The poem was written in
Montchat, a neighborhood in the
third arrondissement of
Lyon, at the home of Aragon's friend
René Tavernier, a fellow poet and resistance member; Tavernier harbored Aragon there during the
Occupation along with Aragon's partner
Elsa Triolet. The former location of the house, now occupied by , has been marked since 1993 by a commemorative plaque. In a 1963 interview with broadcast on
RTF, Aragon explained that at the time he wrote the poem, Triolet intended to leave him due to a Resistance rule that a couple active in the movement could not live together, as this would pose an
operational security risk. The poem's manuscript was displayed in 1972 at a
Bibliothèque nationale exposition on Triolet. René Tavernier's son
Bertrand, however, claimed that the poem's original manuscript was still in his father's possession, and that the one displayed at the Bibliothèque nationale was a later copy. The poem was in fact dedicated to his mother Geneviève, according to whom Aragon made a second manuscript after the war when the original dedication provoked a quarrel with Triolet. A facsimile of the Tavernier manuscript was published in 2010 in the review ''''. == Adaptations ==