Henri Michaux, Passages.

Come along, child, have no fear ; the footsteps you watch here were not escaping from anything, the fire was not a war, and the darkness was not dreadful once unraveled by the torch. He who walked about here thirty thousand years ago, maybe more, maybe less, was Sapiens sapiens , he was your fellow creature, your brother as the scientists will tell you ; but I am also telling you that while being another yourself, he is also your mirror and your memory.

The approach could be different : will the children of the schools here in Ardèche, will all of them " learn " Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc (the felines) as they would have learnt Lascaux (the horses), Altamira (the buffaloes) or Gargas (the cripple hands) ? And what about if Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc had been in the Gard, owing to other revolutionary choices, would it have changed anything for the school and the children here ?

Nothing.

And yet everything.

One can never get out of old quarrels ... In this one, the inside and the outside, the confinement and the open-mindedness, Abel and Caïn, the local and the universal are in direct opposition. Is the question to know whether the Restitution site will help the children learn Prehistory correctly ? The pupils will certainly come and visit this Site soon, as an illustration of their course or as an award by the end of school year ; and this is a good thing.

Yes, but ... What about the child ? The child from the school and the child from the cave ? Who will be able to catch the glances, the questions, the emotions, the discoveries ? A footstep, a trace for eternity... Finally, to become definitively famous and have a seat in the Pantheon, it is enough to walk : walk at the right place ; at the right time ; not even straight.