How does the present make epoch ? How does one becomeaware that a breaking off is happening which sets forth in a bygone past the time which we formed one body with, which has been “our young days” ? According to Gide’s words, « it is merely when we leave a thing that we name it ». The dramaturgy of nomination is, as a matter of fact, closely linked to retrospec-tive illusion : “interwar years” in that sense is an exemplary chrononym. It nevertheless remains that “from the blind core of time” (Michel Murat) names impose themselves which contemporaries perceive as names for the present.