MAU’RIAC: PM RECENT JOURNALISM

flesh for the beam 6? M. A.
MICHIGAN STATE UNNERSETY

Sara Margaret Walfiaca
1962

1*"
«“7581?

LIBRARY

Michigan State
University

 

MAURIAC: HIS RECENT JOURNALISM

By

Sara Margaret Wallace

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Foreign Languages

 

42Wg7
I ,

CFNTFNTS
INTRODUCTION 1
PART I ~ PERSONAL GLIMPSES

Chapter Page
I. Mauriac, Journalist . . . . . . . . . 2
II. Mauriac's Reminiscences . . . . . . . 7
III. Mauriac's Evaluation of His Own Life
and Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
IV. Mauriac's Religious Views . . . . . . 21
PART II — LITERARY DISCUSSIONS
V. As Mauriac Sees the Academy . . . . . 56
VI. Literary Theories and Techniques. . . 41
VII. Mauriac Judges Three Contemporaries . 55
VIII. Attitude toward Young Thinkers and
Writers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
PART III — POLITICS AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
IX. France in the Immediate Post-War
Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
X. Mauriac, Political Commentator . . 75
XI. Mauriac Surveys Political Parties . . 80
XII. Foreign Affairs, Barometer of French
Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9}
XIII. Mauriac Evaluates French Statesmen. . 108
CONCIUSIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

7.

Le

ii

Does Mauriac really have something to say, or
is he merely trading on his reputation? How
seriously does he view his present work?

What revelatory recollections does Mauriac
share with readers? How does he evaluate his
own life and work, as seen in retrospect?

What are his religious attitudes? Has he be—
come chiefly an apologist for his church, or
is religion a major point of reference in
other areas of his life? How tolerant is he
of other points of view and of other faiths?

What importance does Mauriac attach to mem-
bership in L'Académie Francaise? Has his
point of view been consistent, or has it been
modified by develOpments within the institu—
tion itself?

What are Mauriac's literary theories and judg—
ments? What are his opinions of his contem-
poraries? What is his attitude toward young
writers and other intellectuals?

How does Mauriac view recent history and the
contemporary scene? Does he merely record
events and his opinions thereof, or has he a
well—defined political philOSOphy? How con-
sistent is his point of view? Has he made
any predictions? If so, to what extent have
they materialized?

Has Mauriac the journalist escaped the stereo-
type of Mauriac the novelist?

Figaro and Le Figaro Littéraire (Paris daily.

 

and its

 

weekly literary supplement, respectively),

have long carried front-page articles on a variety of

subjects from the pen of Francois Mauriac. Issues

published between 1945 and the end of 1960 proved an

ample source of material for this study.

A second source of information has been Bloc—Notes.

This feature was found regularly, until the summer of

INTRODUCTION
Francois Mauriac, French poet, essayist, novelist,
and playwright, was born in Bordeaux in 1885. At the
Lycée of Bordeaux, he won first prize in French. 1909
saw the publication of his first book of poems, gains
Jointes. This volume was followed by another in 1911,
L'Adieu a 1'Adolescence. His first novel, entitled

L'Enfant Charge de Chaines, appeared in 1915, and he

 

was married in the same year. Other novels followed.
He also wrote essays on Racine, Moliére, Rousseau,
Flaubert, and Pascal. In 1926, he won the Grand Prix
du Roman awarded by L'Académie Francaise. In March of
1932, Mauriac was elected president of the Société des
Gens de Lettres. In June of the following year, he was
elected to L'Académie Francaise.l His Complete Works
were published in 1951. To these, he has added three

novels (Le Sagouin, Galigai and L'Aaneau), and a book

 

entitled Mémoires Intérieurs. In 1952, he received

 

the Nobel Prize for Literature. In recent years, he
has become a journalist.

An analysis of several hundred articles written
by Mauriac in the period between the close of World
War II in 1945 and the close of 1960, suggests the

following questions:

 

1Kunitz and Haycroft, Twentieth Century Authors
(N. Y. : H. W. Wilson Co., I942) 936—957.

 

iii

1961, occupying the entire back page of the Paris week—

ly L'Express. In this publication, Nauriac had complete

 

freedom to express his views on all subjects, as indi-
cated at the tOp of his page in each issue. He intend-
ed, as he says, to be a sort of eye-witness to history,
setting down his reactions to events as they tranSpired.
These observations were not intended to be political per
se. As time went on, however, the writings took on

more political significance.

The articles which appeared in L'Express between

 

1952 and 1957 have been published in book form under the
same title as the newspaper feature. A second volume.
covering the years 1957-1960, was scheduled to appear
in the spring of 1961, according to Mauriac's article in

Le Figaro Littéraire on October 15, 1960. The articles

 

as they reappear in the published volume, Mauriac as-
serts, have not been retouched except for certain ex-
cisions. He has deleted some items which he feels are
of no current interest, and a few which he considers too
personal. He has deleted nothing, apparently, for the
sake of his own reputation as commentator and prognos-
ticator.2

All translations and paraphrases of Mauraic's ma—

terial are done by the writer of this thesis.

 

2Franqois Mauriac, Bloc-Notes (Paris: Flammarion,
1958) Preface, ii.

 

PART I
PERSONAL GLIMPSES

CHAPTER I
MAURIAC, JOURNALIST
Having made both his reputation and his living by
writing fiction, Mauriac turned to journalism for the
greater part of his later literary efforts. This
launching of a second literary career raised two ques-
tions: when and why?

The answer came to light in Bloc-Notes. Mauriac

gives the following eXplanation:

Ce demon inconnu -- ou cet ange -- qui me
pousse par les épaules, m'a toujours possedé de-
puis ma dix-huitiéme année. Mais j'étais alors
1a proie d'un autre demon plus puissant et qui me
charmait: écrire était toute ma vie. Et que
m'importait 1a férocité des hommes, si je la
peignait?

Celui des deux anges que je réduisais au
silence m'inspira alors, a mon insu, une peinture
cruelle et meme féroce de ce monde que je ne
songeais qu'a décrire. Il n'empéche que j'y
figurais moi-meme parmi les nantis a qui, dés 1e
depart, tout est donné d'avance.

Tout m'était donné, sauf de pouvoir étouffer
en moi une protestation sourdement irritée. Ce
n'est pas 1e lieu de montrer que cette inquiétude
naissait au plus secret de ma conscience reli-
gieuse: il fallut l'agression fascists en Ethi-
Opie, et surtout 1a guerre civile espagnole pour
qu'enfin un faible cri me ffit arrache. Puis ce
fut 1'occupation, ces horribles jours tout péné-
trés d'une merveilleufe espérance. J'écrivais
Le Cahier noir . . .

 

lMauriac, Bloc-Notes,0ct. 13, 1955, 199-200.
Hereinafter this work will be indicated as a page
number in the text.

 

Mauriac insists upon freedom of the press, even
though, as he observed shortly after the close of World
War II, "Le monde est terriblement desaccoutumé d'étre
libre."2

In the same article, Mauriac spoke of two schools
of journalism: one can chart a middle course, produc-
ing innocuous articles which will offend no one, or one
can set down his honest reactions to each event as it
occurs, however imprudent such observations may be.
Mauriac has chosen, and consistently followed, the lat-
ter course, recognizing the risks involved: (1) of
earning the reputation of a writer who contradicts him~
self and yields to his personal "humeurs" and (2) of
wounding certain readers whose complacency he has upset.
One must accept these risks in the interest of freedom:

I1 faut accepter ces risques et ouelques
autres encore. La guerre est finie; la nouvelle

EurOpe prend forme sous nos yeux; que les Fran—

cais osent dire ce qu'ils ont a dire; qu'ils

prennent conscience de cet immense bonheur qui
leur a été rendu et qu'il a fallu payer si cher:

1e bonheur d'étre une nation d'hommes libres. 3

Writing on June 20, 1954, as Méndes-France became

President du Conseil, Mauriac insisted that, no matter

who was in power, he would write what he believed to be

 

2Le Figaro, 1. No date on microfilm, but issue is
in sequence between May 8 and Oct. 5, 1945.

 

3Ibid.

 

4

in the public interest. "Moi, je reste du cote public."
(105) He intended to support Mendés-France, but not
to the point of forfeiting the freedom of the press.

Rather:

en gardant notre franc-parler, en restant du
cdté public. Quand nous ne serons pas d'accord,
et nous ne 1e serons pas toujours, ni sur tous
les points. il ne faudra pas se retenir de le
dire. (106)

That he had no intention of mitigating his obser-
vations because of what an individual or group might
say, he made clear in the same article. He made no bid
for pOpularity. "Le sucre est un article que je ne
tiens pas," he said, and again, "Ma vocation est
d'irriter." (106)

By way of illustration, we may observe his com-
ments on the foes of Mendés-France:

Je souhaite passionément que Pierre Mendés—
France remette a flot ce vieux pays. 11 faut que
ce ministére dure autant qu'il sera necessaire
pour la salut de la nation. Ceux qui ont juré sa
perte, nous les aurons a l'oeil. Ils n'ouvriront
pas 1a bouche que nous ne leur remettions le nez
de force dans ce u'ils ont fait. Nous les en
barbouillerons. 106)

Writing in January of 1960, Mauriac assumed full
responsibility for his own decisions and comments:

Je m'interroge, et je cherche ma route sans
demander conseil a personne, puisque personne en
vérité n'a jamais connu les données d'aucun de
nos problemes, et que nous avons toujours du
nous decider seuls, comme nous mourrons, comme
nous serons jugés, Seuls.

 

4L'Express, Jan. 14, 1960,1H3.

 

5

Mauriac takes very seriously the power of the press,
which he calls a "terrible miroir." (226) He also
takes seriously his role as journalist and commentator
on the affairs of the day with their implications for
the future. His vocation, his politics and his religion
are all of a piece in this respect. On September 19,
1955. he said:

Na vocation est politique dans le stricte
mesure ou elle est religieuse. Ne jamais 1e

perdre de vue, mais ne rien céder de mes positions,

de ce que je crois étre vrai, par interét, par

commodite, par lassitude -- ni meme par amitie. (46)

This sense of mission is even more strongly ex-
pressed on April 1, 1954, as war began in Indochina.

Re would like to use an old man's prerogative to escape
"absolute evil," as he termed this war. But he has
"enlisted."
Je suis engage, au sens materiel du terme,
comme un soldat qui a signe son engagement. Que
1a passion politique m'entraine ou m'égare, il
0 . o I

n'en reste m01ns que je suis engage dans ces

problémes d'en bas, pour raisons d'en haut. (69)

Mauriac was more optimistic in November of 1960.
Insisting that no novel of his creation could compare

in interest with the story of the past three years as

set down in the forthcoming volume of Bloc—Notes, he

 

laundhed into the praises of journalism. This "genre
décri et béni" might not be a good avenue on which to
launch a literary career, but it is a glorious one on

which to end it. He wrote:

6

Je me jette dans la melee je m'en donne a
coeur joie de bien, ou de mal ecrire comme je
l'entends, sans m'interroger sur le langage, sans
me poser a son sujet aucune des questions de nos
romanciers philOSOphes. Je me sers du style, selon
1e pouvoir qui m'a été donne, pour me facher, pour
m'indigner, pour me moquer, pour defendre ce que
je crois étre vrai, pour laisser fuser, a travers
les mots, l'amour qui ne s'exprime pas, ou pour
servir, a mon rang modeste, 1'homme en qui j'ai
cru discerner une pensée directrice efficace,
accordée au destin de la nation.

Ecrire c'est agir. Si cette action écrite de—
vient un jour littérature, c'est aux époques loin-
taines d'en decider, j'en aurai couru la chance,
mais je n'ai pas a m‘en méler. C'est affairs de
vitrine. Pour moi, je continue de vévre et
l'écriture se confond avec ma vie.

As may be seen from the foregoing, journalism for
Mauriac is no mere leisure—time occupation, no mere
capitalization on his past laurels. He seems to have a
satisfying sense of the importance of the work he is now
doing, as well as a profound sense of mission. This
sense of mission, if not the vitriolic tone in which
his views are sometimes expressed, is rooted in his
religion, as Mauriac himself realizes. He wrote:

Chaque jour un peu plus, ecrire, pour moi,
signifie témoigner. Je n'ose ajouter: ecrire,
c'est prier. 11 y faudrait tendre pourtant comme

a ma seule justification, car j'ai atteint l'ége
du silence.

 

5Le Figaro Littéraire, November 26, 1960, 1.
6

 

Ibid.

CHAPTER II
MAURIAC'S REMINISCENCES

If, as Browning suggests in his poem The Rainbow,

 

"the child is father to the man," it behooves the stu—
dent of Mauriac to look into the latter's early experi-
ences for the foreshadowing of the man he has become.

Characteristically, one of the first recollections
which he shares with his readers is religious; namely,
his first communion, which occurred at the chapel of the
Institution Sainte-Marie on Mirail Street in Bordeaux.
On May 12, 1955, he recalled it thus:

Je me rappelle ses larmes dans les bras de sa
mere a qui, avant d'aller communier, i1 demandait
pardon meme de ses fautes futures. Je me souviens,
aprés cinquante-sept ans, que j'étais agenouillé
en bordure de 1'allée et que j‘ai senti tout a
coup sur mes cheveux la main de ma grand-mere qui
attendait son tour d'approcher de la Sainte
Table. (26)

Mauriac mentioned the way the young people looked
when they went to Mass at the Feast of the Assumption.
The girls, who were "not so thread-shaped as those of
today," but stocky and plump, resembled flowers opening
as they appeared in dresses of percale or muslin. He
is less complimentary about the appearance of the boys.

They wore pants held above their knees by elastic and

immense sun hats which made them look like mushrooms.l

 

1Le Figaro Littéraire, July 11, 1959, l.

 

Mauriac remembered the weddings of the tenant farm-
ers. He spoke of the guttural chants which one heard as
the procession moved from the church to the celebration,
preceded by the violin. He recalled the bride's kiss-
ing everybody including, on one occasion, the teacher,

a blushing young priest. Mauriac wondered if he recalled
that episode after he became a monk.2
Nauriac remembered other sounds of the summer
nights —- the heavy trot of the horses on the wet pave—

ment, the whistle of the locomotive, the siren of a
boat leaving in the fog making him think of what he
called "des grands espaces, des rives lointaines, des
races inconnues: tout ce mystére du monde que l‘avia—
tion a détruit.”5

Turning from these musings, Mauriac spoke bitterly
of the changes that have occurred since his childhood --
not the technical marvels, but "what man has made of
man."

Avant 1914 nous ignorions ce dont 1'homme est
capable. Non, ce n'est pas aux avions que je
songe. L'homme n'avait pas atteint certaines ex-
trémités de lui-méme. Les monstres appartenaient
encore a 1'universe des contes de Perrault, ou de
1'histoire sainte. Depuis 1‘Ogre a regné sur

l'EurOpe et le Petit Poucet a été égorgé non pas
une fois, mais mille et mille fois. Herode a

 

2Le Figaro Littéraire, July 11, 1959, 1.

 

5_I_bid.

massacre plus d'innocents

entre 1941 st 1944 que

pendant tout le reste de l'histoire. Je lis en

ce moment les souvenirs posthumes de Rudolph
Hoess, 1e commandant d'Auchwitz. ll raconte qu'il
observait les enfants au seuil de l'extermination.
Ils se mettaient généralement a pleurnicher. Mais
aprés avoir été consoles par leur mere ils se
calmaient et s'en allaient vers les chambres a
gaz en jouant ou en es taquinant, un joujou dans

les bras.

Quand je me rappelle mon enfance je ne me dis
pas que c'était avant l'époque de l'auto, de la
radio et du cinema: je songe que nous n'étions

pas entrés encore dans le

temps des assassins.

Mauriac recalled the grown-ups of his childhood -—

persons who are survived only by moss-covered, half-

effaced tombstones. They were

buried in their Sunday

clothes, the old ladies wearing their wedding bonnets.

0n Resurrection Morning, Mauriac said, they would think

5

they were at High Mass.

Reminiscing again in March of 1960, Mauriac used

the term "demoiselles," saying

des images do pureté
de creatures qui dans mon
paires -- on disait: "Les
demoiselles Desbarrot" --
plus brillante et l'autre

n'avaient aucune part a 1'

creatures préservées dans

that it evoked:

et de tendresse --ce11es
enfance allaient par
demoiselles Ducasse, les
et l'une était toujours
plus effacée. Elles
universelle corruption:
des maisons et des

jardins qu'on efit dit qu'elles avaient elles—mémes
secretes, des maisons et des jardins a leur image,
on mon enfance se perdait avec délices durant les

journées que j'y passais quand nous etions invites
chez les demoiselles. au fond de ce quartier perdu
de la lande, appelé Jouanhaut. 6

 

4Le Figaro Littéraire , July 11, 1959, 1.

 

5LgFigaro Littéraire, December 12, 1959, 1.
6Le Figaro Littéraire, March 19, 1960, 1.

 

 

 

10

Here was a refuge, according to the childish mind.
It was a small world whose boundaries were odorous
kitchens, a company parlor that smelled of wax, mys-
terious attics, and the dark stable. Yet Hauriac said
that he knew even then that it was a refuge only in his
imagination. Tragedy was there, too. The father of
the demoiselles had killed himself in one of the rooms
because he could not face ruin. Nevertheless, Francois
imagined the place as an enchanted world -— a world
which was later to be obliterated by fire. ”Les
demoiselles" have a shadowy immortality in a world sur-
viving only in memory.7

In August of 1960 another article of reminiscent
nature appeared. Mauriac described such incidents as
meeting a mountebank on the road. His brothers fled,
leaving him alone, and he ran in tears to the prairie
of Malagar, thinking himself pursued. On another occa-
sion, his brothers made him sit on an ant hill. He
also mentioned walking with the other children in a
procession, carrying flowers to "Grisette" (a female
donkey).8

Mauriac remembered the last visit of his paternal

grandfather. Seated in the room of Francois' mother,

 

7Le Figaro Littéraire, March 19, 1960, 1.

 

8Le Figaro Iittéraire, Aug. 15, 1960, 1.

 

11

and looking at family photographs, he found his own

among them and sighed: "What a cemetery! I am the
only one still living." A few days later, he too was
dead. Mauriac wrote: "Cette scene sert de prologue a

l'histoire d'une mort sans cesse au cours de mon en-
fance . . ." Then he told of deliberately scaring him-
self as a child by half-Opening the door to the room
where his grandfather had died.9
Mauriac Speaks frequently of his childhood. This
led Malraux to say to him on one occasion: "Vous avez
aimé votre enfance et moi, j'ai horreur de la mienne."
However, Mauriac wrote: "L'ai-je tellement aimé?
En vérité quel hecatombe autour de moi! L'ombre de la
mort m'enveloppait."lO
Mauriac spoke of himself in kindergarten days as
"a puppy separated from its mother." Later, in his
seventh year, he entered the Marianite School in the
Rue de Mirail. Everything about this life was horrible,
he reported, except for the long study period in the
evening, Sunday and Wednesday before dinner, when he

could sit at his desk in the gentle warmth of the stove

with candies beside him, and read a book of his own

 

9Le Figaro Littéraire, Aug. 15, 1960, 1.

10Le Figaro Iittéraire, Dec. 12, 1959’ 1°

 

ll

choosing.

The depth of his unhappiness at school is apparent

.111 this description:

ggj;ve

:15; a

J'étais toujours dernier, meme en lecture, moi
qui passais mon temps a lire! Le sentiment de
l'injustice me fit cracher un jour sur mon bulletin
hebdomadaire et je frottai avec mon mouchoir pour
effacer cette in'uste place d? dernier, jusqu'a ce
que j'eusse troue le papier. 2

Summing up his childhood, Mauriac wrote: "I could
it, at will, an idea 'lugubre' or 'radieuse': it
"15

matter of regulating the lighting.
Mauriac said that he was recalling his childhood

Ikor himself alone. He had no desire to invite the uni—

‘rerse to the resurrection of this little world of yes—

‘terfiayu He wondered about his prOgenitors:

Quelle fut la vie de ces hommes et de ces
femmes dont je suis issu? Qu'ont-ils aimé, dé-
sire, hai? C'est en moi—meme que j'essaie de
déméler ce qui me vient d'eux, ouelles pensées,
quels songes en moi sont nés d'un des coeurs qui
ont battu longtemps avant le mien et dont il ne
reste meme pas une pincée de poussiére, dans ce
caveau a gauche contri4le mur, au fond du
cimitiére de Langon.

In the foregoing episodes, one may see plainly the

.formative influences which are reflected in the person-

ality and in the writing of Mauriac.

llge Figaro Iittéraire, Dec. 12, 1959, 1.

 

9 . .
1“Le Figaro Litteraire, July 11, 1959, 1.

15Le Figaro Littéraire, Aug. 15, 1960, 1.

1“Ibid.

15

The shadow of death obscured the healthy, normal
atnnosphere which is the birthright of childhood. Not
oqily was Mauriac deprived of a father at the age of
‘tvwenty'months, but he seemingly never escaped completely
from reminders of this and other tragedies. Also, the
corrly grown-ups in his environment seem to have been wo-
men, and they were not young. Worse, they seem to have
ignored him most of the time.

Though child companions were not wholly lacking
(IFrancois had three older brothers and one older sister),
Ire seems to have been less a companion than a little
izag-along and the object of teasing, as evidenced by the
(Episodes of the mountebank and the ant hill. This is an
\inpleasant situation for a sensitive child. As for the

fprocession to the abandoned house to offer flowers to
(Erisette, that is typical of the weird ceremonies cre-
.ated by imaginative children anywhere.

As noted, early school experiences were not happy.
‘Phe lonely child found his only escape in reading. One
can imagine his complete frustration when he failed to
*enjoy success even in that area, as indicated in the
pathetic efforts to erase a bad mark.

Probably the painful experiences of his childhood

combined with his strict orthodox Catholic upbringing

to bring about his early and intense religious fervor,

Of which the first communion is an illustration.

Though later, as will be pointed out in our discussion

l4

15

of his poetic theory, Mauriac endured the spiritual
struggle experienced by many adolescents, religion has
remained part of the fabric of his life.

Life in the province, the "Sud-Quest," was rela-
tively uncomplicated and moved at a slower tempo. The
fact that Mauriac lived there until he was twenty, and
has returned for occasional vacations thereafter, has
kept him somewhat provincial in his outlook. Though
he has lived in Paris for years, he is not truly
Parisian. He continues to think nostalgically of
Bordeaux and its environs. He says:

Les gens m'écrivent: "Qu'est-ce gue Sud—

Ouest? Que vous importe Sud-Guest?" Sud—Quest

mTimporte beaucoup: je suis Bordélais et rien

de ce qui est bordelais ne m'est étranger. Meme

a la rubrique des sports, s'il est question d'une
équipe girondine, je dresse l'oreille. (229)

 

 

 

15See Chapter VI, this thesis.

CHAPTER III
MAURIAC'S EVALUATION OF HIS CHN LIFE AND WORK
The process of discovering Mauriac's evaluation of
literary works, contemporary personalities, news events,
and political programs, led to the question of how he
would assess his own life and his contributions to lit-
erature.
Jean Duché, in an interview in 1951, just after the

publication of Mauriac's novel Le Sagouin} managed to

 

elicit some interesting comments relative to this
matter.

Mauriac said that he had “turned in his assignment
(copie)." Duché picked up this eXpression, asking
Mauriac if he thought he would get a good grade.

Mauriac replied that even a successful life does
not measure up to adolescent dreams. However, his
career is what he wished it to be, though he would not
necessarily begin it over again. He had come to Paris
with the naive ideas of a provincial about literary
success, but these ideas had led him in the way of
honors which he wanted. Upon Mauriac's asking for the
hand of the girl who became his wife, her father in-
quired whether he would be a member of the Academy.
Mauriac said that he confidently expected this, and also

membership in the legion of Honor.

 

1Le Figaro Littéraire, July 14, 1951, l.

 

16

In the same interview, Mauriac admitted that he had
not met all the interesting peOple whom he could have
met in his first ten years in Paris -- peOple like

Péguy and the writers of the Nouvelle Revue Franpais --

 

because of the aforementioned preconceived ideas. Also,
he said that, if he had it to do over again, he would

not admit what he called ce double appartenance.

 

Duché wanted to know if this double appartenance

 

referred to literature and the world. Mauriac replied
that he referred to the world and to Christianity.

Asked what he would do about it, Nauriac said that he
would choose not to talk about the Church -- which Duché
declared was an impossibility for him -— or he would
live withdrawn like the philOSOpher Mounier. In a rare
burst of gaiety, however, he said: "But I did not come
out so badly -- probably because I am a Gascon."

Duché wondered what grade Mauriac would give his
written assignment.

Mauriac replied that he had a fairly clear idea of
his work for two reasons. First, he had just reread it
in preparation for the publication of his Complete Works.
Second, the work of Cormeau on the "art" of Mauriac
just puhlished by Grasset had helped him to see that it
formed an ensemble. "Le romancier, le poéte, l'essay-
iste, le journaliste sont 1e reflet constant d'un homme,
de son milieu et de son époque." Mauriac added: "11

serait ridicule de dire que j'en suis content, mais je

17

. 2
trouve ou'elle ex1ste."

Duché thought that the double appartenance men—
tioned by Mauriac had been fruitful. Insisting that
Mauriac probably could not have evaded the Christian
aSpect of his life, Duché wondered if he could have re-
fused the other side.

Mauriac said that he would have been a parish
priest. To Duché's suggestion that he would have found
such a life boring, Nauriac replied unsmilingly:

Les elements du saint que nous aurions pu
étre existent en chacun de nous. Et ce serait
notre condamnation . . . Mais 11 y a "l douce
pitié de Dieu," comme disait Bernanos.

Continuing the discussion of his Complete Works,
Mauriac analyzed, compared and evaluated them, and ex-
plained their arrangement, which is not strictly chron-
ological.

His early stories are grouped under the heading
"Oeuvres de Jeunesse." There is one exception: "Un
seul a echappé a ce traitement de défaveur: La Robe
Egétggtg, qui precede ici ceux de mes romans dont je ne
rougis pas."4

On rereading this novel, Mauriac regretted his

decision. The "mollesse" of its style, the imitation

of Jammes and other faults make it "assez odieux" to

 

2Le Figaro Littéraire, July 14, 1951, 1.
3

 

Ibig.
4Le Figaro Littéraire, Sept. 50, 1950, 1.

 

18

him today. Nevertheless, placed next to Baiser au

 

lepreux, La Robe Prétexte permits one to measure the

 

changes which ten years have wrought in Mauriac. The
author of the early novel is still the "choir boy"
about whom he wrote in 1927 in'a preface for the re-

édition of Mains Jointes (religious poems). He does

 

not deny his faith of that time, any more than he denies
his poetry, but his manner of believing and of writing

then were both too simple. With Baiser au lepreux, at

 

least on the literary plane, adolescence was gone.
With this, Mauriac had found both his style and his
readers. The other novels will be bitter and hard, with

the possible exception of part of Le Mystére Frontenac.

 

None of the characters of Le Baiser au lepreux
were invented —- only what happened to them. But the
original Jean was not so ugly. "Ainsi exhumons-nous de
notre enfance des étres endormis, et nous reinventons
5

leur vie."

On rereading Lngleuve de feu, Mauriac observed

 

that it is not always the characters which he finds
firSt, but an atmosphere. In the first fifty pages,
which Mauriac considers the only good part, he finds
again the atmosphere of an old hotel at Argeles in the
Pyrenees, where he stayed for two months in the summer

of 1919. As soon as the characters leave this atmos-

 

5Le Figaro Littéraire, Sept. 50, 1950, 1.

 

l9

phere, he thinks, they lose most of their validity.
Readers do not all share this feeling, apparently, for
he says that many of them have remained faithful to
Giselle de Plailly, "cette jeune fille perdue."

By contrast, the characters in Genitrix seem to be
alive almost to the last page, perhaps because they do
not change atmosphere, do not get far from the old
"maison sinistre" built by Mauriac's grandfather in
1860. The characters do not belong to his immediate
family, however.

J'ai introduit comme par effraction, dans la
demeure de mes grands-parents, cette mere féroce
et cet fils possedé, et cette jeune femme
assassinée. Mais j'ai connu 1e fils, et, a
travers lui, i1 m'a été aisé de retrouver les
traits de sa "genitrix dévoratrice."

Destins is the first novel in which Mauriac sees

the influence of the silent movie. It remains one of

his favorites. He prefers it to Le Baiser au lepreux

 

and Genitrix, although it has had less p0pularity among
readers. He said that the title was bad, but added:
"L'atmosphére panique m'enchante encore, je l'avoue:
j'y entends murmurer toutes les prairies de mon enfance
'au long des accablants et des tristes étes'." 7
Mauriac said that he had made a discovery:
C'est que ses personnages passent d'un recit

et qu'il se trouve avoir écrit, sang l'avoir voulu.
un roman-fleuve, tout en ayant garde l'avantage de

 

61e Figaro Littéraire. Sept. 50. 1950, 1.
7Ibid.

20

se retrouver a pied d'oeuvre devant chacun de ses

romans et de pagtir Chaque fois a la conquéte d'un

monde nouveau.

On the other hand, Mauriac seemed strangely indif—
ferent when his play Asmodée was revived after sixteen
years, and this despite the fact that it had been the
first play by a living author to be presented by the

the Comédie Frangaise at the time of its original publi-

 

cation, 1959.9 Mauriac's remarks follow:

’ Reprise officielle d'Asmodée hier soir en
presence du president de la Répuhlique. Aprés
seize ans, j'écoute cette piece qui est de moi et
qui est totalement détachée de moi. Ce malaise
que je ressens tou'ours a cause de toute ce qui
dans l'oeuvre representée appartient au metteur
en scene, a l'interpréte, garde les traces
d'influence subiés au cours de repetitions. Que
mon coeur est loin de tout cela, ces temps-cl!
Que j'y crois peu! L'arrosage des compliments
rituels. (29)

 

It becomes clear through these statements that
Mauriac is essentially satisfied with his life and work.
He does done successfully the thing he most wanted to
do. Apparently he still enjoys most of his works, and
he has had the satisfaction of seeing his own progress.
He has made a living by his pen, and he has received

many of the most coveted honors given to literary men.

 

8Le Figaro Littéraire, Sept. 50, 1950, l.

 

9Kunitz and Haycroft, Twentieth Century Authors.655.

 

CHAPTER IV
MAURIAC'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS

Conservative Tendencies

 

On the forms of worship, Mauriac is conservative.
He dislikes the new form of the Mass, which is designed
to permit more congregational participation, saying that
it interfered with private prayer. To use his phrase,
it is "comme s'il y avait desormais une suspicion jetée
sur le recueillement, sur le rapport personnel avec Dieu."
(61) He makes frequent reference to his fondness for
the old canticles of his childhood, which, he said, would
horrify people today, now that the Gregorian Chant has
been restored, but which introduced him very early to the
God of peace and love.

In January of 1960, Mauriac took issue with a state-

ment in the unedited text of the late Juares, published

in L'Express: "Le christianisme traditionnel se meurt

 

philOSOphiquement, scientifiquement et politiquement."
Mauriac said that it was only the buildings, erected by
man and perishable, which grew old. He continued:

Mais ceci me frappe: cette vieille Eglise
mere, grace a l'armature qui nous irrite parfois et
que nous jugeons vetuste, a preserve le mystére de
la vie divine. Elle a maintenu, elle seule avec
l'Eglise orthodoxe, contre toutes les hérésies,
les deux paroles du Seigneur qui ont change notre
destin: "Tes péchés te sont remis," et "Ceci est
mon corps, livré pour vous." Bénies soient les
antiques canalisations romaines qui auront apporté,

a travers dix-neuf siécles, jusqu'a notre bouche,
cette eau vive, sans en laisser perdre une seule

22

goutte.1

Mauriac admitted that he did not always see things
this way. In his adolescence, at the time when Juares
was making his assertions, Mauriac himself was disturbed.
He was witnessing the assault of modernism at the heart
of the Church, and, from the outside, the settlement of
accounts of which the Church was paying the cost. He
cited the Dreyfus Case as an example.

From 1910 on, however, Mauriac came under the in—
fluence of men like Peguy, Bergson and Claudel, and be—
gan to reject the ideas of Juares.

In Speaking of conservative tendencies in the
Church, and their value, Mauriac used an interesting
illustration, that of power brakes -- formidable but
necessary.2
Liberal Tendencies

Mauriac has liberal tendencies as well as conserv-
ative ones. One respect in which this seems to be true
is in his evaluation of persons of other faiths.

This attitude is apparent in the case of Simone
Weil (pseudonym of Emile Novis, Jewish author who wrote
chiefly about the German and Russian Revolutions, the
proletarian revolution, the rise of Hitlerism, and the

like).

 

lL'Express, January 19, 1960,l#£.

 

2Ibid.

 

25

Mauriac quoted some significant passages from her

Second Notebook and discussed them enthusiastically.

 

”Certains cherchent le royaume de Dieu comme si
c'était un paradis artificiel, seulement 1e meilleur
des paradis artificiels." Thus spoke Simone Weil, and
Mauriac elaborated:

les seuls délices qui ne soient pas suspects:
la croix sans consolation, la foi dans les ténébres
l'absolution sans allégement, l'eucharistie dans la
sécheresse, le don total de 501 a des étres qui ne
nous plairaient pas. Nous aurons amassé avare-
ment un trésor de pieces fausses comme ces billes,
ces "agates" qu'enfant j'imaginais trés preci—
euses et maman ne me détrompait pas. Le Christ
non plus ne nous détrompera pas. (27)

Simone Weil spoke again:

Chez ceux ui ont eu une education chrétienne,
les parties inferieures de l'ame s'attachent aux
mystéres de la foi, alors qu'elles n'y ont aucun
droit. Ceux que j'aime je leur fais un tort
infini en leur étant presente, en maintenant l'écran
que je suis entre eux et Dieu.

She then compared herself with the third party who is
with an engaged couple and ought to go away so that they
might be truly together.

Mauriac said that she had seen clearly that false
Christians -- Catholics of class and High Mass -- were
the real atheists. (27)

As for orthodoxy, Vauriac said rightly that it
would be ridiculous to talk about it in the case of
Simone Weil. Jewish, not baptized, how could she have

been orthodox? The remarkable thing about her story,

c'est la connaissance, la revelation person-

2U.

nelle du Christ tel que le catholicisme le concoit,
dans une creature nee hors de l'Eglise, a qui par
certains aSpects l'Eglise fait horreur et qui n'a
pas tenir compte de son credo. Mais jusqu 'ou ne
5 'est—elle pas avancée dans le mystére de Jesus!
Reponse vivante a ceux qui prennent au pied de la
lettre la formule "hors l'Eglise pas de salut. "
Mieux vaut appartenir a l'ame de l'Eglise comme
Simone Weil ou'au corps de l'Eglise comme les
chrétiens de naissance et d'habitudes.

Nous ne croyons pas en Dieu, nous l'aimons.
Elle a bien compris ce malentendu essentiel avec
les athées. Comment croiraient-ils a Dieu, ceux
qui ne l'aiment pas? (27-8)

Mauriac said elsewhere that the vocation of the Jew-
ish peOple, their temporal and spiritual destiny seemed
greater than ever to him today. He also said that pious
Jews like Jules Isaac and Edmond Fleg would find him
faithfully at the meetings which they have arranged for
Christians of all denominations in this "amitié judeo-
chrétienne" recently founded by them and meeting at 55
quai d'Orsay. This group is attached to the Interna-
tional Council of Christians and Jews. Truly they have
a common problem and responsibility. Mauriac said:

Les Juifs fidéles espérent la venue du Messie,
et nous son retour. Ce qui pour nous sera un re-
tour, pour eux sera une venue. La plus ancienne
priére connue des premieres communautés chréti-
ennes, c 'etait deja: "Viens Seigneur Jésus."
Depuis dix-neuf siécles, toutes les confessions
chretiennes ne repetent-ils pas: "Que votre
régne arrive?"

And later in the same article:

Nous sommes tous, nous qui avons gardé la foi,
chrétiens ou israéliens, perdus au milieu d'un
peuple sans memoire, qui a rompu l' alliance, qui

ne se souvient plus de la promesse faite a
Abraham notre pére et que la fraternite judeo-

25

chrétienne doit se avouer dans une resisgance com—

mune a la méme ténebre, a la méme mort.

Again Mauriac commented favorably on the faith and
practice of a non—Christian but spiritually-minded per-
son. In May of 1954, he conjectured about what would
have happened in the world if Gandhi had been Catholic:

Sa douceur a vaincu un empire. Quel mystére
que ce soit peut—étre cet Hindou qui, dans l'ordre
politique, ait, le premier, compris ce que le
Seigneur a voulu dire quand il a dit: "Heureux
les doux car ils auront la terre en partage." (95)
At the time of Gandhi's assassination, Mauriac had

written:

Que Gandhi soit mort assassins, ce n'est pas
cela ue nous étonne, mais que les hommes l'aient
laisse devenir si vieux et qu'ils aient supporté
si longtemps 1e scandale de sa toute-puissante fai—
blesse . . .Ce unique feu qui vient de s'éteindfie,
dans quel endroit du monde va-t-il se rallumer?
One cannot help noting, however, that Protestants

do not receive the same tolerance. In June of 1955, at
the time of the Coronation of Elizabeth II of England,
Mauriac said that he preferred the style of Protestant—
ism born of Calvinism to that which remains of Cathol-
icism in the English Church founded by Blue—Beard. Even
the buildings have caries! (50—51)

In a slightly more charitable vein, he wrote of a

visit from Jean Schlumberger, who wanted him to sign a

manifesto. Although unwilling to sign the document,

 

5Le Figaro, Nov. 29. 1948. 1.

 

4Le Figaro, Feb. 1-2, 1948, 1.

 

26

Mauriac Spoke of his good breeding.

, Et puis Schlumberger est protestant . . , La
Reforme en France a selectionne une race, crée une
espéce: la rigeur intérieure s'exprime dans des
maniéres sobres et strictes. Et meme si la rigeur
céde, les maniéres demeurent: ce qui d'ailleurs
ne justifie pas la doctrine. (95)

By way of comparison, he added:

Port—Royal aussi a crée un petit monde im-
pitoyable et pur dont nous n'approuvons pas la
théologie mais ou nous habitons encore volontiers
par le coeur et par la pensée. (95)

Mauriac manifests some liberal tendencies insofar
as his social and political conscience is concerned. In
October of 1945, he wrote:

Je sais bien: la face du monde passera et
nous sommes des voyageurs sur la terre. Pourtant,
que les jeunes chretiens ne se détournent as de la
terre: il faut que dans ce monde deshonore par
tant de crimes les hommes de bonne volonté aident
de tout leur coeur et de tout leur esprit a la mani-
festation de la grace.5

Two Concepts of the Church

 

Mauriac said that there were two races of Catholics..
The writer would make the same assertion relative to
Protestants. These two races confront each other and
will never understand each other. One group sees in the
Church primarily the depository which has been entrusted
to it by the Lord, the truth fixed in definitions and
rites, which each generation must transmit to the next,
intact and unaltered. That which matters to the other

group is the evangelization of the world and particular—

 

5Le Figaro, Oct. 3, 1945. 1.

 

27

ly of the poor. They are less interested in dogma and
in ethics than in the good news that one must bring to
peOple who have not yet received it, and, in the case
of France, this means the working class. "On lui a
pris son Seigneur, et elle (1a classe ouvriére) ne sait
ou on l'a mis."6

One would have to say that Mauriac, to a certain
extent, belonged in both camps, as the next two episodes
will indicate.

Mauriac's Reaction to Bacchus

 

Perhaps the most complete single statement of
Mauriac's attitude toward the Church, as well as his most
vehement polemic on the subject, may be found in an ar-
ticle entitled "Lettre a Jean Cocteau," written in De-
cember of 1951. It followed the presentation of Cocteau's
play, Eagghug, at Marigny, at which Mauriac was present
(until he became disturbed and walked out). According
to newspaper accounts, Mauriac was "furious," though
he said he was only "sad" -- sad that an entire hall at
which all Paris was present could listen without protest

to this comedian disguised as a BishOp who made use of

 

the words of the Pater Noster to produce laughter.
According to Mauriac, Cocteau had never really

understood the crux of Christianity -- the unbelievable

 

6L'Express, January 19, 1960, an,

 

7Le Figaro Littéraire, Dec. 29, 1951, 1.

28

news that the creature is loved by the Creator and,
what is more astonishing, the creature is capable of
loving his Creator. Cocteau made this a subject for
jesting. Later. Jean Desailly even disparaged the
Eucharist. I

Mauriac became personal in his criticism, insist-
ing that Jean Desailly was Cocteau's mouthpiece. even
to the extent that he sometimes escaped from his role
and became Jean Cocteau. Mauriac also said that this
play showed Cocteau "in the light of Sartre," which
was no compliment. (According to the papers, Sartre
had been in the audience, jubilant.)

Mauriac said that he well understood that the play
concerned the Church of the Sixteenth Century, which he
described as "paganisée et simoniac dont l'hérésie
luthérienne fut la juste punition." It would have been
all right to denounce its weaknesses, as others have
done. Also, Cocteau could have solved the problem and
given offense to no one if there had been in the play
one "saint authentique" or even "un vrai chrétien." He
demanded angrily:

Croyez-vous qu'il n'y avait aucune sainteté
dans le seiziéme siécle? N'avez-vous jamais
entendu de Therese d'Avila ou Saint Jean de la
Croix? Mais tu as voulu que l'Eglise s'incarnat
dans un évéque bouffon, et dans un cardinal poli—

tique, pire a mes yeux que le_bouffon. La moguerie,
a travers eux, atteint l'Eglise dans son ame.

 

81bid.

29

The Church should be incarnate, not in persons of
the type presented in the play, but in the vicar of the
parish, or the prétre-ouvrier of Vincennes, or the Little
Sister of the Assumption, or the Sister of St. Vincent
de Paul, who cares for the sick.

Why did Mauriac react so violently to fiagghus when

Sartre's play Le Diable et le Bon Dieu disturbed him not

 

at all? Mauriac had an answer ready. He contended that
an atheist carries laboriously to the scene the reasons
for his atheism. We expect nothing else from him and he
can give us nothing else. We can only repeat what Pascal
said about such persons: "They blaspheme that of which
they are ignorent." Sartre's arrows are lost in an
empty heaven. Whom could they touch, since there is no
one there? Mauriac added that Sartre does not jest ex-
cept in appearances; he treats serious matters seriously.
Commenting that they were not friends, Hauriac still
said that, in comparing Cocteau‘s play with Sartre's, he
was doing Sartre an injustice. Admittedly, this was not
a literary judgment. Mauriac has left that to others.
”Ce que vaut Eagghgs, a d’autres d'en decider."

Mauriac reminded Cocteau of his own debt to the
Church and his never-ending need of it:

Dieu veuille qu'alors la femme—tronc [as
Cocteau had called the Church in his play
pénetre une derniére fois dans ta chambre, sous

l'aspect d'un homme consacré a qui elle aura
o I o ’ 0
commun1que son pouv01r de delier: "A l'heure du

50

Christus venit, au chant du coq . . ." Le coq
chantera, at contre le coeug de son Seigneur
Arlequin pleura amérement.

Les Prétres—Ouvriers

 

Mauriac was greatly interested in the prétres-
ouvriers. They were priests who worked in the factories.
They dressed just like the other workers except that
they donned robes to administer the sacraments. Mauriac
described in great detail the progress of the Mass as
conducted by one of these priests amid rude surroundings,

in Le Figaro of December 25-26, 1948, page one. Evident-

 

ly he was greatly moved by the eXperience.

To Mauriac‘s consternation, in the fall of 1953, a
serious blow was dealt this ministry. Seminary students
were forbidden to spend part of their training period in
the factory. This meant that the main source of recruit-
ment was cut off. "Les pauvres perdent toujours," said
Mauriac. "Si la vie en usine a corrompu quelques clercs,
la vie dans 'le monde' en corrompt un plus grand hombre."
(46)

When the Prétre-Ouvrier Movement was finally abol-
ished, some readers were apparently astonished not to
hear a word from Mauriac. In answer to their queries,

he wrote a brief statement for L'Egpress, in October

 

of 1959. He said that age had intervened in the

struggle, but even in his youth. Mauriac had resigned

 

9Le Figaro Littéraire, Dec. 29, 1951, 1.

 

51

himself to seeing the Spiritual flame rekindled, blown
out, and rekindled elsewhere -- an elsewhere that is
always France.

It is true that Marxist contamination was a risk
for the prétre-ouvrier, to say nothing of perils of an-
other nature, for the young priest has a heart of flesh.
Yet who has ever feared for him the contamination of
bourgeois society?

Despite this check, the example of these priests
and the witness they have borne remain. Mauriac be-
lieves that this apostolate of the working world is the
only way to reach such peOple, though it may not have
brought many persons into the formal Church. The
priests were beloved by their comrades, even by the
Marxists and the atheists. In the midst of the working
class, they incarnated this unbelievable choice of
purity and love, which only a great love could explain.

This ministry is missed. But these very checks
compose the woof of this story which escapes shallow-
minded persons, a story which will culminate in the
return of the Son of Man. Mauriac added this thought:
that the secret of Christianity is the creative check.
Those who were shocked had not really understood the

meaning of the crucifix hanging above their beds}0

Nevertheless, Mauriac was not truly reconciled.

Although he believed that the Church must exercise

lOL'Expréss, Oct. 15, 1959, ha.

 

32

control, he said that he had always been disturbed by
the unbelievable indifference to individual disasters
in the Church, brought about by certain decisions.
"Tous ces ames rejetés a la mer!" he lamented. He
wondered if the "Holy Office"‘ was disturbed by the
11

effects of such decisions.

Salvation

 

Whenever one of his non-Christian confréres dies.
Mauriac seems perturbed. When Roger Martin du Gard
died suddenly, Mauriac shocked and angered one of the
friends of the deceased by publicly expressing concern
about his ultimate destiny instead of commenting on his
literary works. The friend retorted acidly that Martin
du Gard did not take stock in the argument, but that if
there were an "elect", his friend would be one of them.

Mauriac said that he fervently hOped so, but he
stood his ground, even to writing a second article on
the subject. He justified himself on two counts (1)
that the issue had to be faced, and (2) that he was
more interested in Martin du Gard himself than in any-
thing which the latter had written}2

Mauriac and Martin du Gard had argued this issue
of salvation in the ecclesiastical sense in connection
with the death of Gide. Wauriac had seized upon a

llL'Express, Oct. 15, 1959. 44.

 

12pe Figaro Iittéraire, Sept. 15, 1958. 1.

 

35

remark made by Gide during his last moments. A friend
had asked, "Are you suffering?" To this, Gide had re-
plied, "Yes, there is always this struggle between the
reasonable and that which is not." Evidently Mauriac
believed that Martin du Gard had the same problem.15
The Mission of the Western Church

In September of 1948, Mauriac asserted that the

Western Church had a mission to perform in the present

century.
Le sort de la liberté spiritualle dans le

monde rest étroitement lie a celui de l'Evangile et

associée au destin de la vieille Eglise-mére.

He predicted that we would see the duel of the two
cities (Moscow and Rome) going on at the very heart of
the satellite countries.

Mauriac's challenge to the Church of Today is this:

Le christianisme a fait l'EurOpe; le materi-
elism —- et non pas seulement celui de Lenine --

l'a reduite au degre de misére ou nous la voyons,

mais d'ou elle se relévera si elle ne renie pas

la vérité qui rend libre.

Summary

Mauriac evidently attends Mass regularly and pre-
fers conservative patterns of worship, but is progres-
sive in areas of social concern, and has admitted that
there are probably saints outside the Catholic fold. He
alternately lauds and chafes under what he calls the

"power brakes" of the Church. He is tolerant of other

—¥

15Le Figaro Litteraire. Aug. 50. 1958. 1.
1

 

4Le Figaro, Sept. 19-20, 1948, 1.

 

54

faiths, but somewhat intolerant of what he calls "here-
sies" in Christendom. He is often lyrical in praise of
his faith, but he does not hesitate to criticize anyone
from.the Holy Father down, for any action which he re-
gards as a "scandale."

Religion is bound up with his earliest recollec-
tions; with the poetry of his youth; with his sense of
vocation; with his meditation as an older man. It is
uppermost in his thoughts of his deceased friends. It
is the criterion by which he judges political activity,
both domestic and foreign. It motivates, or at least
colors his literary judgments. Indeed, it is the point

of reference for nearly everything he does.

PART II
II TFRARY DI SCUSSIONS

CHAPTER V
AS MAURIAC SEES THE ACADEMY

As noted in Chapter III, membership in "L'Académie
Frangaise" was one aspect of Mauriac's youthful ambition.
When he achieved this goal in 1955, he was understanda-
bly elated.

By 1955, however, he felt differently. He learned,
apparently at the last moment, that he would be the tar-
get for an uncomplimentary discourse by 1e maréchal
Juin. He was hurt because none of his friends had warn-
ed him, and bitter at the thought that such an episode
could occur. In no other club, he was sure, would a
neophyte, even if he were the maréchal of France, pub-
licly vilify one of his seniors with the complicity of
the group. The reason, Mauriac assumed, was that he was
not playing the assigned role, not abruptly modifying
his text on occasions when class interests were threat-
ened. There was a further problem, in that he did not
know how to respond to Juin without offending the digni-
ty of the title. (34)

In May of 1954, Mauriac remarked ruefully that he
did not go to the Academy except to vote, not because
of bitterness toward his colleagues, nor because he did
not respect their abilities and past contributions, but
because they and he had, to use his expression, "péné-
tré dans la zone crépusculaire ou les ombres prostrées

attendent 1a barque qui tarde." He continued with the

57

none-tco—flattering description of the group, including
himself:

Quai Conti, nous sommes déja a demi petrifies:
chacun as sent devenir sa prOpre statue. Oui, un
peuple de statues, mais qui n'a ni sentiments ni
langage communs. On ne parle guére d'un socle a
l'autre . . . (86)

He was pessimistic for another reason. In April
of 1955 he wrote:

Avec tout le respect et toute 1a prudence que
m'inspire un inguérissable attachement. je cher-
cherai a rendre manifests les raisons politiques
du divorce chapue jour plus affirmé entri l'Acadé—
mie Frangaise et les Lettres franpaises.

Writing in October of the same year, as Cocteau
entered the Academy, Mauriac was even more pessimistic.
Cocteau had written to him, saying that he would be un-
happy if Mauriac did not welcome him "under the Cupola."
Mauriac's mind harked nostalgically to the day, twenty—
two years before, when he himself had been received. In
the intervening years, however. Mauriac had seen too
much of the machination and political strategy, though
he had tried hard not to see these things. A portion
of his reply follows:

Mais depuis, cher Jean. j'ai pénétré derriere

I o

ce decor. Plus on s'enfonce dans ces coulisses de

la politique et plus on y trebuche sur des ca-

davres dont la peau ne vaut pas cher . . .

Mais ce que la plupart des Franpais ignorant.

ce dont moi-meme, durant un demi-siécle, j'ai dé-
I o o o o
tourne mon regard, 3e 1e vo1s ma1ntenant, je ne

 

1Le Figaro Littéraire, April 50. 1955. 4.

 

38

peux plus ne 1e voir. 4A mesure que je m 'enfonce

dans cette demi- tenébre de derriére le decor,

quelle stupeur que de découvrir les veritables
metteurs en scene et ces machinistes que je devi—

sage un a un! (205)

Mauriac said that he would be with Cocteau only in
spirit, but he would read his discourse and reread his
poetry- (205)

Mauriac spoke in a somewhat different tone in
February, 1959. on the subject of elections. He thought
of earlier times when they had enjoyed making writers
wait at the portals. He wrote: "Avoir traité 51 mal
tant de grands hommes! Mais non, nous n'en rougissons
pas. . .cela faisait partie de notre vocation." He re-
membered the candidate of his youth, who, rejected by
the Academy, could not keep back the cry: "Et moi qui
l'aime tant!"

The situation has changed. Mauriac admitted frank-
ly in the above article that the generation immediately
following his does not want to be associated with the
Academy. He insisted that the reason was political.2

The article mentioned on the preceding page is
more Specific. Therein he endeavored to show how the
Academy, created to serve literature, had come to be-
lieve that it should be the servant of the state. During
all the authoritative regimes of the past century. the

Academy had managed to preserve liberty of thought.

 

2Le Figaro Littéraire, Feb. 28, 1959, 1.

 

59

There had been "une opposition liberale, distingué et
moderée" especially against the Second Empire. With the
Third Republic, conditions changed. The more radical
governments became, the more conservative the Academy
grew. Just as, long ago, the scholastics demanded that
phi1050phy become the hand-maid of theology, so the po—
litical philOSOphers of the right wing demanded that
literature serve the state. This trend culminated in
the election of Charles Maurras in 1958. According to
Mauriac, this election and all elections since then,
have been political.3

Still preoccupied with the decline of candidature
in November, 1959, Mauriac complained:
Reforme a la Comédie—Francaise, reforme a
l'Académie Goncourt. Pourquoi l'Institut
échapperait-il seul a cette volonté de ra-
jeunissement? Et pourquoi notre Académie re-
fuserait—elle de rajeuner elle aussi? Je connais
son attachement aux traditions et aux usages: mais
11 y a urgence.
Insisting that he cast no aspersions on the illustrious
company, he demanded that the Academy face up to the
problem of declining candidature , which had now
reached the limits of catastrOphe.

Not content with lamenting the situation, Mauriac
presented a practical solution, namely, to abolish the

system. The Academy could name its choice after a

secret consultation with that person in which the

 

5Le Figaro Littéraire, Apr. 50, 1955. 1.

 

40
Academy would be assured of his acceptance. Then Mauriac
would enlarge the domain as the Swedish Academy has done,
"aux dimensions de la planéte." This, he predicted,
would add luster to the name of "L'Académie Francaise."
and would make its prize one of the most coveted.

The time for such a change is now, Mauriac declared,
for, though this is the period for change, it may be a
short-lived period.

In the same article, Mauriac said that his preposal
would not only eliminate embarrassment and enable the
Academy to call the outstanding leaders in politics, the
episc0pacy, the army, and other categories, but it would
circumvent another problem.

TrOp de génies tuent les Academies. Certains
mélanges sont explosifs. Si, en 1944, nous avions
introduit d'un seul coup parmi nous Aragon et '
Malraux, Sartre, Breton, et Camus, la Coupoule
aujourd'hui serait peut-étre en miettes.

Thus the reader will observe a greater fluctuation
in attitudes toward the Academy than toward any other
institution, but he will also note a basic interest in
and concern for its welfare, together with concrete sug-
gestions for improvement. Apparently this last preposal
has not yet been accepted, but it might well bear seri-

ous consideration on the part of the august assembly

known as "L'Académie Francaise."

 

“Le Figaro Littéraire, November 28, 1959, 1.

 

CHAYTFH VI
LITERARY TFEORIRS AND TECHNIQUES

Eirst Work Foreshadows Later Productions

 

When, in June Of 1958, at Le Theatre des Nations,
Mauriac heard for the first time Wagner's Opera 23

Vaisseau Fantdme, he had a strange feeling of having

 

heard it before. He said that he knew in advance,
without being familiar with the end of the story. that
the hero would reembark in the last act. The reason
that it seemed so familiar, Mauriac decided, was that
this Opera was an earlier and more primitive form of
the plot which Wagner later develOped more completely

and artistically in the better—known Opera, Tristan and

 

lsglgg. Wagner's lovers become reunited only to lose
each other forever. There can be no other denouement
in the Wagnerian universe. I

This and similar experiences led Mauriac to sug-
gest an interesting theory. He believes if we have the
creative gift, we begin early. Whatever the medium in
which we work, that which we produce is an expression
of the inner world which is peculiarly our own. That
which we have tO say from Opera to Opera, from book to
book, from canvas to canvas, is implicit in our first
production. It will be imperfectly expressed in the

beginning, but the germ of our future work will be

there.

42

Un artiste donne toute de suite l'essentiel
de lui-meme. Il jette maladroitement et d'un seul
coup toute sa mise dans une oeuvre imparfaite.
ou'il recommencera indéfiniment. Nous avons passe
notre vie a refaire notre premier livre, nous
aurOns repris jusqu'a 1a fin la méme histoire, sans
que la lecteur songe a s'en plaindre parce qu'il
n'apercoit pas.

After the first work, according to Mauriac, prog-

ress is manifested chiefly in expression. Whatever the

time lapse between the two Operas, Wagner will say es-

sentially nothing more in Epistgp than he has said in

the Vaisseau Fantdme.

 

Mauriac believes that the life lived enriches us

less by new elements than by revealing to us that which

is within us and which becomes clear in our first books.

come

Elle est a la lettre un bain revelateur et
les figures surgissent pen a pen en chair qui
étaient en nous des notre naissance et qui com—
menoaient a prendre forme dans les balbutiements
de nos debuts. Une vie tumulteuse n'eut rien
apporté de plus a Emily Bronte que le monde féroce
et desolé des Hauts de Hurle—ments.

 

The characters in our stories are a phantom people
from ourselves.

Il n'est aucune de nos heroines que nous
n'avons tirée de notre cdté. C'est Eve éternelle
que 1'homme a créee et non Dieu. Madame Bovary est
toujours moi. La plainte d'Yseult c'est celle de
Wagner lui—meme; enfin une part de sa plainte. Il
est le couple desaccordé et ensorcelé. I1 en
invent 1e cri desesperé.

In Wagner, Mauriac believes, death gives an answer

2Le Figaro Littéraire, June 16, 1958, l.

43

to everything, but it solves nothing. It does not con-
stitute a response to the question posed by human love.
Si le Hollandais volant avait enfin engoute
1e repos auprés de Senta, si Yseult et si Tristan
aprés s'étre rejoints avaient survecu, ils fussent
devenus importune l'un a l'autre, ou bien une
affection d'habitude les auraient retombé sur le

cendre, sur une cendre que 1e vent de l'oubli
I O I
aura1t finalement emportee.

The theory herein set forth might be applied with
some justification to Mauriac's own work.

Theory Of Poetic Inspiration

Obviously flattered by being included in Marc Alyn's
knack, Poétes d'aujourd'hui, and pleased by the study
Egisven his poems by the younger man, Mauriac made some

1.11teresting comments.

First Of all, he eXpressed appreciation of the
we rks of Alyn himself, which, Mauriac said, differ from
11:1.s in technique but not in the profound source of their
innspiration.4

The discussion centered on the poem Sang d'Atys,
Wli'lich seems to be Mauriac's own favorite, as well as
that Of his critics. It is, he said, the only thing he
“’erbte without ulterior motives. Other things were done
in pursuit of his profession as a writer.

But the poem was written in his youth. He asked

5Le Figaro Littéraire, June 16, 1958, 1.
“Le Figaro Littéraire, June 18, 1960, 1.

himself why the poet within him was now silent. Was it
because younger writers had discouraged him? Mauriac de-
cided that that would be doing them too much honor.

This brings one to Mauriac's theory of poetic in-
Spiration. Poetry, he thinks, is born of spiritual
struggle. The struggle between the flesh and the spirit
occupied all Of his Christian life. The poetic inspira-
tion welled up from the part of his soul least touched
by Christian grace, but it soon touched what he termed
"la zone religieuse." The poetry came, not from the
deeply human part Of him, nor from his spiritual nature,
but from an inextricable mixture Of the two. This “he-
lange trouble" brought condemnation from Christian
critics. and brings self-condemnation now when Mauriac

rereads Qrages and Sang d'Atys

 

Marc Alyn had seen the heart of the struggle, point-
ing out the passage in which an eagle circles above the
pine which Atys has become through the evil power of
Cybele and the work Of redeeming blood. But as soon as
grace triumphs, Atys is silent. '

Grace, which in the case of Paul Claudel is the only
inspiration, has interrupted Mauriac's song. The closer
he comes to God, not by the practice of virtue, but by
the mere fact of advancing age, the more silent the poet
in him becomes. He is journeying into a lengthening

shadow. Every step takes him farther from men. even if

45

he seems to espouse their quarrels.

Nous sommes dans la paix. Une blessure ori-
ginelle s'est fermée en nous, mais c'était elle la
source de notre chant, non 1a grace qui l'a 5
guéri. C'est la profonde raison de mon silence.

As long ago as June of 1949, Thierry Maulnier, in
an article entitled "Mauriac poéte," 6had noted this
tension as the distinguishing characteristic of Mauriac's
poetry. He said:

11 y avait, avant Mauriac, beaucoup de poétes
d'amour terrestre; i1 y avait beaucoup de poétes
chretiens, mais je n'ai jamais vu un seul dans le-
quel l'élan volontaire vers le divin emporte avec
lui ce poids de voluptes mortelles et de délices
condamnees.

He then quoted the chant of Cybele above Atys who has
been changed to a pine:

Un jeune pin tendu vers l'essence divine

Fait des signes au ciel avec ses longues mains.

Sa cime cherche au dieu, mais ses lentes
racines

Dans mon corps tenebreux creusent de lents
chemins.

Livré en vain tes cheveux a tous les vents du
monde!

Tends tes branches au dieu que tu voudrais
saisir.

Rien, rien n'arrachera ta racine profonde

A mon immense corps engourdi de plaisir.

Plus tu t'erigeras vers l'azur dont l'abime

Recele un pur amour inconnu de nos dieux,

Plus tes membres profonds jouiront de leur
cr1me

Dans la nuit de mon corps que j'ai fermé sur
eux.

 

5Ibid.

6Le Figaro Littéraire, June 11, 1949. l.

 

46

Maulnier continued:

Les deux poles de toute poésie, 1e dieu des
corps et l'ErOs divin melent ici inextricablement
leurs aimantations contraires, comme si c'était
encore 1e dieu que l'esprit cherchait a travers le
ténébres de la chair, 1e dieu chrétien plus pres
du pécheur oue du juste, 1e dieu paradoxal, le dieu

qui surgit 1a on 11 n'était pas attendu.

A Chaque page du recueil de Mauriac nous é-
prouvons cette alliance mysterieuse qui unit dans
leur combat la terre et 1e ciel, 1e éché et la
grace, 1e sang qui bat au coeur du desir et le sang
qui sauve 1e monde. Toute est solidaire, et les
vagues roulées par l'abime et les larmes humaines
sont salées du méme sel.

Mauriac pursued this idea Of Spiritual struggle as

the well-spring of poetry when he discussed Notes Intimes

 

de Marie Noel.8 In her case, the struggle seems to have

 

been two-fold: ‘between her desire to spend her life in
a convent and the situation in which she found herself ~-
in the service of her aging family -- and also against
spiritual sterility, called "la secheresse."

In an article entitled "Poésie et Solitude," Mauriac
again discussed poetic inspiration, saying:

Toute pOésie est l‘expression d'une solitude

. . . C'est toujours d'une solitude que nait 1e

poéme, et méme 1e roman, si dénué qu'il soit de

lyrisme.

The ensuing paragraph indicates unmistakably that

this solitude is not a peaceful one. It is a withdrawal

to an interior desert to escape the "large rire blessant”

 

7Le Figaro Iittéraire, June 11, 1949, 1.

 

8Marie Rouget, poet writing between 1959 and 1949.
9Le Figaro Littéraire Sept. 10, 1960, 1.

 

47

Of which the young Barres spoke. Mauriac said that, at
eighteen, he followed Barres' precept: "Opposer aux
autres une surface lisse, étre absent." Bitter experi-
ence forces one to withdraw into this desert, and he
utters a cry. If he is possessed Of genius, the cry
will reécho through the centuries. Poetry is made of
flux and reflux between experience and withdrawal. The
poem is what one has lived and felt, translated into
words; it is but the Chrysalis of the experience.

Is the person blessed, then, who has left behind
him a literary work? Mauriac was not sure. TO survive
thus is to be subject to a second Oblivion, and to be
at the mercy of the critics in the meantime! How unarm-
ed the dead are!

Then Mauriac decided not to worry.

Mais de quOi vais-je me soucier? La on je
serai, ce que les survivants penseront du pauvre
étre que j'etais ne m'importera plus. Ce qui
subsiste eternellement de Rimbaud et de Verlaine,
purifies de toute infamie n'entend pas cette ru-
meur sur la terre autour de leur double trace,
autour des pas qu'ils ont laissés, marques a 10

jamais dans une boue admirable et durcie.

Emotional and Moral Pitfglls for Poets

 

The mental photograph which Mauriac wishes to carry
of a poet such as Rimbaud, bears little resemblance to

the tragic figure scarred by dissipation, whom he used

 

lolbid .

48
11
to pass on the street.

This led Mauriac to take a look at this prob-
lem of emotional and moral instability on the part Of
many poets. The underlying reason, according to him,
is contained in his definition of a poet:

Un poéte est un enfant qui ne meurt pas, un
enfant qui survit, privé des anges tutelaires de
l'enfance, un enfant sans garde-fou, en proie a
toutes les passions d'un coeur d'homme, d'une 12
chair d'homme, a toute l'obscure frénésie du sang.
Obviously, not all poets fall into these traps.

According to Mauriac, poets like Goethe and Hugo repre-
sent, not exceptions, but superbe victories over "les
forces obscures."

What saves poets, including Mauriac himself, from
moral and emotional shipwreck? Mauriac believes that
it is the "invisibles freins" of heredity from his solid,
dependable ancestors. He says:

Les reflexes qui m'immobilisaient soudain a
l‘extréme bord de l'absurde ou de l'irreparable,
c'était leur volonté au—dedans de moi. Ils m'ont
sauve. a moins qu'ils ne m'aient perdu, dans la

mesure oh pour un poéte c'est perdre sa vie de la
sauver. 5

Theories and Techniques of Novel-Writing

 

Although Mauriac had written many novels, there was

a period during which he produced none. His work had

 

11Le Figaro Littéraire, Sept. 10, 1960, 1.

 

12Le Figaro Littéraire, Sept. 8, 1956, p. 1.

 

13Ibid.

49

been interrupted by the War. Then he wrote four plays.

In 1951, however, Le Sagouin appeared and was exceeding-

 

ly well received. As a matter Of fact, Mauriac was
somewhat surprised by its acclaim, as he indicated in

the interview with Jean Duché, mentioned in Chapter III
Of this thesis. Coming as it did after the plays, Duché
felt that it had been influenced by the theatre. Mauriac
was not sure. He had started the novel during the Occu-
pation, but had been interrupted. The principal charac-
ter was supposed to be Paule de Cernes, but, when Mauriac
came back to the fragment, it changed direction. Mauriac
had a sudden vision Of this child walking to his death.
Perhaps the work was influenced somewhat by dramatic
techniques.

The writer believes that Duché was right about the
influence of the theatre. The novel moves in clear-cut.
climactic episodes toward an inevitable dramatic con-
clusion, as indicated in the following brief sketch:

When Le Sagouin, who has been rejected all his life

 

by everyone except his degenerate father, is first ac-
cepted and then rejected by the teacher and his wife, life
becomes intolerable. The child walks steadfastly toward
the river, followed by his father. The wife and mother,
Faule, now free from the misfortune which she brought on
herself, is, ironically, dying of cancer. The wife Of

the teacher refuses to face up to the situation, and

50

goes grocery—shOpping. Her husband, however, cannot put
aside his remorseful thoughts. Seated on the bed which
had belonged to his own son, and holding his son's book
which bears the sticky fingerprints of the little Sagouin,
Guillou, he thinks Of the child he rejected and hence
sent into eternal darkness . Then the teacher looks
beyond and, to use Mauriac's words, "cherche, cherche ce
royaume d'esprits d'ou peut-étre l'enfant eternellement

vivant voit cet homme et, sur sa joue noire de barbe, la
14

larme qu'il oublie d'essuyer."

Changing the subject, Mauriac said that he had in-
tended making his novel, Le Chemin de la mer , longer.

Asked why he had not done so, Mauriac gave a practical

answer:

Parce que j'étais impatient . . . Cette crampe
qui vous prend, l'envie de finir, 1'éditeur qui
attend . . . Je passe pour un petit seigneur des
lettres, parce que je parle tous les temps de
Malagar et de mes vignes, alors que j'ai élevé mes
enfants avec le produit de mes livres . . . C'est
trés bon pour un écrivain d'avoir des enfants: ils
vous font travailler -- mais trop vite. Et puis
mon tempo est un tempo rapide. Tout ce qui est
dense a été ecrit dans un jaillissement -- cela
explique les temps morts aussi. Ce qui en moi est
essentiel, c'est 1e poéte. La mort du Sa ouin
1e debut de Genitrix, c'est un chant. M§§§-IIL
arrive que le-jet retombe.

Pursuing the subject Of technique, Duché mentioned

that Sartre reproached Mauriac with using "une technique

 

14Vol. XII, Oeuvres Completes, beginning, 69.

15Te Figaro Littéraige, July 14, 1951, l.

51

désuéte." Mauriac was impatient with this notion, insist-
ing:

I1 n'y a pas de technique. Seul le don existe,
qui crée sans 1e savoir 1a technique de chacun. Nos
jeunes romanciers croient qu‘il existe des recettes
pour réussir un roman et que, par exemple, il faut
faire semblant de ne pas savoir ce que pensent vos
personnages . . . Et cette idée absurde qu'il y a
des conventions mauvaises et d'autres qui sont
bonnes! Les bonnes sont celles qui nous servent.
1e me refuse a me poser des questions de technique.
En écrivant Le Sagouin j'avais les étres en moi.
devant moi. et quand il fallait voir en eux. je
voyais, et quand il ne fallait pas, je ne voyais pas.
C'est tout.

 

When Duche insisted that, in an earlier novel,

Therese Desqueyroux. Mauriac had used such movie tech-

 

niques as close—ups and flash—backs, Mauriac said that
he did not consciously apply these techniques. He con—
ceded, however: "Grace au cinema, j'ai eu 1e sentiment
que nous pouvions dispenser des preparations a la Bourget
on a Flaubert." He added that he did not believe that
we had necessarily made progress in jumping with both
feet into the subject.17

To summarize, we might say that Mauriac is essen-
tially a poet, expressing himself through impression
rather than detailed statement. Though he does not con-
sciously choose dramatic techniques, his work reflects

them. There seems to be a sort Of inner consistency, as

16221g.

17_I_bid.

 

52

suggested by his theory that one's first work fore-
shadows all the rest. As for his thesis that spiritual
struggle is the source Of all poetry, one can say that,

in the case of Mauriac, it is true.

CHAPTER VII
MAURIAC JUDGF§ THREE CONTEM?ORARIES
It is possible to see rather clearly Mauriac's
estimate of his contemporaries. notably Cocteau, Nalraux
and Sartre.
Cocteau, Le Libellule
As previously noted, Mauriac consumed an en—

tire front page of Le Figaro Littéraire in vituperating

 

Bacchus and its author, Jean Cocteau.1

When Cocteau was received into the Academy. Mauriac
wrote:

Le libellule dont les ailes vibraient depuis
pres d'un demi-siécle au—dessus de nos tétes, la
libellule ravissante et irritante qui ne se posait
jamais, se pose enfin sur le dossier d'un de nos
quarante fauteuils: ces fameux fauteuils qui
n'existent pas. Repose—toi, cher Jean, au milieu
des vieillards; tu dois étre bien fatigue.

Mauriac went on to say that they had thought of
Cocteau as an ephemeral creature dancing in rays emanat-
ing from others, and would soon pass into oblivion.

Mauriac admitted that this judgment was erroneous.
He added that perhaps the thing that attracted Cocteau
to the Academy was its sense of permanence. The latter
had carefully waited to present himself until the early

impression held by Mauriac and others had been corrected.

Mauriac mentioned having heard Cocteau speak on the

 

1See Chapter IV, this thesis.
2Le Figaro Littéraire, Mar. 12, 1955, 1.

514-
radio. There was nothing new for him to say, for every-

thing about him was known:
Les rencontres, les attachements, les ruptures.
les jeux autour de toi de l'amour, et de la mort,

la tentation du suicide, 1e recours aux faux para-

dis . . . ,

Mauriac also mentioned "ce mot que je trouve affreux:
‘Je n'ai jamais souffert par amour.”5

It is to Cocteau's credit, Mauriac thinks, that
however much he may have been a prisoner of his own nature,
as we all are, he struggled with all his might toward an
ideal Cocteau. In Mauriac's words: "11 criat avec une
obstination desolée: 'Vous ne me savez pas qui je suis,
rendez justice enfin a mon vrai visage!’"

Mauriac admitted that they had made fun of him, ac-
cusing him of a lie, without realizing that little by
little the lie was becoming true, that Jean Cocteau would
not wait for eternity to be changed into the poet that
he wanted to be.4

Mauriac eXpressed the belief that Cocteau would
survive. In the case of writers like Corneille and
Racine, it is the works which have survived; little is

known about the men. Others, like Rousseau, Chateau-

briand and Gide, survive in their memoires. In Cocteau,

the work is not distinguishable from the man. "Tu la

 

5
4

Ibid2 l.
Ibid1 5.

55

parles avant l'écrire. Tu l'écris en méme temps que tu

5

la vis."

Malraux, Le Joueur

 

Mauriac mentioned Malraux in February of 1948, in
an article entitled, "Nalraux ou la vie d'un joueur."

Mauriac had waited through a rather boring politi-
cal meeting for the express purpose of hearing Malraux
speak. He could have listened much longer, not because
he thought that Malraux said anything notable, but be-
cause of his interest in the man and his game. He
said: "Un joueur, oui, et qui agite les dés dans ses
mains de fiévreux."

As soldier and political leader, Malraux had attach—
ed himself to de Gaulle, whom he considered capable of
changing the destiny of France and of counteracting
Stalin's designs. It was against Stalin that Malraux
was leading his party. "Ce David sans age," as Mauriac
called him, was fighting against Stalin more than he was
fighting for de Gaulle.

Malraux announced Stalin's next offensive with the
relish of a gambler about to risk his all, and pleased
at the prospect.6

Ten years later, Mauriac again wrote about Malraux,

comparing him unfavorably with de Gaulle.

 

5Le Figaro Littéraire, March 12, 1955, l.
6

 

Le Figaro Littéraire, Feb. 19, 1948, 1.

 

56

The events of history brought both into prominence,
but, in the case of de Gaulle, the personal drama is
mingled with the drama of French destiny, whereas with
Malraux. it is only a personal career.

C'est du seul destin de Malraux qu'il s'agit.
L'Histoire n'a rien a voir avec l'aventure de ce
genie fiévreux dont nous suivons la courbe depuis
son adolescence, de livre en livre, mais aussi de
risque en risque . . .

Admitting that Malraux did indeed serve a cause, Mauriac
accused him of doing so only to make his personality more
colorful and his biography more interesting. He was al—
ways doing something unexpected for the same reason. "11
est malade au fond d'un desir de puissance," declared
Mauriac.

Commenting on the fact that Malraux and de Gaulle
worked in harmony, he wondered what the mutual attrac~
tion was. He said it was easier to see what made de
Gaulle interesting to Malraux than vice versa.

C'est la signe qu'il subsiste dans ce grand
homme, comme dans tout genie, une part un peu folle
et qui nous le fait aimer -- et ui 1e rend si
different des hommes d'Etat de serie . . .

Both are adventurers, but mauriac thinks that de
Gaulle's adventure is part of the destiny of France, and
its significance will last through the ages. That of
Malraux proceeds "du néant d'avant sa prOpre naissance

n7

au néant ou la mort le précipitera.

 

7Le Figaro Iittéraire, near July 19, 1958, 1.
(Exact day not on microfilm).

 

57

Sartre, Le PhiIOSOphe

 

Back in 1949, Le Figaro Littéraire carried a
lengthy discussion of one episode in the polemic battle

between Mauriac and Sartre. The subject was La Politique

 

by Sartre.

The latter began with the observation that the less
one knows about a subject, the more warmth he often dis-
plays in discussing it. Such is the case with Mauriac,
when he discusses politics. Accusing Mauriac of distort-
ing his remarks, he wondered why the latter bothered
about politics at all. When one has long disdained his -
tory and politics, it is difficult, in the last period
of one's life, to make brilliant incursions therein.

Sartre said that the French bourgeoisie was declin—
ing, citing a lag of twenty-five years in industrial
equipment and in the concentration of sales, the inertia
of wealth, fear, decreased initiative, ideological un-
certainty, the disappearance of class, and the decline
in birth—rate.

Mauriac suggested that "M. le romancier celibataire"
take a look at families to see if the birth-rate is de-
clining. He suggested a trip from Lyon to Bordeaux to
see whether class consciousness had disappeared. As for

uncertain ideology, he agreed. He mentioned the ant-

like passion of the bourgeoisie to save money for the

future. He wondered how Sartre could have failed to see

the push of the peasant and artisan toward the bourgeoi-

58

sic, and the struggle of these people to raise the status
of their children.

Mauriac had quoted a statement from Balzac, in
which the latter described his epoch, that of Louis-
Philippe.

To this, Sartre retorted that no one possessing a
rudimentary understanding would compare two such dis—
similar periods of time. Indeed, the only common factor
was not the conditions, but the bad humor of Balzac and
Mauriac, both of whom vituperate their epoch as old men
often do.

With feigned shock, Sartre picked up a phrase from
the quotation condoning the use of force against pOpu-
lar violence. He also picked up the expression, "beauti-
ful souls" which Mauriac had evidently applied to Sartre
and his followers. Sartre remarked sarcastically that
it was a happy surprise for a person who did not believe
in the soul to learn that he had one, and beautiful at
that.

Sartre then mentioned a previous controversy, rela-
tive to Indochina, which he and Mauriac had debated. He
accused Mauriac of realizing his error but refusing to
admit it?

Sartre concluded by thanking Mauriac for offering

his vote, should the former be a candidate for the

 

8'Le Figaro Littérairei May 7, 1949, l.

 

59

Academy, but declining the honor, charging "certain aca-
demicians" with "bitterness, arrogance, and a profound
sense of being superior to everybody else." Undoubted-
ly, the charge included Mauriac.9

The battle of ideas soon degenerated into one of
personal animosity. This is typical of encounters be-
tween Sartre and Mauriac. Little jibes at each other
find their way into articles where they seem unnecessary.
Certainly there is no evidence of Christian charity
here, but there is at least an honest admission of dis-
like.

One may say in summarizing these evaluations, that
Cocteau has finally won a measure of intellectual res-
pect from Mauriac, that Malraux appears to him as a

fascinating opportunist, and that the relationship with

Sartre seems to be one of mutual disapprobation.

 

91bid.

CHAPTER VIII
ATTITUDE TOWARD YOUNG THINKERS AND WRITERS

The Enquéte

 

Greatly perturbed over the type of literature being
produced, Mauriac expressed himself thus:

Nous avons litterairement atteint les limites
de l' abject (je songe a certains livres regus ces
jours- -ci). C' est 1 ipeca qu 'on nous ingurgitait
quand nous étions enfants, pour nous faire vomir.
Voila le moment, pept—étre, de la derniére nausée:
celle qui delivre.

He said that he was not making war on the "grands
oeuvres audacieuses," nor on "la poésie qui transfigure
et qui purifie." "Il faut que 1'homme soit connu et que
nous jetions des torches dans ses abimes," he agrees.
He insists, however, that the abject is never beautiful,
and he thinks that many modern writers are confusing
psychiatry with literature. Simone Beauvoir is one of
his prime targets because of her exploitation of eroti-
cism. Apart from moral considerations, Mauriac thinks
that eroticism is a dead—end street and constitutes a
real danger to literature of which young writers should
take cognizance.

With this in mind, he formulated a question which
was put to the young intellectuals of France (the "under

thirty" group) through Le Figaro Littéraire:

Croyez-vous que le recours systematique, dans
les Lettres, aux forces instinctives et a la

1Le Figaro Littéraire, June 25, 1949, 1.

61

démence, et l'exploitation de l'érotisme qu'il a

favorisée constituent un danger pour l'individu,

pour la nation, pour la litterature elle-meme, et

que certains hommes, certaines doctrines en

portent la responsabilité? 2

The "enquéte" continued for several weeks and re—
plies poured in from all types of persons: Communists,
surrealists, Christians, students, pagans, and young
professionals. Some fifty of these replies were pub—
lished. Some were extremely blunt and rude; others
condescending; still others thoughtful and refined.

The novelist Frangoise d'Eaubonne wanted to know
”why the devil eroticism was the 'loup—garou' of Catho-
lic intelligence, why intelligent peOple did not realize
that the theological terror of the flesh has been passe
'depuis Methusalem,' and why Mauriac worries about such
things in the face of Dachau and Auscherwitz." She in—
sisted that Mauriac and his ilk had been fighting a
losing battle ever since St. Paul made of the great fra-
ternal message of Christianity a struggle against the
flesh, and reminded them that, before the Church began
measuring bathing suits, it used to build cathedrals.”

The Surrealist Jean Schuster, in speaking of his
group. said that there was only an accidental connection
between them and France. that they constituted a perma-
nent danger to French institutions, that any connection

with Christianity was inconceivable to them. and that

they were constantly searching for new, untried ways

 

9
‘lbid.

62

of making love and of making its eXpression "plastique
et poetique."

The pagan point of view was expressed by Bernard
Prosen, among others. He protested Mauriac's assertion
that eroticism was a dead-end street, saying that it
was, instead, a path to the Creator, that to hear the
Church Fathers, God would not be interested in anything
but the head and the Devil would take charge of the "bas-
ventre!" According to Prosen, virtue and vice are neu—
tral.

Speaking for the young professionals of his ac-
quaintance as well as for himself, G. Torris, physician,
says that the young intellectual tends to abandon pure
literature for the sciences of man. He and his friends
try to keep up—to-date in their fields of specialization
and then in such human sciences as anthrOpology, soci-
ology and history of religions. When they feel the need
of relaxing, they read detective stories or go to the
movies. They leave literature to the young ladies, to
the bourgeois of the province, to the employees who have
their minds free once their eight hours of toil are ac—
complished. They probably do not dislike works of the
imagination but they do not have time for them.

Only the Christians disappointed Mauriac. Then, at
the last moment, he received the letter for which he had

hOped. It came from a student of Arras, Cecile Gariel,

and could have been written only by a young person,

63

idealistic, spiritual—minded and impulsive. She said
that her generation would have little time for erotic
literature or fiction of any kind, for they would be too
busy manifesting the divine love from which all human
love stemmed.

Mauriac said that he was not sorry to have launched
the inquiry, and he seemed not to be shocked by the ans-
wers which many letters contained. He said:

Les dés, pour ces jeunes fréres, ne sont pas
jetés; ils cherchent encore, comme Rimbaud, "le
lieu et la formule;" ils ne s'installent pas dans
leur arti pris. Nous le sentons d'autant moins
assures qu'ils sont plus affirmatifs . . . Les
epigones du Surrealisme repgtent sans conviction un
deja trés vieux catechisme.'

To his "lecteurs scandalisés," Mauriac has two com-
ments to make. First, the present generation is con-
temporary with the research which. from Freud to the
Kinsey report, has ripped away the veils and inclined
minds to consider sexuality as a subject for study, a
problem. Erotic works have lost the prestige of forbid—
den subjects.

The second comment, in his own words, is:

Cette generation a surgi dans un monde non
seulement devasté mais avili. Elle n'a pas été
bercée par de vieilles chansons. Ce n'est pas

Peau d'Ane qui lui fut conté, mais les sinistres
recits des camps d'épouvante. La Pudeur, elle

 

aussi, a été deportée; elle aussi revient d'Auchwitz.
La litterature erotique porte témoignage contre nous,

 

3Le Figaro Littéraire, Aug. 6, 1949, l.

 

ea

les anciens, dans la mesure ou nous sommes

responsables des crimes parmi lesquels nos fils

ont grandi.

Mauriac himself was surprised to find how little
importance the young intellectuals placed upon works of
imagination.

The writer believes that Mauriac has done well to
raise the question and allow the young intellectuals to
express themselves freely. The result was probably a
legitimate sampling of current youthful Opinion. Mauriac
seems to have given a fairly accurate diagnosis. One
might. however, question whether he was too easily re-
assured by Cecile Gariel's letter. Still, one must take
into account the fact that young peOple like to startle
their elders, and those with more orthodox ideas may

hesitate to express them publicly.

A Quartet of Young Writers

 

The same sympathetic attitude toward young thinkers
is apparent in Mauriac's discussion of four writers:
Philippe Sellers, Eric Ollivier, Bertrand Poirot-Delpech,
and Michel del Castillo.5 Though he is aware of their
faults, he appreciates what they are trying to do.

Mauriac noted that Philippe Sellers came from a

surburb of Bordeaux! According to Mauriac, Sellers,

 

4Le Figaro Littéraire, Aug. 6, 1949, 1.

5Le Figaro LitteraireiOct. 25, 1958, 1.

 

65

Ollivier and Poirot-Delpech have the basic ingredients
for success and need only to mature. Mauriac pronounced

Cllivier's L'Officier de soleil "une belle histoire "

 

but said he would like to see a more realistic work from
him. He predicted that Poirot-Delpech would be a moral-
ist in the tradition of Rabelais and Montaigne, but con-
cluded with the remark: "Eléve Poirot-Delpech, cessez
donc un instant de ricaner."

Michel del Castillo, author of Tanguy and 9911333

d'affiches,is Mauriac's favorite of the group. He mar-

 

velled that the younger man had come out of his tragic
war and post—war experiences with "coeur intacte." His
style is not flawless. Mauriac spoke of
une certain maladresse, surtout dans la presenta-
tions des personnages, et un style aux possibili—
tés encore restreintes . . .
Probably this is because French is not del Castillo's

native tongue. Nevertheless. Mauriac praised the second

book

a cause de la réponse qu'y donne un enfant a la
question posée par la férocité de la creature
humaine, appelée a la sainteté et capable de Dieu.

All these writers have one trait in common —— a

disregard for the rules set down by what Mauriac called

"les techniciens du dernier bateau."

Chacun a pris sa route qu'il est seul a con-
naitre. écoute une voix qu'il est seul a entendre,
et nous confie un secret gue nul autre ne pourrait
nous livrer a son place.

 

6Le Figaro littéraire, Oct. 25. 1958, l.

 

PART III
POLITICS AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

CHAPTER IX
FRANCE IN THE IMMEDIATE POST—WAR PERIOD

When the shouts of victory died away, problems of
reconstruction were apparent in all areas of national
life. All institutions were ripe for reorganization.
Mauriac described the situation thus:

Cette crise de la magistrature francaise n'est
qu'un symptome parmi beaucoup d'autres; crise du
corps electoral, crise des cadres dans tous les
ordres, de la diplomatic, de l'armée, de l'appren-
tissage, crise de la Comédie-Francaise, crise de
l'Académie . . .

The circumstances through which the French people had
lived had shaken the foundations of national life.1

The dependence of France upon her allies was not a
happy situation. Symptoms of injured pride appeared in
an article written in August of 1948:

Les Empires n'ont pas de coeur. En eussent-
ils, ils n'auraient pas toujours le moyen d'étre
charitables. Nous ne sommes pas voués a une ruine
eternelle° ils ne sont pas voués non plus a une
prOSpérite sans fin. Nous portons les uns et les
autres au dedans de nous ges possibilités de re-
lévement et de désastre.

One of the problems of post—war France was, of
course, that of status. Mauriac was and is concerned
about this. England then seemed to be the chief
challenger. A British newspaper had conducted an

inquiry in the fall of 1948, relative to the future of

 

1Le Figaro Iittéraire, Oct. 11, 1945, 1.

2Le Figaro Littéraire, Aug. 27, 1948, 1.

 

u)

rt

(3

68

France. Some replies indicated a belief that France
could never again be a great nation, and even questioned
whether she could be a second—rate power. The basis for
the pessimism was the French political customs.

After talking with various members of Parliament
and being satisfied of their sincerity, Mauriac conced-
ed that they needed to face the consequences of French
internal politics, but argued that the idea of such an
inquiry was absurd. With all EurOpe in such a predica-
ment, what country could assign rank to its neighbor?

A l'ombre des deux mastodontes, chaque patrie
dans ce qui subsiste d'EurOpe, tient une place ir-
remplaoable qui n'est la premiere ni la seconde,
qui est sa place: le jour ou elle la perdrait,

I e e I-\ o I c
tout l'edifice deja Sl branlant, s'ecroulerait sans
reméde. L'Allemagne elle—meme, mutilée. avec ses
villes detruites, avec sa population decimée et
affanee, occupe un poste essentiel dans l‘economie
europeen, au vrai, exactement 1e meme que lors-
qu'elle se croyait assez puissante pour tenir téte
au reste du monde.

Continuing in the same vein, Mauriac asserted that
the elements of genius in the Germans, as in the English
and Italians, are at work, whatever the internal politi-
cal fluctuations being used to "reconstituer ce tissu
si précieux" in this narrow strip of the planet where
man has yet given proofs of his dignity. The only

question is whether or not this work will be interrupted

forever by a supreme settling of accounts between the

 

3Le Figaro Iittéraire, Sent. 50, 1948, l.

 

ALIbid.

69

Anglo—Saxons and the Soviets.

For the immediate future, he was waiting to find out
whether Britain would help in the creation of an army
and a Parliament of Europe, and resist this penchant for
blaming a weak France.5

A similar derogatory comment which came from a

writer of the British Observer irritated Mauriac: "One

 

builds on sand in building on France." His retort was
the charge that "la poutre maitresse qu'ont choisi les
promoteurs du traite de Bruxelles et du pacte atlantique
est rongée de termites." He added that, no matter how
any nation felt about it, France was the "pierre angu-
laire" for the reconstruction of Europe. It was pre-
cisely for this reason that the Soviets were forced to
destroy her economy and render the Marshall Plan inef-
fective.6

Although France may be pardoned for the status quo,
the problems must be faced. The past of a great
people is living. All that France has accomplished in
a thousand years weighs heavily upon this generation
and does not leave it free to refuse its role. This re—
sponsibility is unaltered by the circumstances which

made France fall from her position. France will not

decline if you will it otherwise. "Le secret de botre

 

5Le Figaro Littéraire, Sept. 50, 1948, 1.

 

6Le Figaro Littéraire, Nov. 10, 1948, 1.

 

7O

destin est au dedans de vous."’7

A ministerial crisis is always a little embarrass-
ing, but, given the same problems, Mauriac wondered if
any nation would do better. Perhaps what is needed at
this time is one man.

One man can, at a moment in history, put the materi-
al and spiritual resources of a nation to work. A Clemen-
ceau, a de Gaulle, a Roosevelt, a Churchill, a Stalin,
can incarnate the will of their peOple who do not want
to die. Mauriac added: "Aucun secours du dehors ne suf-
fit: une nation se sauve toujours elle—meme.

France is not alone. Rather, she is "a suffering
member of the great wounded body of EurOpe." How could
it be otherwise, after five years of war? French boys
are still falling in Indochina; for some families the
nightmare continues; things are going badly on the home
front. Still, Mauriac insisted that one must put the ac-
cent on the thought that they were movingi9

One cannot separate domestic and foreign politics
nowadays. They are hOpelessly intermingled. And, just
as the Spanish Civil War prefigured the moment of up-
setting the world, so when the two extreme parties come

together. the curtain will rise on the prolOgue of atomic

 

7Le Figaro, Sept. 21-22, 1947, 1.
8

 

Le Figaro, Sept. 5—6, 1948, l.

 

9Le Figaro; Jan. 1, 1947, l.

 

71

war. Such was Mauriac's premise in the article entitled,
"Le Redoutable Prologue," written in the fall of 1948.
To refuse to be blindfolded to the facts did not mean to
consent to this war, but destiny was on the march.10
That to which Mauriac referred as the "Troisiéme
Force" was attempting to keep the balance. If this
"fréle gouvernement" did not succeed in gaining ascendance
over Communism, what would happen to France? As Mauriac
phrased it:
Berlin apparait comme un point nevralgique
bien anodin si nous le comparons a ce que deviendrait
Paris, si nous songeons a tout 9e qui cristallisefiit
autour du peuple francais d1v1se contre lui—meme."
The only hOpeful sign observed by Mauriac was that,
whereas Russian politics is accustomed to work upon inert
humanity, the French working class reacts and resists,
despite the fact that its frustrations and sufferings are
shamelessly exploited. Obviously, the working class
would have what Mauriac calls "le premier rOle dans ce
prologue sinistre ou le sang du peuple des deux cdtés de
la barricade serait le premier et le dernier verse."12

What other result could there be to such a Civil

War, than the Apocalypse of a war on the continents?

The party in France which weakened first would be

 

1o
11
12

Le Figaro Littéraire, Oct. 18, 1948, l.

Ibidl

-”—_

Ibid.

 

72

immediately succored by one of the two antagonistic
Empires. This intervention would involve the adversary.
If this seems too pessimistic a view, Mauriac added:
"Mais il faut commencer par tout craindre si nous voulons
tout pr’evenir."15
The immediate danger envisioned by Mauriac did not
materialize, for the "fréle gouvernement” did become
sufficiently cohesive. There is probably latent danger.

of recurrence, however, and the chain of events fore-

seen by Mauriac could conceivably occur.

 

151hid.

CHAPTER x
MAURIAC, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR

General Observations

Mauriac is outspoken in his comments on polities

and politicians, as the following excerpts will attest.

In the spring of 1954, he gave a sarcastic de-

scription of a ministerial crisis:

C'est 1e jeu qui se joue ouvertement sans
vergogne. Un trés petit nombre d'hommes sont dans
le coup, se passent le ballon, et meme s'ils se
hafssent, restent complices. Ou'il y ait on non
de crise ministerielle, le pouvoir appartient a
l'équipe. La crise toujours se dénoue au-dedans
de l'équipe. Dictature invulnerable, inentamable
jusqu'aux elections. Et alors la loi électorale
jouera, et la remettra en selle . . . (59—60)

In speaking of Parliament on one occasion, he said:
Le grand coeur du Parlement me fait songer au

Girondin Barbaroux dont Robespierre disait:"J'aime

assez Barbaroux; il ment avec une noble fierté. (37)

A typical Maurician compliment to certain parlia-

mentarians appeared in the summer of 1955:

1955:

Observer les fourmis du Parlement, c'est dé-
couvrir l'obscure nécessité de leurs allées et
venues. Quelques-uns sont au service de ma-itres
que l'on ne voit pas, qui ne sont pas si nombreux
dont les noms tiendraient sur une feuille de
bloc-notes. (190)

Another caustic comment appeared in November of

France a eu souvent 1e spectacle de ces Res-
taurations: les fusils changent d'épaule, les
vestes se retournent. C'est reglé comme un ballet
que l'Histoire remet de temps en temps a l'affiche.
La derniére reprise date de la Liberation. La
peur ne joue plus; un peuple furieux n'occupent

74

pas la scene, du moins en France, et seuls les

intéréts s'agitent. (205-204)

Regarding a new Constitution, Mauriac said in May
of 1056: "Le malheur de la France ne tient pas au texte
d'une Constitution, mais aux hommes." (254)

He said also that he did not believe that her mis—
fortune came from ministerial instability. Rather, the
problem is vested interests.

Ies ministres changent mais ils sont aux
ordres de maitres qui ne changent pas. Depuis des
années, les mémes hommes font la méme politique,
au service des mémes intéréts. (254)

In August of 1955, Mauriac aimed his darts at two
classes of simpletons -— "1e Francais de droite qui a
risque toute sa mise sur les U. S. A. ennemis irrecon—
ciliables de 1'U. R. S. S." and "1e Frangais d'extréme—
gauche qui s'est strictement boutonné dans la veste de
Staline." (189)

In February of 1956, Mauriac was quite pessimistic
about members of French political parties.

les partis politiques de France offrent cette
singularité d'étre composes de gens qui ne s'enten-
dent sur rien ni sur personne. (214)

Later in the same year, he remarked:

Il faut beaucoup travailler et passer beaucoup
d'examens pour étre médecin ou instituteur, mais la
politique est une carriére ouverte au premier venu.
.286

Most of the politicians of the past ten years have

one trait in common, according to Mauriac:

75

C'est que les données réelles du probléme
frangais leur échappent et que les solutions
s'imposent sous la pression des faits qu'ils n'ont
pas prévus, en dehors d'eux, malgré eux et contre
eux. (285)

To those who criticize him, as a man of Letters,
for dabbling in politics, Mauriac said:

L'homme de lettres qui s'intéresse aux poli-
ticiens et aux parlementaires comme Maeterlinck
aux termites et aux abeilles, les derange par
1e seul fait qu'il les regarde. (190)

Having been accused of "politique de sentiment,"
Mauriac observed that:

Un grand esprit politique, s'il n'a pas de
coeur, doit agir parfois comme s'il en avait. Et
s'il est dépourvu de principes, il doit, par
habileté, se mettre a la place de ceux qui en ont
et agir comme eux. (188)'

In the same article Mauriac remarked:

I1 semble que pour certains chretiens, 1a
politique soit la permission de faire ce qu'ils
s'interdisent dans 1e privé. Les scrupuleux au
confessional deviennent cynique a la table du
Conseil, et c'est ce qui a fait d'eux les politi—
ciens les plus néfastes de ces dix derniéres
années.

In his own case, Mauriac said that the Christian in
him was indissolubly linked to the citizen. (208)
It is such comments from Mauriac, no doubt, that

called forth from editor Pierre Brisson of Le Figaro

 

Littéraire the following criticism on July 9, 1960:

 

Ses campagnes militantes depuis quelques
années ont fait de lui un mémorialiste ou plus
exactement un satirique du premier rang et dont
les convictions de principe ont un chaleur telle
qu'elles évaporent l'esprit de charité. Notez
qu'il n'a jamais eu vraiment l'esprit de charité.

76

Des élans de coeur, de compassion et d'adhesion,
oui, des élans de secours -- et avec quelle élo—
quence et quelle promptitude! -- mais c'est autre
chose. On sursaute parfois, i1 arrive méme qu'on
s'indigne en voyant vibrer certaines fléches dans
1e cible, mais jamais dans ce qu'il pense ni dans
ce qu'il écrit 1a moindre perte d'altitude. 1

L'Affaire Mitterand

 

Time Magazine gives a compact resume of the episode

 

as follows:

Since the days of the Dreyfus Case, one of
the perennial features of French government has
been l'affaire -- that unique combination of in—
trigue, scandal and politics that seems to come
along at times of great political unrest and to
suggest the existence of deep, deadly and corrupt
forces at work in the body politic. Last week
faithful to the national tradition, President
Charles de Gaulle's fledgling Fifth Republic un—
easily probed its third and most fascinating po-
litical scandal -- l'affaire Mitterand.

 

It broke at a moment when France's rightists
bitterly challenged de Gaulle's offer to negociate
a cease-fire with the Algerian rebels, and when one
member of the French Assembly dramatically announced
that assassins had crossed the Pyrenees, eager to
put a few holes in Frenchmen who were considered to
be soft on Algeria. So many French politicians had
received assassination threats that there was jok-
ing about a "Condemned-to—Death Club." One of its
charter members would undoubtedly be left-wing
Senator Franeois Mitterand, 45, a fervid anti-
Gaullist and outspokeB prOponent of a negociated
peace with Algeria.

The gffgigg involved the attempted assassination.
real or feigned, of Francois Mitterand, a long—time ally
of Mendés-France and ten times a Cabinet Minister under
the Fourth Republic, a man considered by some to be on-

portunistic, but generally regarded as basically honest.

 

1Le Figaro Littéraire, July 9, 1960, 1.

2Time, Nov. 9, 1959, 25.

77

In the welter Of charges, countercharges, investigations,
and altered stories, a number of persons were implicated,
chiefly right-wing politicians.

Then the matter was suddenly hushed up. To quote
2133 again:

Cynical Parisians observe that at a certain
crucial moment in every affaire, after all the
headlines, things mysterISfiEIy'close over again.

An unimportant figure or two may be convicted Of

something; the rest is silence, and large dossiers

gather dust in police files.

Mauriac made a number of observations about this
incident, the first Of which might lay him Open to the
charge of "politique de sentiment." Mitterand's first
claim to innocence is that he came from the environs of
BordeauxfL

Mauriac eXpressed little doubt that Mitterand,
along with Mendés-France, had been a designated victim.
But it is nothing to kill the body, and the killers know
that. The death of a public man at the hands of his
enemies makes him a martyr. The dishonoring of a public
man is the only assassination that may be profitable to
his enemies. In this ignoble battle, to kill is nothing;
to get out is everything.5

Mauriac also said that he was struck, on reading

 

3Trme, Nov. 9, 1959,.25.

4L'Express , Nov. 5, 1959, 44.

5L'FXpress. Oct. 29, 1959, 48.

 

 

78

the provincial press, by how easy it was to succeed.
Franqois Mitterand, against whom nothing was proved,
could bring all sorts of proofs of a plot, and the good
peOple would just smile and shake their heads. If
Mitterand were not a courageous man, he would be just

as dead now as if he had fallen under cannon—fire.6

Mauriac expressed no doubt that Mitterand would
ultimately give proof of his good faith, but said that
some disgrace would remain despite the proof, even if it
left no room for doubt:7

Whatever may have been the conditions of this at—
tempt, the assassins are known and they go unpunished.
Even when the police have been able to seize those in-
volved in this and similar affairs, chains fall off, doors
are Opened, and a heavy complicity surrounds and protects
them. Mitterand and his children are still under the
shadow of a bloody hand.8

In November of 1959, Mauriac observed that things
happen fast nowadays. The Dreyfus Case dragged on for
six years, while a few months wound up the Mitterand

one -- and no one knows what really happened.

 

611-219..

7Ihid.
8

 

Ibid.
OL'Express, Nov. 12. 1959, 44.

 

 

79

Mauriac added that, in the present political turmoil,
one can scarcely refrain from asking who is fighting whom,
but, up to now, crimes committed by the extreme right go

unpunished.lo

 

1OIhid.‘

CHAPTER XI
MAURIAC SURVEYS PCLITICAL PARTIES

Writing in November, 1946, just before an election,
Mauriac surveyed the situation. He said that we needed
to know what our political candidates thought of man, of
his dignity, of his rights, of his destiny. Our task,
in the confused mélée of political parties, is to learn
to discern "les hommes fidéles aux idées méres de la

1

civilisation."

The Twilight of Socialism

 

This expression was used by Mauriac in 1946. He
also described the situation as "the ship wreck of an
idea." That which remains of the Christian Gospel, un-
supported by Christian faith, could not withstand the
logic of those who treat human beings as if they were of
no more value than any other animal.

What good, he wondered, was accomplished by the
hanging of Nazis in Nuremburg, if small nations remain
subservient, if the "transhumance des troupeaux humains"
is not interrupted, and if conscript labor camouflaged
by high-sounding vocabulary handles problems of pro—
duction and distribution by methods known to old Cheips?

The mental and spiritual revolution which made

 

1Le Figaro, Nov. 6, 1946, l.

 

2Le Figaro, Aug. 20, 1946, 1.

 

81

the socialists accept the Revolution of 1917 and the

materialistic conception of the world which it implies,
was not accomplished without a struggle, because of the
aforementioned Christian heritage.3

Mauriac reminded his readers that the duel between
the spiritual and the materialistic conceptions of the
world was becoming more heinous because the two 0p-
posing forces are utilized by the will-to-power of
antagonistic empires.“

Mauriac again spoke in this vein in December of the
same year, under the caption, "Vocation trahie." He
said that he did not deny that in all good faith the
Marxists adhere to what they believe to be true, in con-
forming with dialectical history. But socialists and
Christians have no reason for being in the world today
except to say,"Nd" to this complicity of Marxist man and
history.

In the same article, he said that, when we speak of
defending the person, we must remember that nations are
made up of persons, that nations know torture, that they
can be assassinated. The French Socialists are the de-

faulting advocates of a double cause: that of the human

 

31bid.
4Ibid.

51bid.

 

82

being and that of small nations. Their decline, he as-
serted, was their punishment for being silent at the
moment of history when they alone could raise their
voices effectively, because they were not suspect among
the proletariat as were those of bourgeois origin or
religious affiliation.

Mauriac then anticipated that this mission would be
fulfilled by the new Mouvement Hepublicain Pqulaire
appearing on the horizon.6

Mouvement Republicain POpulaire

 

Back in 1945, Mauriac had high hOpes of the achieve-
ments of this new Party. Writing exultingly in Le

33.3239, he said:

Pour la premiere fois un mouvement politique,
ouvert a tous, mais pénétre par la morale chreti—
enne, pousse de profondes racines dans la classe
ouvriére, grace aux Syndicats Chrétiens, a la
J. O. C. (Jeunesse Ouvriére Chrétienne). Dieu
veuille que l'immense reserve que représentent les
différents groupements de la jeunesse catholique
et protestante comprenne enfin que Chaque Francais,
aujourd'hui, est engage. qu'il existe en particu-
lier une politique extérieure qui signifie recon-
struction d'une chrétienté en Occident et que 7
ressusciter l'Europe c'est faire l'oeuvre du Christ.

But the Party did not live up to its promise.
Mauriac wrote in December of 1955:

Il saute aux yeux que le clergé et que la
jeunesse catholioue, orientés Chaque jour un peu

 

61bid.
7Le Figaro, Oct. 3, 1945, 1.

 

83

plus vers l‘action sociale, auraient dfi détacher de
la droite les masses croyantes, et c'est bien ce
qui, d'abord, a paru se passer. A la Liberation,

1e triomphe de la démocratie chrétienne, 1e naufrage
définitif du nationalisme "integral", tout parut
annoncer la formation d'un grand parti travailliste
francais e la fois socialiste et chrétien. . .

A quelle faillite spirituelle a abouti le
Mouvement republicain populaire! Ce n'est pas parce
qu'il est d'inspiration catholique, mais, au con-
traire, en dépit de cette inspiration, qu'il est
devenu, en France, et dans les pays de l'union
francaise, le complice le plus efficace de Mammon.

(54-55)

The depths of Mauriac's discouragement with the
M. R. P. was indicated in June of 1954 in the remark:

Le M. R. P. c'est 1e tramway nommé pouvoir.
Que vous avez pour d'y perdre votre place! Si l'un
de vous, pris~ d'une crise de conscience et se
tenant le ventre, est descendu en cours de route,
une fois soulagé comme il court aprés le tramway!
101

The first time, according to Mauriac's statement,

that he did not vote for the M. R. P. was in 1955. (205-
206

Criticism of the Right

 

Mauriac was accused by the editor of ;a_9£gix of
of pretending that Truth and Justice are by definition
on the left and ignored by the right. He retaliated by
accusing his critic of believing that the ultimate end
of Catholic journalism was to avoid getting burned and
to avoid burning questions.

Mauriac also stated that the men whom the editor
was supporting with all his hidden power, had played

dominant roles in the dramas of Madagascar, Indochina

84

Tunisia and Morocco. He concluded:

L'injustice, mais aussi 1e crime ont été a
droite, dans l'exacte mesure ou la droite francaise
est reSponsable de ce qui s'est accompli depuis
dix ans, et a gauche dans la mesure ou des elements
de gauche y ont préte la main. (206)

This was not the first time that Mauriac had criti—
cized the right. In April, 1955, he had remarked that
"L'ordure, anonyme ou non, est tguiours d'extréme-droite."
He was speaking then of some mail received which pertain-
ed to his articles on North Africa. (21—22)

In 1959, Mauriac mentioned the countless times that
a smile or a shrug of the shoulders had been the only
response when he warned the moderates among his friends
that: "Les assassins ne viendront pas du cété qui vous
fait peur." Their political comportement is regulated
by a fear of Communism.

Mauriac asserted, however, that fear was a simple
passion. The moderates were sure that no harm could
come from the right, because nothing from that quarter
threatens their interests. According to them, the real
virtue of Fascism and even of Nazism was the neutrali-
zation of the masses.8

Nauriac then made a comparison between the fanati-
cal killings during the period of religious wars with

the political ones of the present. To kill peOple be-

cause they do not share one's ideas of God is certainly

 

8L'Express, October 22, 1959, 48.

 

85

not commendable. But what about the attempt to assassi-
nate Mitterand because of his views on Algeria? "This
fierce hate," said Mauriac, "our fanatics have inherit-
ed from certain moderates who are not moderately hate-
ful."9

Warnings against Communism

 

Mauriac is well aware of the dangers of Communist
infiltration in France and elsewhere.

In November, 1946, he said that Marx and Lenin had,
all their lives, expected and desired catastrOphe. They
would have been paltry revolutionaries if they had not
been delighted by any situation or event favoring the
downfall of capitalist society. The editor of Humanité
was angry at this. But Mauriac asked why the editor
should be angry that he attributed to his prOphets the
ideas that they Openly proclaimed. Insofar as the
Communist Party remains a revolutionary one, it cannot
fail to be the Party of sabotage.lo

Shortly before this, Mauriac had mentioned ”L'an-
neau de feu" maintained by the Soviet Union. Secre—
tary Byrnes from Washington had spoken of peace with
Russia. It sounds well. But the regime in Russia, in

order to maintain itself, must draw back from the Euro-

pean community, thus blocking the first condition of

 

quid.

 

lore Figaro, Nov. 17-18, 1946, 1°

 

86

peace, 1. e., free exchange of ideas. Russia may have
won the war, thanks to the heroism of her children, but
the regime faces greater danger than ever —- dangers
springing from the war -- contact of the Russian peOple
with the West, and infiltration of EurOpean liberal
thought into Russia. The peOple must be safeguarded by
this ring of fire so that they will not be "contaminated"
by ideas of comfort or liberty, and hence, unwilling to
continue undergoing the stern discipline of their leaders.
Only an internal crisis will break this "anneau de feu."
Russia may prefer a "conflagration universelle" to such

a crisis; or this old world may not be able to resist

"au levain marxiste qui, déja, dans chaque nation, tra-
vaille et fait lever la pate humaine}l

The writer has an uncomfortable feeling that Mauriac
may have made an all too accurate diagnosis of the
dilemma.

The Communist Party, as Mauriac sees it, is not and
never will be a reservoir for "presidents du Conseil."
One cannot incarnate, at the same time, the Marxist
revolution and the democratic State. To serve one is
to betray the other. Communism is much more than a
Party; it is a spirit, a way of life, a religion, an

order that draws back from the world and yet remains in

 

11Le Figaro, Oct. 25, 1946, l.

 

87

12
the world to attack it from the inside.

About a year later, Mauriac again wrote about Com—
munism. Luckily for France, the Communists received the
order to unmask and show themselves as they were. Mau-
riac said that he had always had a horror of masks. That
is why, no doubt, the comrade who got out of the plane
with detectives from Moscow and Belgrade seemed less
formidable than when Mauriac had seen him as the min-
ister of the bourgeois Republic, animating the official
dinners with his verve and chatting with what Mauriac
called "une Altesse royale fremissante et flattée.”

When he showed his "figure de crime," worked openly and
coldly executed his work of death, Mauriac felt reas-
sured.

He became even more blunt in this article, saying:

Un virus reste un virus, méme lorsque son
action ne se manifeste pas au dehors et que le

malade garde les apparences de la santé. Tout le
temps que les communistes ont occupé le pouvoir
et ses avenues dans une France qui s'habituait a
eux et ou ils ne faisaient plus peur d'personne,
ils l'ont employé au noyantage des ministéres et
de l'administration, a cette remarquable mise en
place, qui leur permet aujourd'hui d'atteindre les
centres nerveux de la nation. La paralysie
générale c‘est tout de méme du beau travail com-
muniste, et le petit Pére Staline est bien ingrat
s'il est vrai qu'il a fait venir Thorez au Krem-
lin pour lgi laver la téte et pour tirer les

oreilles.

 

12Le Figaro, Dec. 7, 1946, l.

 

15Ie Figaro, Dec. 1, 1947, 1.

 

88

The dogma of Soviet infallibility is part of the
Communist baggage. French Communists, like their tutors,
refuse to admit in any case that the USSR could pos—
sibly be wrong, and that is the factor that isolates
them from the French community. Nothing in the recent
history of "notre alliée soviétique" merits the slight-

est reproach. In the entire collection of L'Humanité,

 

one will not find a word of disapproval, whether in
regard to the pact with Hitler or the ravaging of
Poland, according to Mauriac.

Since dialectical history makes any crime legiti-
mate, so long as it is perpetrated by the USSR, the
French Communists adhere in advance, with eyes closed,
to the future politics of the Soviet, and France will
pay the price. But it is useless to remind those who do
not want to see trouble until it comes. They will have
to set themselves against France on the day when Soviet
tanks roll along the Champs—Elysées. A French Commu-
nist Party unconnected with the USSR does not exist.

The vocation of the French Communists would be to
force the "grand Inquisiteur du Kremlin" to reform.
Failing that, they would have two alternatives; to be
only an outcast Party, suspect if not outlawed, or to

dominate the nation with the aid of Soviet tanks.14

 

14Le Figaro, Dec. 16, 1947, l.

 

89

About the only reassuring comment from Mauriac on
the subject of Communism, appeared December 10. He re—
ported that the French Communist Party had succumbed
under the blows of the Kremlin. The USSR had coldly
sacrificed it by ignoring individuals, the national
parties, their interests, their particular character.
while thinking only of minerals for their factories.
The proletariat resisted foreign oppression and made
use of critical faculties which Mauriac thought they no
longer possessed where the Soviet was conceréed.

In July of 1956 Mauriac wrote an interesting
analysis of the problem posed by the Kremlin. It is
not a man (Stalin) but a principle at stake. All the
blood that was spilled at Stalin's command was not
spilled because he was a fool. It undoubtedly appeared
necessary to him. He thought he was actingfor the

general good, according to his idea of man. Whatever

 

the nature of Stalin may have been, the part which he
played in History has given him this "coloration sinistre"
as Mauriac termed it. Dialectical materialism is a
machine to crush the individual for the greater good of
this entity: the human race. The idea which one has of
man, his origin and his destiny, governs the use which

we make of him.

 

15Le Figaro, Dec. 10, 1947, 1.

 

9O

"Cain, what have you done to your brother?" The
question is addressed not only to the assassin who is
so because of hate, greed or envy, but to the one who
assassinates because the individual Abel is without
value in his eyes and because the system demands that
he be sacrificed to the general good. (245)

Stalin was not an incomprehensible monster, accord-
ing to Mauriac. He was only a politician like the others,
but of a "grande espéce, " draining off against an ad-
versary the consequences of his "calomnie" becauSe he
had the audacity and the power. (245—246)

Mauriac admits that there is a kind of stability
in Eastern EurOpe -- a stability created by spilled
blood, forced labor, and controlled and subservient
thought and aspiration. But this is not what free men
want.

To be sure, liberty brings risks. The peril of
death is its corollary. As Mauriac phrased it: "Les
peuples libres cotoient la mort comme des somnambules
le bord d'un toit."l6

The peoples of Europe must never lose sight of the
fact that, soon or late, they will find themselves as
much alone in the face of the USSR as Little Red Rid—

ing Hood facing the wolf. But a little time is given

 

16Le Figaro, Dec. 25, 1947, l.

 

to prepare for this encounter -— perhaps time to see it
coming}!7
Wax
It seems to the writer that Mauriac has described
quite accurately the two dangerous extremes of French
politics: the extreme right wing, and the Communist

Party. Apparently, he sees the futility of protecting

completely the status quo, but he is equally aware of

 

the dangers of Communism. According to him, the great
weakness of the extreme right is its guarding of class
interests above all else. The great weakness of the
extreme left is its going against the nature of man born
Christian, but who stews in the broth of materialism in
which his leaders confine him?

The current atrocities in Algeria committed by the
right wing as embodied in the O. A. S. (Secret Army
Organization), as well as the Mitterand affair, and
recent attempts on de Gaulle's life, all attest the
accuracy of Mauriac's observations.

As for the Communist Party, Mauriac's graSp of

Soviet psychology and tactics might well be implanted

in some American minds, as well as in French ones. The

 

17Le Figaro, Dec. 25, 1947, 1.
18

 

Le Figaro, Nov. 6, 1946, l.

 

92

innocuous infiltration into key positions, the inexorable
sacrifice of the individual and of the nation itself to
the Party, the physical violence, and the diabolical
brain-washing -- all these are fully comprehended by
Mauriac. The pattern is plain and openly blue-printed
for anyone to see provided that he is willing to look.
Mauriac insists that France -- and the world -- take a

long, penetrating look.

CHAPTER XII
FCnFIGN AFFAIRS, BARONETZR OF FHEYCH POLITICS

gackground Troblems

 

One ever—present problem in recent years has been
the cold war. Mauriac posed the question: "Why have
men chosen to carry on a cold war, which they are pur—
suing everywhere with varying fortunes?" He answered
his own question. It is the only kind possible if they
do not want to blow Up the planet, or if they want their
children to play hOp-scotch on the sidewalks of Paris
in the summer twilight.l

He said grimly that it would probably take a little
blood to conjure fate —— the corpse of letkov (chief of
the Bulgarian Opposition) at the end of a rOpe, Maniu
condemned to death at Bucharest, some Greek peasants
lying under the sky, Buchenwald where men become beasts.
Ferhaps this is the tribute which cold war exacts --
the shedding of blood and the quota of crimes to assuage
the Devil's thirst -— as an alternative to total de—
struction.*

It would be useless to ask the ambassadors, who
were soon to meet in london, to try to understand each
other, since their masters hate each other, and the hate

of one State for another is an abstract passion with

 

1Le Figaro, Nov. 8, 1947, l.
21bid.

 

which one cannot come to terms. On the other hand,
Russians and Americans must work out their hatred by
non-violent means, or, at least, limit the sacrifices
of human beings to the minimum
de crimes judiciares et d'assassinats légaux
necessaires a l'honneureux épanouissement du
systéme soviétique parmi les peuples qui gofitent
les délices de son voisinage.

The only recourse is to persuade the rival empires
to retain the atom bomb and germ warfare as symbols on-
ly, and to postpone their use as long as possible, in
the interests of self-preservation if not of regard for
others.5

Unsatisfactory modern diplomacy is another problem.
In May of 1945 Mauriac wrote that, as the Conference of
the Five meeting in London, was about to dissolve in
impotence and confusion, it was time for international
public Opinion to be manifested, and time that universal
suffering should force the masters of the world to take
into account in their calculations the currency of their
exchequers: man.4

In 1947, Mauriac was lamenting the fact that di—

plomacy had become dehumanized.

Les nations civilisées ne prennent plus entre
elles de contact humain. Au cours de ces ren-

 

31bid.

4Le Figaro, near May 8, 1945, 1. (Day not on micro-
film.)

 

95

contres, elles ne s'incarnent plus dans des esprits
capables de persuader mais aussi d'entendre raison.
Il n'y a plus de conversations ni d'échanges:
aucune chance n'est donnée au charme personnel. a
cette sympathie humaine dont la paix, en a si
souvent bénéficié. Aujourd'hui, une Conference
internationale, ce sont les boniments de baraques
rivales sur un champ de foire: on ne convainc pas
un haut-pagleur, on s‘efforce de crier plus fort
que lui.

Mauriac mentioned a tendency in our time for those
who have been Oppressed to become Oppressors in their
turn. The situation described is in the Middle East,
but Mauriac evidently believes that the problem is not
confined to that area.

C'est une loi de ces temps u'un groupe hu-
main persecute, a peine est-i1 delivré de ces
oppresseurs, Opprime a son tour. L'esprit
totalitaire enfante les mémes monstres chez les
victimes d'hier que chez leurs bourreaux. Les
Juifs du groupe Stern, par la terreur qu'ils ont
répandu, ont arraché de leurs foyers pres de six
cent mille étres humains, dont cent mille chretiens,
qui, en Syrie, en Transjordanie, en Judée et en
Egypte, recgmmencent de monter 1e Calvaire a peine
de gravir.

Foreign Affairs Involving France

 

As one might expect, Mauriac's discussion involves
mainly French Indochina and North Africa, although other
areas are mentioned from time to time.

The horror of the carnage in Indochina provoked in
Mauriac the desire to escape "ce brouillamini d'erreurs

et de violences," as Goethe had defined politics. (68)

 

5Ie Figaro, Dec. 25, 1947, 1.

 

6Le Figaro, Nov. 16, 1948, l.

 

The fall of Indochina provoked from Mauriac the
comment that the Christian Democrats had betrayed their
vocation, which was to make manifest the truth that
politics does not escape the moral law. (80)

Mauriac has been greatly concerned about North
Africa and French political action there. "Maroc" ap—
pears quite frequently in his articles, and his sympathy
has seemed to be with the Arabs.

The Bloc-Notes of April 6, 195} quote letters

 

from both Arabs and French Colonials in Casablanca, ex-
pressing their views on the situation and their reactions
to Mauriac's articles.

One Moroccan wrote:

I do not know how . . . to find the words
necessary to thank you for the article that you did
on Morocco and especially on Islam. For many
French people do not know that we love them more
than they think. I have given fourteen years of my
life for the French cause and I come back from the
Far East gravely wounded. I do not regret what I
have done provided that the true French like you
continue to love us. (lg-20)

This is balanced by a letter from a Frenchman:

It must be that you really have no idea of
the Moroccan problem. Fortunately 99 out of 100
peOple of Morocco being completely illiterate and
of an intellectual level which does not surpass
that of animals, are quite incapable of under—
standing what the fomenters of troubles are trying
to explain to them, but on the other hand they
have the instincts of wild beasts. (19—20)

Another Moroccan said: "We know thanks to you that

the human and liberal traditions of the true France are

97

intact."

A Frenchman said:

The only therapeutic agent apprOpriate for
you is a cold shower . . . I am informing you that
I intend to spend my vacation in France this summer.
The crowning point of my stay will be the kick I
will administer to your posterior, preferablv in
broad daylight and in a public place! (19—20)
Another Moroccan wrote:

I am happy to hear at last a great French voice
raised against the abuse and the deSpotism that

France tolerates in this land. If sound justice

were given, there would be no Moroccan problem. (19-
20)

There are indications in this correSpondence that
Mauriac is often maligned, but one must admit that he
seems to enjoy the combat. It is faintly reminiscent of
St. Paul's boasting of the hardships which he has under-.
gone for the sake of the Gospel. The thing which really
disturbs Mauriac is that, as he wrote in April of 1955,
all the filthy letters come from the extreme right. No
Communist has sent him a letter of that type.

Mauriac was chairman of the Comité France—Maghreb,
which was founded in 1955 to advise Mayer's Cabinet on
action to take regarding a problem in their Protectorate
of Morocco. Theoretically, this Committee's responsi-
bility included all of North Africa, but actually, it

7

dealt only with Morocco.

7Collierx and Son, Colliers Year Book, 1954,
215—216.

 

98

The problem was this. The French authorities had
prepared a program of reforms intended to initiate the
Moroccan people into the workings of democracy and
self-government. The Sultan, Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef,
refused to sign the reform decrees, and asked for great
changes in the Protectorate Treaty. He was known to
favor the Istqlal Party, which demanded complete inde—
pendence.

Many Moroccans Opposed the Istqlal Party, notably
the Berber mountaineers, a simple, rugged, old-fashioned
Moslem peOple, largely pro-French. Their leader was the
Pasha of Marrakech, Sidi Thami el Glaoui. A large
group of them addressed a petition to the French au-
thorities asking that ben Youssef be deposed, because
his modernist religious views made him unfit to be
Immam (spiritual leader), and his favoring of the Is—
tiqlal ran counter to their politics.

The Mayer Cabinet in France did not know what to
do. It was then that the Comité France-Maghreb was
formed. They recommended support of ben Youssef on
the grounds that, according to the Frotectorate Treaty,
France should defend the legitimate ruler against his

discontented subjects.

The French did not act, but the Moroccans did,

A

finally making Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa Sultan.

 

99

Mauriac continued to lament the progress of events
in North Africa. He described the vicious circle of
rebellion and repression as a monotonous, episodic
"film policier," the worst feature of which was being
ignored. A suspect who was arrested was often inter—
rogated under cruel conditions. If and when he was re-
leased, he would not keep his resentment to himself,
but pass it on to his friends, brothers or children. The
current generation, growing up in a poisoned atmOSphere,
will mature quickly. Already they hate France. Mauriac
said that it was like striking one's head against the
wall to see Frenchmen taking such measures in Morocco.
It mggt be from lack of imagination to see the conse—
quences, for the crimes are those of "bétise." (88—89)

In June of 1954, Mauriac spoke of snatching the

band from the periodical Forces Nouvelles, to read the

 

report of Etienne Borne, who had been called upon to
account for his actions. Mauriac said that he knew in
advance the contents: eight years of massacres which
have assurred the economic equilibrium of France, Dien-
Bien—Phu, the atrocious repression of Madagascar, the
terror in Morocco and Tunisia, all of which counted less
than the Party political prestige. Borne mounted the
tribune, Mauriac said, with a sponge -- too small a
Sponge for so much blood! (88-89)

Bloc—Votes of November 2, 1934 carried the grim

 

100

news of the beginning of war in Algeria. Mauriac did
not place the blame upon those who actually started it,
for they probably did what was expected of them. (153)

August 20, 1955 found Mauriac still of the opinion
that ben Youssef was the proper leader for Morocco. (189)

About a month later, he again mentioned the indis-
pensability of ben Youssef to his own people and to
France, and expressed the hOpe that they would find such
an intermediary in Algeria. (194-195)

A few days later, Mauriac expressed disgust that
certain persons could not see, even from the experiences
of Indochina and Tunisia, the value of negociation and
the futility of war at this moment in the evolution of
the colonial problem. (197)

November 10, 1955 found Mauriac rejoicing over the
fact that Mohammed V (ben Youssef) was back in power,
but lamenting the fact that the dead do not return.

How many of them would be alive now but for the machin-
ery set in motion by a few persons! The deposition of
the Sultan cost so much in blood that no one dared to
ask what it cost the Treasury. (204)

An article written in July, 1956 suggested that
the situation in Algeria would not follow the pattern of
Morocco, largely because of the difference in the per-
sonality and prestige of its leaders. He wrote:

L'Algérie est un point d'infection ou’il
n'appartient plus a personne d'isoler. Ies effets

101

prévus, inéluctables, se developpent de jour en
jour a la périphérie. Tentement, semble-t—il, au
Maroc. ou 1e prestige de Mohammed V lui permet de
temporiser, d'attendre l'evenément. Habib
Bourghiba, lui méne autre bataille. (249)

Remarking in July of 1956, that nothing is so fu—
tile as regret, and that it serves no useful purpose to
remake History according to one’s views, Mauriac declared
that the destiny of France in Algeria was settled on
February 6, 1956. Everything that has happened or that
will happen there is the result of premises posed that
day. Fe continued:

C'est une souffrance que de fixer 1e moment
précis ou tout aurait nu étre sauve. Notre
Histoire d'avant 1a guerre est jalonné de ces
dates fatales. L'histoire de Hitler nous montre
1e Destin qui fixe des rendez-vous successifs aux
démocraties imbéciles et chaque fois défaillantes.
(249-250)

The fateful date of February 6 was the time when
Guy Mollet replaced Mendes-France, and appointed Gener—
al Catroux to replace Soustelle in Algeria. According
to all commentators, Mauriac said, Mendés-France was
incapable of substituting something better for that
which he wished to destroy in Algeria. Nevertheless,
Mauriac maintained:

Or, 11 est 1e seul homme d'Etat frangais qui
ait en la courage de reconnaitre et de déclarer
ouvertement que le fascisme régne a Alger et que
rien ne sera fait, qu'on ne l'ait d'abord abattu.
Il dit, i1 proclame qu'il faut réduire a l'im-
puissance les hommes a qui M. Guy Mollet rendit
les armes, 1e 6 février 1956, et qui continuent
d'étre les maitres, puisque M. Lacoste execute

leurs volontés et se rallie docilement a leurs
Consignes. (515)

102

In August of the same year, Mauriac mentioned that
the Suez Affair had seemed more dangerous than the
assassination which touched off World War I. The lack
of foresight and also of sense of solidarity on the
part of England and France had brought the world peril-
ously close to a conflagration. He said specifically:

Le danger d'une conflagration reste la carte
maitresse du colonel Nasser et les hommes légers
qui nous ménent pourraient étre entrainés a agir
comme si cette carte était sans valeur; voila qui
donne a réver sombrement. (252, 257-258)

He said in the same article that he believed that
war was feared equally in Moscow and Washington, and
that Washington was resolved not to risk war. However,
he posed the ouestion: To what extent is staying out
of war contingent upon the will of the people? (257)

The shortsightedness of the politicians caused
Mauriac to say sarcastically:

Passer 1'éponge, tourner la page, c'est une
necessité de la politique dés qu'on 1a considére
comme une profession. S'il fallait obliger les
responsables a rendre des comptes, chacun devrait
a son tour occuper 1a sellette, et ne manquerait
pas de se décharger sur les autres. (259)

In the same pessimistic vein, Mauriac wrote about
a month later:

Les politiciens, i1 n'en est presque aucun
qui ne sache tourner a sa gloire un désastre
militaire ou'il a organise, et se tresser des
couronnes avec les étriviéres qu'il a reques. (265)
In October, 1956 Mauriac attacked the attitude

of the United States in the process of criticizing

French politics. He insisted that the reasons for the

10}

treatment that "Yankee pharisaism" inflicted upon them
were inherent in their own politics.

Insisting that he had not forgotten the lifelong
debt which France owed the Americans, he still expressed
resentment at their being treated as colonialists by
those whom he referred to as the exterminators of the
red race and the last EurOpean slave-holders! He added
that the way Americans treated the descendants of their
slaves was apparent to the entire world. (270-271)

A similar derogatory comment appeared in 1960. He

was on his way to Rome to address the §ociéte africaine

 

de culture. Having thought for a week about them and

 

their problems, he said he felt closer to them than to
the Race which was at that moment preparing for the pun—
ishment of Caryl Chessman.9
On November 7, Mauriac was slightly more Optimis-
tic. Atomic war had not yet erupted. History had not
yet decided who had won and who had lost, although
Israel seemed to have gained. Russia had only to threat—
en and she got her way. Nasser, for a "colonel battu"
did not look too bad. The U. N. had the last word and
was getting a small army at its diSposal. If the U. N.

consented and Russia closed her eyes, France might be

able to get her ships out of Suez. Best of all, the

obtuse officials, Mollet, Iacoste, Bourgés-Maunoury,

 

9p'Express, Feb. 25, 1960, 44.

 

104

and Lejeune must understand by now the times in which
they are functioning! (280)

The November 20, 1956 issue of Bloc-Notes carried

 

the report that there would be no oil for France so

' long as a single French soldier remained at Fort-Said.
Mauriac said that the United States was to blame for
this, and the worst feature was that for once American
politics was founded upon reason! Americans could not
act otherwise, face to face with Russia -- whom France
herself had given an unexpected pretext to intervene

in the Middle East. He added that the era of the great
colonizing nations was ending. (285)

Perhaps the height of Mauriac's pessimism was
reached on November 50, 1956. Never, he said, had the
consequences of politics so swiftly overtaken the
authors -- Russia's ultimatum, the chilled relationship
with the United States whose politics ( he felt) belit-
tled France and ignored her interests, and the condem-
nation by the U. N. -— yetIW. Guy Mollet remained
unruffled! (285)

There was one advantage, Mauriac admitted ruefully,
at reaching the depths. That was the rock whose rough-
ness the politicians needed to feel. (285)

Their politicians had to go to Suez to become aware
that Russia was interested in the Middle East, and that
the Vnited States would not tolerate her presence there.

(286)

105

In mid—December of 1956 and again in early January
Mauriac praised the exemplary courage of Hungary, where
man defied the system:

L'indomptable Hongrie démontre au monde que
la sens de l‘Histoire peut étre determine par la
volonté du plus faible, quand le plus fort est
inhumain, systemmatiquement. L'Histoire des hommes
condamne l'inhumain. Ie malheur est que, dans
l'ére atomique, il reste au plus fort de pouvoir
noyer sa ruine particuliére dans la destruction
de tout 1e reste. Le glas sonne en Hongrie,
certes, mais pour qui? (291)

L'homme a résisté 1e systéme; c'est la fait
nouveau que les sociologues ont dfi enregistrer
parmi tous ceux dont ils sont chaque jour assaillis
-- car l'Histoire va Vite depuis ou'elle est de—
venue dialectioue! Mais ce fait nouveau-la boule—
verse tout. (295)
Mauriac said that the passage from the Colonial
Era to that of Federation in Africa should have occurred
at the time of the Liberation when peOple were ready for
it. De Gaulle had advocated this in Volume II of his
Mémoires. Pow war, death and an enduring hatred are
rooted in the land where they wanted to build an endur-
ing friendship. The whole unfortunate situation resulted
from the work of those whom they voted into office . (256)
He had written earlier that the sinister part of
the international political situation was the fault of
those who held the cards.
Mais qui donc les leur a mises entre les mains,
sinon 1a Nation elle-meme, condamnée a suivre une
politique: celle dont précisément elle avait cru

se garer par les choix ou'elle avait faits? (250)

Therein lies the greatest problem of a democracy!

106

Mauriac has long been aware of the interdependence
of nations. Again and again this idea appears in his
writings. While expressing surprise that Nasser's coup
had caught the Western Towers off guard, he also ex-
pressed regret that England and France did not realize
their solidarity until it was too late to use it as a
counterweight. He predicted that France would get re-
percussions from the English defeat at Suez, just as
England would get those from the French struggle in
Algeria. (252)

As for the role of the United Nations, Mauriac

agreed with Naurice Duverger in Le Nonde, that the

 

nations sitting in judgment apply to other peoples prin-
ciples which they themselves would not follow in the
same situation. Nevertheless, Mauriac insisted that
this organization was still the only buffer between them
and war. (279)

The fact that neither the United States nor Russia
wanted war was beside the point. To defend the peace
it was necessary to avoid at all costs the creation of
situations in which the gamblers could no longer control
the political game and where the bluff became history.
(279)

Mauriac's awareness of the seriousness of bad poli-

tical action is perhaps nowhere better expressed than in

a statement which appearred in Bloc—Notes for December

 

El

107

199 1955:

Les crimes de la vie personnelle peuvent
étre rachetés et effacés. non ceux de la vie
politique. I'Histoire ne pardonne pas, parce
qu'elle ne s'interrompt jamais, parce qu'elle
dévelOppe sans arrét, dans tous les sens, et
sur tous les plans, les consequences d'un acte
une fois pose, mais celles aussi de nos
dérobades et de nos refus. (5?)

CHAPTER XIII
MAURIAC EVALUATEB FRENCH STATESMFN
Of all the actors on the French political stage,
Mauriac evidently regards only two -- Mendés-France
and De Gaulle -- as having the stature of statesmen.
The others are merely politicians.

Pierre Mendés-France

 

When Mendés—France became President du Conseil,
Mauriac declared that he hOped for the success of the
regime, and would be quick to criticize the foes of
Mendes-France, though he would not refrain from ex-
pressing any difference of Opinion.

True to his promise, Mauriac did exalt Mendés-
France and criticize his foes unmercifully.

Mauriac expressed regret that Mendés-France had
been brought to power by the Communists. He said:

On ne peut considérer que tristement . . .
cu'un Pierre Mendés-France, qui va entreprendre
enfin une politique francaise digne de ce nom, ne
se considére pas mandate par le peuple tout entier.
(107)

Radicalism seemed to Mauriac a strange political
vehicle for a man like Vendés-France.

Ce radical qui a refuse le pouvoir durant des
années et qui a préféré la vérité aux profits d'une
carriére politique, quel drdle de radical! Au vrai,
on ne saurait avoir moins la tripe radicale que
cet Hercule appelé a nettoyer les écuries de

l'Augias maconnique et clerical qui a dirigé pen-
dant dix ans la politique francaise. (151)

Mauriac expressed the hOpe that the "presence

109

chrétien" of Mendés—France would either transform the
left and thus transform French internal politics, or

bring about a true right which would serve principles
instead of interests. (150—151) It would seem that

Mauriac was a little over-optimistic.

In July of 1954 Mauriac declared his belief that
Mendés—France was the only living French statesman
whose vision was not blinded by parliamentary and elec—
toral Opportunity, and who was determined to translate
his beliefs into action despite Opposition. (114)

On another occasion, Mauriac said:

Je doute qu'il soit un animal politique au
sens parlementaire. Je 1e crois d'une autre
espéce que les carpes du Palais-Bourbon qui cheris-
sent leur profonde boue. (121)

Mauriac expressed approval Of Mendés—France's
efforts to "remettre la France a flot". as he phrased
it. He agreed that only a strong France is a useful
ally. By strengthening France, Mendés-France will do
more to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance than

ceux qui ont entretenu la guerre indochinoise
de huit ans, qui ont ruiné l'amitié francO-maro-
caine et mis le feu a la Tunisie. (108)

In October, Mauriac said that Mendes-France did
not know that he was searching for the Kingdom Of God
with its justice and peace, but the human peace and jus-
tice for which he was working were no different from

those for which we pray daily. (152)

Mauriac took issue with Thierry Faulnier. who held

110

Mendés—France responsible for existing evils -- all the
errors and crimes which the latter had denounced and
whose consequences he was successfully undoing. (152-
135)

Mauriac quarrelled with Teitgen and the M. R. P.
on much the same basis, grumbling:

Pierre Mendés—France leur montre pourtant ce
que peut un homme seul. Ils haissent pour cela.
Il existe une haine singuliére, chez nous, contre
la preeminence de l'esprit. (141-143)

In December of 1954 Mauriac wrote that he under—
stood better than ever why Mendés-France always put the
emphasis on economics and why he was eager to get to work
on the internal problems of France. Only a France re-
stored and stable could deal as an equal with her power—
ful allies. (149)

In February Of 1955 Mauriac accused M. Maurice
Schumann and others of deliberately forestalling the
financial reforms of Mendés—France for political rea-
sons. (165)

In May Mauriac reported that Pierre Mendés-France
had been derisively called "Superman" by his enemies.
In Mauriac's Opinion, he may well be such, as compared
with his critics. Mauriac remarked pessimistically:

En démocratie, un homme supérieur devrait
s'astreindre a donner l'illusion qu'il ne dépasse
pas le niveau. Mais il est plus facile qux
médiocres d'avoir l'air profond qu'aux grands

esprits de faire la béte. (180)

Mauriac made a similar observation a little later:

111

L'intelligence y fut toujours redoutée . . .

C'est son intelligence qui fait de Pierre Mendés-

France un suspect dans une partie de l'opinion

et qui, au Parlement. 1e rend Odieux a une droite

sans pensée. (195)

Obviously the government was reaching a stalemate.
Therefore it was with evident relief that Mauriac wrote
on May 25, 1956:

Enfin! La dimission de Pierre Mendés—France
nous délivre d'une equivoque qui devenait chaque

jour moins supportable. (257)

Nevertheless, Mauriac was not happy about this turn
of events. He was definitely displeased with the admin—
istration of Guy Mollet. In November Mauriac wrote:

Quel recours nous reste—t-il? Un des derniers
hommes d'Etat de sa generation qui n'appartiennent
pas a 1'équipe fatale, Pierre Mendés—France, sus-
cite pour cela méme la haine la plus furieuse
qu'ait inspires un parlementaire francais depuis

Clemenceau. Quand presque tous sont coupables,

c'est l'innocent qui devient 1e hors—la-loi. (288)

Mauriac said that he was having difficulty in ex-
plaining this ostracism to foreign journalists who ques-
tioned him. He could only quote Teitgen: "Tout plutdt
que Mendés—France!" (288)

In this connection Mauriac quoted the following

excerpt from the Manchester Guardian:

 

The most remarkable political man that France
has produced since the War cannot find, in the
parliamentary system which he serves loyally, any
more stable place than that Of a prophet crying
in the desert. (514)

In April of 1957, Mauriac said that peOple, even

including some friends of Mendés-France, had made fun

112

Of him for defending the latter. He lamented the fact
that each of them had not taken up his pen in defense
of Mendés-France each time that ”la calomnie" had man-
ifested itself. The nation would not then have been
in its present state. (509)

On November 50, Vauriac reported that there had
been a great session of Farliament. As for Mendés-
France. Mauriac said that he "had held a bomb in his
hands." He told the truth as usual. Mauriac was quick
to add that this did not mean that Mendés-France was
always right -- only that he was not motivated by vest-
ed interests and not afraid of the powers that may be
unleashed in Algeria. His concluding remarks follow:

Son crime est moins de dire ce qu'il dit que
d'analyser honnétement une situation politique
donnée devant cette Assemblée qui ne veut rien
entendre parce qu'elle ne veut rien voir. L'idée
qu'il se fait d'un ensemble franco—maghrébin,
cette construction longue et difficile, offense
ces politiciens de l'immédiat et les rend furieux,
eux qui, derriére un écran de mots, sont bien
résolus a attendre que les militaires aient gagné
1a partie —- et qui n'attendent rien d'autre --
et celui qui desire, qui prepare autre chose est

un traitre. (589)

Charles de Gaulle

 

If there is one figure who dominates the scene in
contemporary France, it is De Gaulle. For Mauriac his
utterances seem to carry a divine sanction. He has a
deep-seated fear that France will Spurn his counsel to

her irreparable loss; that she will turn deaf ears to

his words as did men in the times of the Biblical

115
prOphets. According to Mauriac De Gaulle possesses
la faculté d'analyser froidement et sans
romantisme une donnée politique et d'imaginer enl
meme temps la dure solution qu'elle implique.

In February Of 1946, just after De Gaulle had with-
drawn from the political scene, Mauriac discussed the
dilemma which caused "1e mal." As he phrased it, De
Gaulle had three Gordian knots to untie.

First, there was the problem of economic order.

But De Gaulle could not raise an army Of 400, 000, free
the Rhine and Danube and envisage means of restoring
France's ruined economy all at once. The war had to be
won first.

The second knot was foreign policy. He was deter-
mined not to yield any quarter anywhere in the world
where the rights of France were concerned. "L'histoire
dira due l’independence de son pays fut sa plus profonde
passion." But France is always caught between factions
manoeuvered from abroad. This time the situation was
worse than usual. France was completely at the mercy of
her allies.

The last knot demanded that he restore in France

the democratic institutions and respect their free

interplay, and, at the same time, gain the consent of

 

Ile Figaro , Feb. 14, 1946, l.

2IbidL

 

114

the parties to act according to his own methods. That
was the crux Of the problem. As Mauriac phrased it:
Nous n'avons pas su incorporer a l'institution
democratique l'intelligence, 1a volonté, l'incom-
parable prestige de "ce grand esprit altier et
solitaire" (the last eXpression, Ieon Blum's).

The political game has begun all over again, but France

5

is the loser.

Nevertheless, Mauriac expressed the certainty that
De Gaulle would be recalled, even by those who had made
inevitable his departure. Fe was equally certain that
De Gaulle would respond. Nauriac's only question was
from what depths of despair would come France's cry for
help. As for himself, Mauriac said:

Et moi, je suis de ceux qui auront cru que

De Gaulle nous a été donné et c'est pourquoi je

tremble que la folie des hommes ne lui permette

d'accomplir jusqu'au bout la mission qu'il a recue
de 1'Histoire et de Dieu.

Whenever the political situation seemed particular-
ly hopeless, lauriac thought wishfully of De Gaulle. On
the following occasions, for example, he suggested the
need for De Gaulle: February 19, 1955 (164); March 9,
1956 (217); November 50, 1956 (288); October 28, 1957
(577); November 21, 1957 (586).

Mauriac knows that this is not always a popular

attitude, as evidenced by the following:

 

31big.

[*Ibid.
5 Ibid;

 

115

Au seul nom de De Gaulle, nous verrions, au
fond du panier, se désenlacer toutes ces pattes
ennemis. Nous verrions faire front toutes les
pinces, et ce joli monde se dresser comme un seul
crabe. (577)

In July of 1958 Fauriac described De Gaulle as
Owing nothing to circumstances. He does not adapt him-
self to the event. It is the event which must take
cognizance of the man. De Gaulle belongs to the time
when France was the "Grande Nation" and dominated
EurOpe by the force of arms and by intellectual power.
No other Frenchman so incorporated the country of the
past ard future. Clemenceau had his moments of grandeur,
as on November 11, 1918, when he not only spoke of
France as he had never done before, but actually was
France for a few moments, but then he became again the
sarcastic and bitter old man. On the other hand, De
Gaulle has remained

cet ambassadeur des siécles de gloire -- mais
pon certes aveugle aux conjonctures de l'heure, 6
etonnement attentif, au contraire, et averti.
Mauriac was right in his prediction that France

wou1d recall this solitary, heroic figure. He was
right, also, in predicting that. given such an Opportu-
nity De Gaulle would restore a measure of stability.

Great strides were made. But once the initial emergency

is past. destructive criticism of such a leader often

 

6 . ,. . .
Ie Figaro, July 1958 (day not on microfilm), l.

 

116

ensues. Here was no exception. Mauriac, however, is
still of the same Opinion regarding De Gaulle's indis-
pensability.

Writing in September of 1959, Mauriac invited
those who accused him of being blind when it comes to
De Gaulle to check the testimony of the rest of the

7
world.’

Mauriac defended De Gaulle's politics by saying
that of necessity he had been skillful and sly. He
said also that De Gaulle was grandeur personified, and
grandeur ignores the offenses of small peOple, and con-
siders no trick forbidden provided that it is not base
in its inspiration nor criminal in its consequences.8

On another occasion, Mauriac said that where France
was concerned, De Gaulle took lessons from no one:

De cette nation qu'il aime plus que sa vie,

disons plutdt: avec laquelle i1 se confonde, il

pris l'exacte mesure; il voit son peuple tel

qu'il est a ce moment de l'Histoire, a ce tournant

du destin. 11 en connait 1e fort et le faible.

Mais i1 n'est pas seulement le plus lucide des

Francais, il est aussi 1e seul qui puisse tenir

téte aux factieux, non parce qu’il a raison, et

bien ou'il ait raison, mais parce qu'il est lui.
After De Gaulle is gone there will be time to go back

to the political game and play by the old rules.9

An article written at the end of October of 1959

 

 

 

117

discusses the third volume of De Gaulle's Némgires, and
presents once more the thesis that the man and the mo—
ment were inextricably fused.
Ce soldat solitaire, une conjoncture histo-
rique sans precedent lui avait permis, durante
quatre années, de concevoir et d'accomplir seul

ce qu'exigeait, a son idée, le salut de la patrie,
sans autre contrdle que celui de sa conscience.

10

De Gaulle wasted no time. Though he had not
chosen the men who surrounded him, nevertheless, he
utilized them to the level of their competence, but he
alone made the decisions.

Mauriac believes that the most critical period in
his story shows De Gaulle at his greatest. No other
general would have thought of trying to reestablish
order in the provinces delivered to the power of fac—
tions over which there was no central control. At least,
another general probably would have delegated this to
the remnant of the French Army. Not De Gaulle! He
had an idea that seemed foolish to thoughtful minds
then -- that France on the side of the Allies might
have her share in the victory. Was there still time?

De Gaulle thought 50.12

 

loLe Figaro Littéraire, Oct. 51, 1959, l.

 

11Ibid.

9
1“Ibid.

118

He threw the whole army into the last battle and
chose to remain alone, without soldiers and almost with—
out police, to face these factions. He attempted a fan-
tastic amalgam and succeeded.15

Furthermore, he, the chief of a conquered and ruin—
ed nation, still managed to impose his will on the
"Anglo-Saxons tout-puissants." He remained in Stras—
bourg in spite of them, forcing them to modify their
terms.1L

He hastened to rebuild the State also and to
"remettre l'économie en marche," as Mauriac expressed
it, succeeding to an amazing degree in a few months.

The process is described in detail in the flémgiggs. He
makes no defense of anything he has done. Mauriac re-
marked that, to his knowledge, De Gaulle is the only
military leader who makes no plea and seeks no praise.

He presents the facts, leaving no doubt that he believes

he has acted in all circumstances for the best.15
Bloc—Notes of October 11, 1954 carried a comment

 

on the style of the General. Mauriac said that it was

not enough to have had a part in great events; one

must know how to write. On this basis, De Gaulle is

 

lalbid.

-c—.—.._

14Ibid.

 

lslhid.

119

assured of immortality.
Comme Cesar, comme Napoleon, 1e general de

Gaulle a 1e style de son destin, un style accordé

a l'HistOire. (129)

Five years later, Mauriac again wrote about the
General's style. This time, however, he administered a
scathing rebuke to M. Jean-Francois Revel for his crit-
icism of De Gaulle's speeches. Revel found the style in
the impromptu speeches bad. Mauriac found it good,
since it expressed what was meant and touched the
hearts and minds of the hearers. Mauriac accused Revel
of attacking this as the only vulnerable point in the
man whom he wished to criticize.

Fauriac confinued the defense, saying that De Gaulle
had no ghost writers for any of his speeches, that his
formal addresses left nothing to be desired, and that
he could scarcely be expected to travel up and down the
country with pen in hand, laboriously preparing an
address for each town and village. Instead, he let his
heart speak, giving the once proud nation reasons for
not losing hOpe.16

Mauriac then quoted from the closing lines of the
first volume of De Gaulle's Mémoires:

Penché sur le gouffre 00 la patrie a roulé,

je suis son fils qui l'appelle, lui tient la
lumiére, lui montre la voie du salut . . . Main-

 

16Je Figaro Littéraire, Aug. 8, 1959’ 1'

 

120

tenant j'entends la France me répondre. Au fond

de l'abime elle se reléve, elle marche, elle

gravit la pente. Ah! mere, tels que nous sommes

nous voici pour vous servir . . .

Mauriac said that if this were a message from
beyond the tomb, we could shrug our shoulders at the
vanity of the man. But they had seen this resurrection
occur.l7

Mauriac argued that Revel had passed judgment on
the basis of a few random quotes taken out of context.
This, Mauriac insisted, was his quarrel. Revel had a
perfect right to dislike De Gaulle and his style, and
also to find it bad that France was living in a monarchy.

Car a quoi bon le nier? Il est vrai qu'en ce
moment un prince chrétien gouverne la France.

Pour moi, tout republicain que je suis, je m'y

resigne; si 1e roi de France m'avait guéri des

écrouelles, je l'aurais trouve fort ben; Ft

puis quoi! ce prince régne par la yglonté du
peuple qui est venu de chercher.

Mauriac finished the commentary with the sugges-
tion that "ce sagace docteur" would do better to criti-
cize those who brought France to such a pass.

Here we see that, while this purports to be a
"querelle de langage,7 it soon passes over into a
defence of the man and his program, not, however, with-

out some justification. For Nauriac, De Gaulle can do

 

l7lbid.

lalbid.

 

121

no wrong.
Writing in January of 1960, eighteen months after
De Gaulle's recall, Mauriac took issue with the conclu—

sion of an editorial in L'Express:

 

La nature de choses fait que la paix en

Algeria, la lafcité de l'ensei nment, le rythme de

la production ne seront rétables qu'ensemble par

la fin du regime, pas avant et pas autrement.

Although the editor evidently thought the balance
sheet of De Gaulle was one of catastrOphe, Mauriac said:

Mais, dans 1e monde, vous étes seul a le
croire: le redressement francais est une evidence
corstatée et commentée dans toutes les langues de
1'universe.

Mauriac then asked what specific changes the editor
would make if he were in De Gaulle's place, with respect
to African affairs, diplomatic relations and finances.
As for the scholastic battle, whatever stand De Gaulle
had taken would have alienated half the country. By
taking no action and leaving elected persons solely re-
sponsible, he came out of the affair with a minimum of

q
damage.

Mauriac also reminded the editor that while he was
dreaming of the end of this regime, he had not posed
the question as to what the new one would be. Accord-

ing to the editor, all would be better and everything

would return to its accustomed order. That, Mauriac

 

o -
l'"L'Express. Jan. 7, 1960, 44.

 

122

averred, was the trouble! He added:

Et nous pensons -- et toute la France et le
monde entier pensent avec nous -- que notre salut
est lie, non certes a un regime, mais a la
presence de 1' homme contre lequel vous vous
dressez. 90

Mendes-France and De Gaulle Compared

 

Mauriac made some interesting comparisons of these
two statesmen. the circumstances which brought them to
power, their ways of working, the conditions of their
success, and their destiny.

As for their basic difference, Mauriac wrote:

De Gaulle est 1e type meme de 1'homme soli—
taire, intraitable, qui ne 5 'adapte pas. Pierre
Mendés- France, au contraire, a le gofit et meme 1e
passion de persuader, le genie de convaincre. Il
ne nourrit aucun préjugé contre le regime. (159)

Mauriac made an interesting statement regarding
the status quo in January of 1957:

Le gouvernement socialiste actuel, ivre
d' echecs jusqu 'a l' euphoria, ne titube méme plus
parce qu 'il est irremplacable. Seule 1a catas—
trophe pourrait imposer 1'homme redoute ou 1'homme
deteste: 1e general de Gaulle ou Pierre Mendés-
France.

Encore faudrait-11 que la catastrOphe ffit a
la mesure de cette peur et de cette haine, pour
que 1' excés de malheur forcat la main a ceux des
parlementaires de qui tout depend. Mais meme alors.
peut- etre seraient- ils les prisonniers de la
calomnie qu 'ils ont eux-memes orchestree. Peut-
etre n 'oseraient- ils avoir recours a l' innocent
qu'ils ont charge de leurs prOpres fautes. (299)

In May of 1957 Mauriac observed pessimistically

 

Zolbid.

125

that the parliamentary organism would reject all reform-
ers -— would eliminate a Mendés-France, a De Gaulle, or
any other man of State who incarnated an idea of the
vocation and possibilities of France but did not take
into account the vested interests. He also said that
both Nendés-France and De Gaulle were children of a
certain epochzl the Liberation. They would not be re-
placed. (522)

Again in September of 1957, Mauriac put Mendés-
France and De Gaulle in the same category with a shrewd
observation:

La question n'est pas ici de savoir s'ils
eurent toujours raison; mais l' on et 1' autre se
sont fait une certaine idee du relévement francais
et ont agi selon cette idée sans tenir compte des
interets qui, dans le cours normal des choses, in-
cline souverainement la politique franpaise. Seul
le desastre crée l' intervalle pendant lequel un
homme politique de cette classe peut agir. Cela

ne depasse guére six mois et puis tout rentre dans
l' ordre, ou plutdt dans le desordre accoutume.

(565)

CHAPTER XIV
CONCLUSIONS

It is natural that a lonely, sensitive child,
sheltered from "the world" but forced by painful child-
hood experiences to withdraw into a world of his own
imagining, should have become the rather somber, intro—
spective, sometimes lyrical, sometimes caustic writer.
Franqois Mauriac. He may grow poetic over a nightingale
at Malagar, but his comments may fly like chips of hot
metal from a machine. He is capable of intense loyal-
ties as, for example, to De Gaulle. He is also capable
of scathing denunciations, as in the letter to Cocteau
after the presentation of EEEE§2§°

Mauriac said that journalism might not be a good
way to launch a literary career, but was a glorious way
to end it.

He regards his journalism as the fulfillment of a
mission. As mentioned in the first chapter of this
thesis, he considers himself enlisted in the military
sense in the affairs of this world for reasons from
above.

Apparently this had been in the background of his
mind since youth, but had been pushed aside by other
literary and personal interests. The Spanish Civil War
and similar upheavals added a new compulsion to begin

this type of writing.

H
h)
\J‘l

Evidently the compulsion is still there, but the
work has become an exciting challenge as well. Mauriac
stated in 1960 that no novel of his creation could pos—
sibly be as interesting as the record of the events of
these past few years. He no longer concerns himself
with questions of style, but only with what he calls
"witnessing." If his writings become literature, all
well and good, but that is not his primary purpose.

Perhaps the most telling statement of his attitude
is the one quoted on page 5 of this thesis (translation
mine):

A little more truly every day, for me to

write is to witness. I dare not add: to write

is to pray. I must hold to this thought as my

sole justification, for I have reached the age

of silence.

As we have seen, Frangois Mauriac takes both him-
self and his work seriously. Like De Gaulle whom he ad—
mires, he apparently does not find it necessary to
apologize for nor to explain anything which he has said
or done. There seems to be little doubt in his mind
that his conclusions are correct.

As far as his life is concerned, he wanted to
write from the time he was eighteen, and he has done so.
He has made both a living and a life from his chosen

career. He has won honors which the world considers

significant, such as membership in L'Academie Frangaise,

 

the Nobel Prize, the right to have his Complete Works

126

published, and a measure of political prominence. He
has lived to see a son follow successfully a literary
career. He himself has been successful as poet, nov—
elist, playwright and journalist.

He finds little fault with his literary works. He

does not care for Asmodée now, dislikes the title of

 

gestins, and has rejected La Robe Prétexte, but evident-
ly approves the rest.

Writing is a natural vocation for him and, as he
says, "L'écriture se confond avec ma vie." One cannot
separate the man from his work. More and more his pen
has become a potent weapon which he says is not deflec-
ted because of personal considerations.

It was natural because of family background and
childhood eXperiences, that Mauriac should turn early to
the Church.‘ He found in religion, however, not so much
a solace as a sense of mission. As already noted. re-
ligion is infused into all his thinking and activity,
from criticizing a work of literature to condemning the
French policies in North Africa. Though old—fashioned
in such reSpects as preferring the old cantiques and the
older form of the Mass, he is strangely modern in his
insistence that the Church be a militant force working
toward political, economic and social betterment.

We was an ardent advocate of the order of factory

worker-priests known as the Prétres Ouvriers. and very

127

unhappy at their suppression, asserting that "the poor
always lose."

Although somewhat prejudiced against Protestants,
particularly Anglicans, Mauriac is quite tolerant in
his attitudes toward other faiths such as Judaism,
Islam. and the brand of Hinduism practiced by Gandhi.
In relation to Gandhi, Nauriac lamented the fact that
the Indian leader had not been Catholic, or at least,
that his policy of non-violence had been tried "on one
of the hills of Rome." In speaking of the Jewess,
Simone Veil, Nauriac remarked that it was better to
belong to the soul of the Church as she did, than to be-
long to its body as did Christians of habit alone.

Mauriac, like most other young writers, had hoped

to be a member of L'Académie Francaise. He had been

 

elated when that hope became a reality.‘

Over the years, however, he has become disillu-
sioned. He says frankly that it has become a servant
of the State rather than the servant of literature
that it was intended to be, and represents only a seg-
ment of the State at that. Because of this political
affiliation, it leaves out some significant writers
such as Sartre and Malraux. The latter scorn it as a
hard shell of conservatism.

Mauriac believes that the Academy is still a

worthwhile institution, but that it should make certain

128

modifications. He would like to see it Operate on a
basis similar to that of the Nobel Academy, and abolish
the system of candidature since candidates are conspic-
uously absent nowadays. He would like to see the Aca—
demy restored to its pristine position as a true patron
of the arts and sciences instead of remaining a tool
for right wing politics.

One might say that his point of view toward the
Academy is progressive if not consistent.

Poetry, according to Mauriac, is born of solitude
and spiritual struggle. The sensitivity which charac-
terizes the poet leaves him an easy victim of moral
and emotional pitfalls, against which a sound moral
heritage and virile religion seem to be the only safe-
guards.

Mauriac believes that one's first canvas, novel
or Opera is a foretaste of all the rest. One refines
craftsmanship thereafter, but makes no basic change.

Mauriac says that he has no technique for the
writing of novels and needs none. He is impatient with
modern authors who quibble about literary conventions,
saying, for example, that when he finds it necessary to
look into the minds and hearts of his characters, he
does so! His work does show, however, the influence of
dramatic techniques.

He is perturbed also about what he considers the

129

confusion of psychiatry with literature apparent in the
work of some contemporaries.

Mauriac tends to be critical of his literary con—
temporaries, especially Cocteau and Sartre. With the
latter, he seems to go Out of his way to be irritating.
He has absolutely no respect for Simone Beauvoir or any
other writer with her point of view.

On the other hand, he is strangely tolerant of
young writers. He appreciates what they are trying to
do. Even the hedonistic "young intellectuals" found in
him an apologist, even though he obviously did not agree
with their conclusions.

Usually religion enters into his literary judg-
ments as a determining factor, particularly if the
author is supposed to be a Christian, as in the case of
Cocteau's play, gacchus. His attitude toward works pro-
duced by atheists like Sartre seems to be: "What can
one expect?" Whether or not he is capable of judging a
piece of literature completely apart from religious
considerations is debatable.

Mauriac is rather pessimistic about the contemporary
scene. Politics are motivated by the same vested in-
terests as before, while the peOple are oddly indiffer—
ent to their political responsibilities. France is too
often a pawn in the chess game between the Soviet and

the Anglo-Saxon players. The slaughter in Indochina

150

and North Africa has been, in his eyes, inexcusable.
Over all our heads hangs the threat of nuclear warfare,
prevented from falling on us only by fear on both sides
of the Iron Curtain. Man has unlocked the secret of
the ages, but he cannot c0pe with the results of his
discovery.

One can find evidence of the "politique de senti-
ment" of which Mauriac has been accused, in some of the
correspondence regarding North Africa, in his attitude
toward De Gaulle, in his suggestion that Mitterand, com-
ing from the same background as Mauriac himself, must be
innocent, and his unequivocal denunciation of politicians
with whom he disagrees.

Mauriac records events together with his opinions,
but he sees these events, not as isolated incidents, but
as part of larger movements.

In Mauriac's political philOSOphy there are some
unresolved problems. He says he believes in democracy.
Yet, repeatedly, he has said that what is needed at a
certain juncture is one man, to galvanize discordant
factions into a working team.

The corollary to this idea is the fact that demo-
cratic machinery is too inflexible to utilize, over a
long period of time, the abilities of a man like Mendés—

France or De Gaulle, who do not fit the political

pattern. They can retain their power only in a crisis.

151

and the nation is the loser when they fall.

Again and again, Mauriac mentions that events are
the faults of those in power -- but the peOple are to
blame for putting them there. By so doing, they condemn
themselves to follow a political direction which they
thought they were avoiding.

Mauriac is well aware of the inexorability of histo-
ry. Though politicians, to use his expression, may
"pass the sponge and turn the page," there is no
erasure of political mistakes and crimes. Their conse-
quences are rooted in the acts themselves and will not
be changed. History is unforgiving. For example,
Mauriac declared that the entire outcome of the Algerian
situation was decided on February 6, 1956. This was
when Mollet succeeded Mendés—France and sent Catroux
to replace Soustelle in Algeria.

Mauriac's point of view is fairly consistent. He
decided a long time ago that the Mouvement Republicain
POpulaire had betrayed its vocation, and he has not
changed his mind. He has found nothing wrong with De
Gaulle and nothing right with Mollet. He insisted from
the beginning that an improvement in French administra-
tion of North Africa would keep it at least partially
French in spirit if not in politics, but a continuation

of existing policies would cause permanent alienation.

It is in international politics that Mauriac most

132

completely escapes the stereotype Of the novelist whose
horizon is limited to the environs of Bordeaux.

Contrary to Sartre's Opinion. Mauriac does under—
stand politics in its ramifications, though not himself
a politician. Perhaps he does over—simplify a little at
times, as When he placed so much faith in the transform—
ing powers of the M. R. P.

He understands the interdependence of nations as in
the case Of Suez. He knows that the presence or absence
of war is not wholly contingent upon the will of indi-
vidual nations. War may be touched Off by any one Of
the world's potentially explosive situations, and would
soon involve powers beyond the immediate.area.

As far back as 1947-1948, he warned his readers
that even a French Civil War between the Communists
and their Opponents would soon involve both the Soviet
and Anglo-Saxon blocs, creating a worse holocaust than
the world has ever known.

The United Nations, though in Mauriac's Opinion
not wholly satisfactory, is still the best deterrent to
war that we have at the present time. As such, it
should be supported.

Mauriac described accurately, I believe, the di-
lemma Of Soviet-Non-Soviet relations. Free exchange of
ideas is a primary condition of peace, but the present

regime in Russia, in order to maintain itself, must

153

draw what Mauriac calls "a ring of fire" to prevent
this.

He also described accurately the methods of Com-
munist infiltration into a country. The Party members
behave innocuously when they first come into power and
make no one afraid. Thus they slip into places of
leadership in the nerve centers of a nation before they
show their true colors. Then it is too late for the
Opposition to react effectively. Since the control
center is Moscow, not only personal but also national
loyalties are destroyed.

As for predictions, Mauriac has not done badly.
He foresaw that Mendés-France, for all his acumen and
scrupulous functioning through democratic channels, was
reaching an impasse. He predicted the recall of De
Gaulle. He said that Mitterand would come out of
”l'affaire” successfully, but with a few scars which
would never be quite removed. He has insisted for
years that the extreme right wing of French politics
was culpable for many problems and much violence which
went unpunished, a thesis which recent events have
corroborated. He insisted that Mohammed ben Youssef
was the real leader of Morocco, and the latter became
the first constitutional monarch of that land. He saw

clearly what France was doing in North Africa and what

the result would be.

154

Mauriac's sphere of influence has widened and
deepened over the years since he began his career as
a journalist. He sees the configuration Of national
and international politics with the same clarity as
the plots of his recent novels. The same artistry Of
style that went into his earlier work is apparent in
this genre into which he made a tardy incursion. He
has become not only a serious commentator, but an ef-
fective satirist whose barbs are increasingly on

target.

BIBLIOGRAFHY

Collier, P. F. and Son. Collier's Year Book. New York,
1954.

Lffixpress, Paris weekly newsnaper, 1959—1960.

 

Le Figaro, Paris daily newSpaper, 1945-1960.

 

Le Figaro Littéraire, weekly literary supplement to
the above. IQEé—IQEO.

 

Kunitz and Haycroft. Twentieth Century Authors. New
York: H. w. Wilson Company, 1942.

 

Mauriac, Franpois. Bloc-Notes. Flammarion, ed. Re-
prints in book form of HauriacTs articles in I'Express,
1952-1957. Paris, 1958.

 

 

Mauriac, Francois. Oeuvres Completes, Vol. III. Paris:
A. Fayard Company, 1951-1952.

 

Time Magazine. Vol. LXXIV (November Q, 1959), 25.

/

 

 

_ ___l 1..-.-.