A WAR veteran who died in Lyon in the late 1970s, but was buried in consecrated grounds in Gravesend, cannot be exhumed for reburial in France, the Consistory Court of the diocese of Rochester has ruled.
The fact that the deceased had been highly decorated in France in recognition of his services during the Second World War did not justify a departure from the presumption that Christian burial in consecrated ground was permanent, the Diocesan Chancellor, the Worshipful David Willink, said.
The remains of Lt. Pierre Louis Le Chêne were interred in Gravesend Milton Cemetery in 1980 at the request of his widow, Evelyne Le Chêne, who lived in the town at the time, but who now lives in France.
In her petition, she said that she wished for his remains to be moved to a reserved plot in a consecrated cemetery in Jaillans, in the Drôme region of southern France, because all the deceased’s family were buried in the country and she had reserved a place for herself there. It had not been her desire, either at the time of her husband’s interment, or now, to be buried in Gravesend, nor was it her late husband’s choice.
Her earlier petition for the same faculty had already been refused by the Consistory Court. She applied for permission to appeal, providing additional information that had not been put before the court before.
Since some of the additional information appeared to be “slightly at odds with” information that had “played a material part” in the court’s earlier decision, the Chancellor treated the application to appeal as an application to set aside the earlier decision, and considered the petition afresh.
The deceased was born in England in 1900 to French parents. During the war, he had served with distinction as a wireless operator in the Special Operations Executive in France. He was captured in late 1942, interrogated, and tortured, then taken to Mauthausen concentration camp. He survived there until its liberation in May 1945.
After the war, it was said that he continued to work for military intelligence. But it was also recorded that he moved to France to open a hotel with his brother and sister-in-law. He was awarded the MBE (Military), the Croix de Guerre with palm, and was made an Officer of the Légion d’honneur.
He died in a military hospital in Lyon in 1979. His remains were returned to England to be interred in his wife’s hometown of Gravesend. That had been done with the assistance of the Memorable Order of Tin Hats, a veterans’ association with its roots in the South African forces in the First World War, who had also, in communication with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, arranged for the interment in the cemetery in Gravesend.
His widow, Mrs Le Chêne, said that, when her husband was dying, she had promised him that, when her time came, she would be reunited with him, and she had never had any intention of forgetting that promise. The circumstances of his burial in England were, she said, the result of a promise to her dying husband to “be all my life with him”. This remained the motivation for her current petition.
Her husband was the holder of the highest decoration that France could bestow for courage and loyalty, she said. He was also the first Chevalier of the order, a form of knighthood, and one of the rare British to be promoted to officer rank within the order, which was a “mighty promotion indeed for a ‘foreigner’”. His award was signed by General de Gaulle himself, she said.
The French state organisations had been “waiting to receive Pierre’s urn, and intend to organise what will be an impressive reception of his remains and installation in France”, she said.
The Chancellor ruled, however, that the distinction of being a non-French officer appointed as an officer of the Légion d’honneur was not in itself a reason for exhumation and reinterment in France, and “to accede to the petition on [that] ground would be to treat the remains as portable.”
The Chancellor also noted that the casket in which the deceased’s remains had been interred in Gravesend was designed to accommodate a second set of remains, which would accord with the petitioner’s evidence that she had promised the deceased that she would be interred with him.
“It would appear objectively, therefore, that she must have been content that both he and she would be interred in Gravesend when her time came,” the Chancellor said. “To the extent that mistake and change of mind are a dichotomy,” he said, “it [did] appear that the motivation behind the present petition [could] better be characterised as a change of mind than a mistake.”
Although there was the necessary legal right for a family grave to be established in Jaillans, that could not “take away from the fact that there is already a family grave in Gravesend, there is a casket designed to take the petitioner’s cremated remains when her time comes”.
The Chancellor concluded that to grant the petition “would be quintessentially to treat [the deceased’s] remains as portable”, which was “precisely the denial of the principle of permanence” which the court was required “by binding authority to guard against”.
The refusal of a faculty would not stand in the way of the petitioner’s remains’ resting with those of her husband in due time. The existing casket would need to be exhumed so that her remains could be placed in it, and that temporary exhumation would need to have a faculty.
The Chancellor directed, however, that a letter from her executor to the Registry should suffice and that no further fee should be payable.
The Chancellor concluded that the approach he had taken favoured the petitioner in three ways. First, her petition had been considered entirely afresh rather than merely reviewed. Second, he had been able to consider all the additional evidence that the petitioner had wished to put before the court. That would not have been possible on an appeal. Finally, the petitioner retained the right to seek permission to appeal against this fresh judgment.