Vieille France

1938. Young Bénédicte Drot, daughter of an upper class versaillois family, gives birth to a child with an unknown father. Chased away from her family, Bénédicte decides to become a governess. She is employed by Ernest and Antoinette Treives, a rich Jewish family to look after their young son Maximilien. Bénédicte is 26 years old. She is catholic and respects tradition and would never give up her anti-Semitic prejudices. Nevertheless, between 1938 and 1945, she becomes indispensable to the family she lives with and which is profoundly disrupted by World War II. "Vieille France" tells Bénédict's story, the story of a strong woman, deeply attached to the boy she is responsible for and truly faithful to his mother. But neither Maximilien nor Antoinette will ever know Bénédict's secret...Hélène Millerand was born in 1945 in Versailles. She works for the Cultural Department of the City of Paris and has published two texts so far: Les carnets d'une coquette raisonnable (Le Seuil, 1992) and Renonce avec grâce à la jeunesse (Le Seuil 2002). Vieille France is her first novel.