Nothing hinted at the tragedy that was about to arrive that Saturday. The air was light and the sun shone over Azerailles, a village of 800 residents in Meurthe-et-Moselle, eastern France. It was the weekend of the Le Vieux Canal music festival. That afternoon, nature lovers met up on a “sensitive natural area.”
The day offered a choice: a workshop on edible wild plants under a small tent, or a storyteller-led walk along the Meurthe River. On September 2, 2017, everyone was discovering this marshland, home to newts and the large blue butterfly, whose caterpillar mimics an ant to invade anthills. Nature was astonishing. No one yet realized quite how astonishing.
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