace the narrator's gradual initiation into ceremonial expectations and martial pride while exposing generational tensions and anxieties about national strength, producing a reflective portrait of military memory, loyalty, and the uneasy coexistence of nostalgia with changing social attitudes toward war.