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But according to most veterans the Unknown Soldier was not un grand homme,
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was not a great man in the usual meaning of the word.
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So, after a brief ceremony at the Pantheon the coffin was brought to the Arc de Triomphe.
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It had been draped with the French flag, it had been placed on a gun carriage,
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and it was surrounded by mutilated veterans
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who were there to symbolize the destroyed man and the destroyed families.
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Furthermore, and this is my point, the coffin was also accompanied by a fictitious family
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a war widow, a mother and father who had lost a son,
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and a child who had lost his father during the war.
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This as if each French man, each French woman,
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was to adopt the unknown Soldier as a member of his or her family.
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And the ceremonies of November 11th, 1920,