During the night of 22 to 23 June 1940, a drunk German soldier invaded the manor, killed the family's faithful governess, raped Saint-Pol-Roux's daughter Divine and seriously injured her in the leg with a revolver bullet. The German soldier was later court-martialed, and was sentenced to Death. Saint-Pol-Roux miraculous escaped death in the incident but was later taken to hospital in Brest on October 14, where he died of a broken heart when he heard that the manor had burned down with his unpublished manuscripts inside.
