Alphonse de Chateaubriant. Catholic collaborator

Alphonse de Châteaubriant: Catholic Collaborator

Kay Chadwick

PETER LANG

Alphonse de Châteaubriant: Catholic Collaborator

Modern French Identities Edited by Peter Collier

Volume 14

PETER LANG Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt a.M. • New York • Wien

Kay Chadwick

Alphonse de Châteaubriant: Catholic Collaborator

PETER LANG Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt a.M. • New York • Wien

Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Chadwick, Kay: Alphonse de Châteaubriant: catholic collaborator / Kay Chadwick. – Oxford ; Bern ; Berlin ; Bruxelles ; Frankfurt a.M. ; New York ; Wien : Lang, 2002 (Modern French Identities ; Vol. 14) ISBN 3-906766-94-2 British Library and Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library, Great Britain, and from The Library of Congress, USA

ISSN 1422-9005 ISBN 3-906766-94-2 US-ISBN 0-8204-5610-1

© Peter Lang AG, European Academic Publishers, Bern 2002 Jupiterstr. 15, Postfach, 3000 Bern 15, Switzerland [email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. Printed in Germany

‘The past is not dead. It’s not even past.’ William Faulkner

Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations

9 11

Introduction

13

1

Out of the Catholic Humus

21

2

A Collaborator in Waiting

47

3

The Quest for a New Christendom

73

4

Gesta Dei per Germanos

105

5

La France devant la collaboration

147

6

Liberation and the New Europe

195

7

Châteaubriant and the (Re)Writing of History

241

Conclusion

281

Bibliography Index

285 311

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Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the librarians and curators at the following institutions in Paris, without whose interest and assistance this book could not have been written: the Archives Nationales; the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Tolbiac and Richelieu sites); the Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine at the Université de Nanterre; the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine; the Institut Catholique; and the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent. I would also like to thank the Ministère de la Culture in Paris, for permission to reproduce the photograph of Alphonse de Châteaubriant; the University of Liverpool, for a period of study leave which enabled me to complete the majority of the manuscript; the editorial team at Peter Lang, for their assistance throughout the publication process; David Curtis, for his long-standing support; John Flower, for his interest and helpful interventions; friends and family who have lived through the project with me; and finally, Tim Unwin, whose incisive comments have benefited the final book, and whose encouragement is much appreciated. All previously published materials (see Bibliography) have been reworked and updated in the light of subsequent research. All errors remain my own.

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Abbreviations

Throughout this book, the abbreviations given below are used to identify quotations from Alphonse de Châteaubriant’s writings. Where an unbroken series of quotations from the same text occurs, the abbreviation is given only after the first reference, and all subsequent immediate references give the page number alone. All other abbreviations used are explained on their first appearance. Unless otherwise stated, the place of publication is Paris for books in French and London for books in English. AI BC C FC GF

L’Acte intérieur Bulletin Collaboration Cahiers, 1906–1951 Fragments d’une confession La Gerbe des forces (Nouvelle Allemagne) ILD Itinéraire vers la lumière divine IPB Instantanés aux Pays-Bas LAG Lettres des années de guerre, 1914–1918

LB La Brière LCM Lettre à la chrétienté mourante LG La Gerbe LM La Meute ML Monsieur des Lourdines PC Les Pas ont chanté PPV Procès posthume d’un visionnaire RS La Réponse du Seigneur UA L’Un et l’autre

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Introduction

On 25 October 1948, at the Cour de Justice in Paris, Alphonse de Châteaubriant (1877–1951) was tried in his absence on a charge of treason based on his wartime collaboration with Germany. The verdict of guilty on all counts was delivered before the end of the day, and Châteaubriant was sentenced to death and dégradation nationale in accordance with article 75.5 of the French Penal Code.1 But the death sentence was never carried out, for Châteaubriant had escaped France for Germany in July 1944, before moving on to Kitzbühel in Austria during April 1945, where he lived in exile under an assumed name until his death on 2 May 1951. That day marked the end of a life lived largely in the public eye as a writer and journalist, distinguished in its early years by his first two novels – Monsieur des Lourdines (1911), which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt, and La Brière (1923), which was awarded the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française – but better known at its end for the infamous collaborationist essay La Gerbe des forces (1937) and the equally ignominious collaborationist newspaper La Gerbe, published weekly throughout the Occupation, of which Châteaubriant had been director. The question of what makes a collaborator has continually occupied minds and energies since Jean-Paul Sartre first famously

1

Dossier de la Cour de Seine: van Brédenbec de Châteaubriant, Alphonse (Archives nationales, Z6 402 no. 41,30), hereafter referred to as Dossier Châteaubriant. Article 75.5 of the French Penal Code stipulates that ‘sera coupable de trahison et puni de mort, tout Français qui, en temps de guerre, entretiendra des intelligences avec une puissance étrangère ou avec ses agents, en vue de favoriser les entreprises de cette puissance contre la France’ (Code pénal, livre III, chapitre premier; décret-loi du 29 juillet 1939).

asked ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un collaborateur?’ in August 1945.2 With the war in Europe only recently at an end, Sartre’s study of ‘le personnel de la collaboration’ paints a disturbing picture of the collaborator as ‘un ennemi que les sociétés démocratiques portent perpétuellement en leur sein’ (p. 60), but whose tendencies will lie dormant until awakened in times of crisis, as during the Second World War.3 Collaboration is located within an existentialist framework of freedom, choice and responsibility which suggests that ‘on ne collabore pas par hasard mais sous l’action de certaines lois sociales et psychologiques’ (p. 44), and which holds that collaboration is ‘une décision individuelle’ (p. 46). Motivated by environment and character, and thus neither aberration nor deviation, the decision to collaborate is made in complete freedom, and the resultant words and deeds remain the responsibility of the individual, and the means by which he or she may be judged. With this in mind, the aim of this book is to analyse the motivation for Alphonse de Châteaubriant’s collaboration and to examine the true nature and extent of words and deeds which serve to condemn him as a diehard racist, a prominent and idiosyncratic collaborator, and a clear-cut traitor. To date, the truth of Châteaubriant’s thought and career has been lost beneath the elementary and fragmentary character sketches employed in numerous histories of the Second World War and collaboration, or – worse still – beneath a sympathetic, ‘sanitised’ version promoted by his negationist assessors particularly since his death. A fully documented and proper elucidation of Châteaubriant’s complex behaviour is therefore essential, if explanation is to overturn justification, if truth is to prevail over whitewash and denial, and if his story is to be accurately and adequately written within the broader history of modern France. 2 3

14

Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un collaborateur?’, in Situations, III (Gallimard, 1949), pp. 43–61. It is clear from the text of the essay that Sartre’s main focus is the collaborationist personalities such as Drieu la Rochelle, Déat, Darnand, and Châteaubriant himself, rather than ordinary French people who may have collaborated.

History judges Châteaubriant a minor collaborator in contrast to such luminaries as Robert Brasillach and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, although that verdict seems to result more from the absence rather than the existence of any post-war in-depth study of his case. This lack of detailed critical analysis has contributed to the construction and maintenance of a simplistic ‘Châteaubriant myth’, that of a bearded, prophet-like figure whose allocation of religious credentials to National Socialism forms the basis for his swift dismissal on the grounds of religious and political naïvety and instability, and whose collaboration is deemed an aberration in his career. Study of what others say about Châteaubriant reveals little of substance and little variation from the myth. His collaborationist contemporaries set the tone with their post-war categorisation of him as ‘romantique et mystique’,4 or their mockery of his religious fervour.5 Later historians draw on these character sketches in their portrayal of Châteaubriant as a ‘prophète’ and ‘mystique barbichu’,6 or as ‘a fervent Nazi, a champion of collaboration and an admirer of Hitler’,7 or else as an ‘admirateur fanatique du nazisme et homme de confiance des Allemands’,8 or, most dismissively, as a man who held ‘a quasimystical, if not crackpot, vision of Nazism’.9 It is rightly (although rarely) suggested that he believed in ‘la parfaite compatibilité du nazisme et du christianisme’, but this is insufficiently explained in its

4 5 6 7 8 9

Marcel Déat, Mémoires politiques (Denoël, 1989), p. 633. Lucien Rebatet, Mémoires d’un fasciste, 2 vols (Pauvert, 1976), p. 96. Pascal Ory, ‘Sept hauts lieux de la collaboration’, L’Histoire, 80 (1985), 80–81 (p. 81). Patrick Marsh, ‘The Theatre: Compromise or Collaboration?’, in Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture during the Nazi Occupation 1940–44, ed. by Gerhard Hirschfeld and Patrick Marsh (Oxford: Berg, 1989), pp. 142–61 (p. 155). Henry Rousso, La Collaboration. Les Noms, les thèmes, les lieux (Éditions MA, 1987), p. 67. David Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation 1940–1944 (Collins, 1981), p. 51.

15

ascription to ‘une sorte de perversion mystique’.10 His collaboration is weakly defined as ‘un certain type de collaborationnisme de passion’,11 while his intervention in politics is simply described elsewhere as ‘incompréhensible’.12 Many of these references, included as they are in general studies of the period, betray a simple lack of knowledge and are not intended deliberately to mislead. But such unfamiliarity with Châteaubriant’s profile on the part of some is matched more worryingly by sympathy and discretion on the part of others, as is the case with the only monograph on Châteaubriant published to date which – despite its title – continually emphasises his spiritual persona and plays down his political ideas and activities, resulting in a negligent, partial study which whitewashes its subject.13 Study of what Alphonse de Châteaubriant himself says and does not only reveals an altogether different portrait of the man as collaborator, but also indicates that the impetus behind his collaboration can be cogently elucidated. Châteaubriant was motivated throughout his life by his Christianity. His words and deeds prove not only that he collaborated because he was a Catholic, but also that he was a collaborator in waiting as early as 1918 rather than – like many others – a 1930s convert to the National-Socialist cause. His origins cannot be divorced from his later thought and activity. He was born and brought up in the conventional Catholic provincial gentry in a young and rapidly evolving Third Republic. His early writings are littered with anti-modern, anti-Revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, antiindividualist and pro-organicist themes which indicate that his roots lay in an intransigent Catholicism. Of course, many contemporary 10 11 12 13

16

Paul Christophe, 1939–1940. Les Catholiques devant la guerre (Les Éditions ouvrières, 1989), p. 51; see also William Halls, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France (Oxford: Berg, 1995), p. 345. Henri Amouroux, La Grande Histoire des Français sous l’occupation, 10 vols (Laffont, 1976–93), III (1978), 213. Paul Sérant, Le Romantisme fasciste (Fayard, 1959), p. 122. Louis-Alphonse Maugendre, Alphonse de Châteaubriant 1877–1951: dossier littéraire et politique (André Bonne, 1977).

Right-wing Catholics shared this mentality, and the real interest of Châteaubriant’s case lies less in that mentality per se than in the development and expression of his Catholic convictions in response to the events and evolution of the modern world. Disappointed with what he saw as the sterility and weakness of popular, institutional Catholicism, Châteaubriant looked outside the Church for a fresh approach to Christianity (a nouvelle chrétienté, or a New Christendom, a common quest among Catholics from the 1920s), and advocated complete spiritual renewal and regeneration through the rediscovery and reactivation of medieval values. The feudal, pre-capitalist Germany he saw matched his Christian requirements, for he viewed Hitler as a spiritually guided leader and the National Socialists as an elite group of reborn heroic warriors who would re-evangelise a newly unified Europe, rid of its agents of dechristianisation (the Bolshevists and the Jews) and in which the French would play a significant role, associated with the Germans on the grounds of race. Châteaubriant’s spiritualisation of politics resulted in his unconventional reception of National Socialism as the concrete incarnation of his desired brand of nouvelle chrétienté, and culminated in his collaboration with Germany during the Second World War. Châteaubriant’s collaboration was therefore in no way a sudden aberration from his own convictions, but was rooted instead in his long-standing interpretation of Christianity. Fascism played little, if any, role in his commitment.14 Far from being the mystical, otherworldly figure generally portrayed, Alphonse de Châteaubriant was in reality a militant and resolute collaborator. He was active and well known in major 14

It is possible to identify in Châteaubriant many of the Fascist preoccupations which motivated the collaboration of other contemporary intellectuals, as will be seen later. However, the prominence of such themes in his thought does not provide conclusive evidence that Châteaubriant was a Fascist, if only because many of these themes were shared by other Right-wing Catholics who were conservative and not Fascist (for example, Robert d’Harcourt and Louis Bertrand). Collaboration cannot be defined by adherence to or sympathy for Fascism, as Sartre argues (Qu’est-ce qu’un collaborateur?, p. 44).

17

collaborationist circles, as witnessed by his directorship of La Gerbe and his frequent contributions to its columns, as well as by his presidency of the Groupe Collaboration, formed in September 1940, and his regular participation in its lecture programme.15 He served on the central and honorary committees of a range of wartime organisations, such as the Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchevisme, set up in July 1941 and whose troops fought in Russia for the German cause;16 Marcel Déat’s Front révolutionnaire national, founded in September 1942 with a view to unifying the collaborationist camp;17 and the Cercle européen, otherwise known as the Cercle de collaboration économique européenne.18 He was a member of the Institut d’études des questions juives which organised the exhibition ‘Le Juif et la France’ staged in Paris in September 1941; and he openly condoned the anti-Semitic Comité pour l’épuration de la race française.19 He sympathised with Joseph Darnand’s Milice française, created in January 1943 to guarantee internal order.20 Through La Gerbe, Châteaubriant came into contact with writers such as Brasillach, Drieu la Rochelle, Céline and Rebatet. He corresponded with Jacques Doriot, leader of the Parti populaire français, and contributed articles to his collaborationist newspaper Le Cri du peuple.21 He knew many leading members of the Vichy government, including the Head of State, Philippe Pétain; Premiers Pierre Laval and François Darlan; Philippe Henriot, named Minister of Information and Propaganda in January 1944; and Fernand de Brinon, Vichy’s Ambassador to the German occupier. He also knew and socialised with influential 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

18

See the bibliography for details of Châteaubriant’s articles in La Gerbe and his lectures for the Groupe Collaboration. Dossier Châteaubriant. Henry Coston, Partis, journaux et hommes politiques d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, special number of Lectures françaises, December 1960, p. 148. Dossier Châteaubriant. Ibid. ‘L’Heure de la Milice’, Collaboration, March–April 1943, p. 19. Articles by Châteaubriant are published in Le Cri du peuple on 19 October 1940, 29 January 1942, 18 February 1943, 26 March 1943.

Germans in Paris, including Otto Abetz, the Reich’s Ambassador to France, and Karl Epting, director of the Institut allemand in Paris. He was a ‘name’ of use to the Germans and evidently allowed his name to be used. He spoke on Radio-Paris,22 a propaganda vehicle controlled by the Germans, regularly attended German Embassy parties, and even operated officially for the Germans, working on the translation committee based at the Institut allemand.23 There can be no doubt that Châteaubriant acted in a political sense during the Occupation. He was not an opportunistic collaborator, but rather one of vocation. He co-operated willingly and extensively with the Germans, and freely condoned and became increasingly actively engaged in those organisations in which he saw his preferred form of politics. He knew both what these groups stood for as well as the full nature of their activity, and he did not stray from his chosen path throughout the war. Châteaubriant’s spiritualisation of politics may have been eccentric, but it was neither naïve nor harmless, as his attitudes and activities prove. His life and this book serve to illustrate the very dangerous pathway down which idealism can lead.

22 23

See the bibliography for details of Châteaubriant’s wartime radio broadcasts. Dossier Châteaubriant.

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1 Out of the Catholic Humus Roots and influences Alphonse de Châteaubriant was born in 1877, a year of political import which culminated in the crushing defeat of the Right by the Republicans in the October general election. Victory for the Republicans marked the beginning of the end of the conservative Dukes’ Republic (1873–77), headed by Marshal de MacMahon, which had aimed to restore a monarchy to France, and heralded the foundation of the Republicans’ Republic (1879–85), in which men such as Léon Gambetta and Jules Ferry would shine. Châteaubriant’s early years coincided with the establishment of some of the principal features of the Third Republic, many of which claimed their source in the Revolutionary tradition. Parliamentary democracy emerged to dominate the political stage; the Republicans swiftly extended their power-base to both local and Senate level; and the State set out to formulate and inculcate a Republican identity to challenge and replace the Catholic Church’s authority and influence with its own. For the Church, the Third Republic was synonymous with hostility and godlessness. The modern and ‘godless’ times in which Châteaubriant lived had grown out of the 1789 Revolution and developed over the course of the nineteenth century, sweeping aside many of France’s traditional structures and principles, including those upheld by the Church. The end of the Ancien Régime, and the accompanying decline in the power of the conservative aristocracy, which rested on tradition, hierarchy and order, was matched by the growth of new political forces based on democratic and liberal principles, which had an impact particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century. The period also witnessed radical industrial and social change: rapidly increasing industrialisation brought a rural

exodus and a concomitant spread of urban civilisation, while the material advances of the Industrial Revolution modernised society and offered the prospect of expansion, wealth and improved quality of life. At the same time, scientific progress had profound effects on intellectual life. Scientisme (an unqualified admiration for science combined with the belief that science was a powerful force for good) suggested that science alone represented ‘truth’ and ‘progress’, and was therefore the only legitimate way to understand the world, while religion was deemed incompatible with the scientific approach to life on the grounds that it was not based on ‘genuine’, scientifically proven knowledge. As the nineteenth century progressed, the Catholic Church came to be, in Robert Tombs’s words, ‘politically discredited as the apologist for reaction at home and abroad, and intellectually discredited as the pedlar of obscurantism and popular superstition’.1 With the prize of the government of minds in its sights, the Third Republic set out to supplant the Church by founding a Republican ‘religion’ which promoted scientific rationalism, national unity, progressive and reformist political attitudes, and a new secular morality divorced from religion and based instead on civic duty and responsibility. In the struggle for influence, instituteur and maire – representatives par excellence of the Republic – were pitched against curé and notable. The Republic created its own festivals and quasi-religious symbols to rival and replace those of the Church; public religious ceremonies were sometimes disrupted, and priests were often harassed as they went about their religious business.2 Republicanism’s supreme incarnation was Jules Ferry’s secular école de la République (otherwise labelled the école sans Dieu), the Third Republic’s own ‘church’ and training-ground for the citizens of the future, and easily the most controversial vehicle in the ideological battle for the hearts and minds of France, attacked by 1 2

22

Robert Tombs, France 1814–1914 (Harlow: Longman, 1996), p. 134. See ibid., pp. 138–42, for these and other details of the establishment and consolidation of Republican identity.

the Church as an école sans foi.3 By 1882, instruction morale et civique had replaced instruction morale et religieuse, and the Republicans’ Republic had marked its arrival by designating the previously banned Marseillaise as the national anthem (1879), and 14 July – a date of Revolutionary significance – as the national holiday (1880). A minority of ‘liberal’ Catholics refused to condemn the Third Republic unreservedly, arguing that ‘l’Église devait s’accommoder du “régime moderne” et relever le défi des anticléricaux qui reprochaient aux catholiques de n’être “ni de leur temps, ni de leur pays”’.4 But most Catholics, whether Church representatives or lay members, were intransigent in their rejection of the Third Republic and the modern world which had spawned it, believing that there could be no possible compromise between ‘les deux puissances […] en lutte dans le monde moderne, la Révélation et la Révolution’.5 Born with the Revolution, intransigent Catholicism upheld traditional and corporatist ideas, based as it was on ‘un refus total de la société née de la Renaissance, de la Réforme et de la Révolution, dominée par l’individualisme et le rationalisme, la sécularisation de l’État, des sciences et de la pensée’,6 and took its lead in this from the Syllabus of Errors, published by Pius IX in 1864, which had rejected the view that the Church should ‘become reconciled with and compromise with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation’.7 In listing its quarrels with the modern world and restating traditional principles, the Syllabus encapsulated the tone of Pius IX’s long pontificate (1846–78). But with the appointment of Leo XIII (1878–1903) as his successor, the Church shifted from a 3 4 5 6 7

An excellent analysis of the Third Republic’s secularisation of state education can be found in Mona Ozouf, L’École, l’Église et la République 1871–1914, 2nd edn (Seuil, 1982 [1963]). Jean-Marie Mayeur, Catholicisme social et démocratie moderne: principes romains, expériences françaises (Cerf, 1986), p. 20. Yvon Tranvouez, Catholiques d’abord: approches du mouvement catholique en France (XIXème–XXème siècle) (Les Éditions ouvrières, 1988), p. 44. Mayeur, Catholicisme social, p. 20. Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors (James Miller, 1864), proposition 80.

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passive to an active condemnation of the modern world. Based on the content of two encyclicals – Aeterni patris (1879), which called in neoThomist terms for the restoration of a Christian civilisation in the modern world, and the more widely known Rerum novarum (1891), which dealt with the condition of workers in modern, capitalist society – Leo XIII is credited as the architect of ‘un catholicisme intégral, déterminé à investir la société pour en reprendre la tête’.8 Integral Catholicism represented the foundation of a Social Catholicism, which called Catholics to social action and cast Leo XIII as ‘le pape de la mobilisation des forces catholiques pour la reconstruction d’une société chrétienne sur [l]es ruines de la modernité’ (ibid.). Aeterni patris and Rerum novarum together embodied a means of modernisation for Catholicism and a concrete illustration of a refusal to accept the marginalisation of the Church within an increasingly secular society. Many Catholics wanted to see the implementation of a Catholic social doctrine which would reconstruct a Christian society based on traditional principles. But there was no general agreement on how this might be achieved, and, as Yvon Tranvouez notes: Une cassure fondamentale s’est produite entre sociaux et démocrates, entre tenants de l’esprit ‘hiératique’ et adeptes de l’esprit ‘progressif’, entre ceux pour qui le peuple restait l’objet d’un dévouement et ceux pour qui il devait être le sujet de la rénovation sociale. (ibid.)9

Further divisions followed in 1892 when Leo XIII, keen to end his diplomatic isolation in Europe, published the encyclical Inter sollicitudines, in which he urged Catholics to accept the Republic and to work within its system, but also to strive by all lawful means to change its legislation. The Ralliement, as it was known, divided Catholic opinion. Obedience to the Pope dictated the response of some. At one extreme, however, it found a small but sympathetic audience among Catholics keen for accommodation, who wanted to turn the 8 9

24

Tranvouez, Catholiques d’abord, p. 79. The italics are the author’s.

Republic into an honest and Christian regime. At the other extreme, it also outraged those many Catholics for whom the Republic was obdurately anticlerical, as evidenced by its action against the Church which had permeated the previous decade. Their opinion of the Republic was subsequently entrenched by their interpretation of the Dreyfus Affair (1894–99), a ‘moral, ideological and political crusade’10 whose importance far transcended the fate of Dreyfus himself to score deep divisions between intransigents of Left and Right and threaten the very survival of the Republic. For the Dreyfusards (mainly Republicans), the Affair encapsulated the struggle against reaction, as symbolised by the Church, the aristocracy and the army; while, for the anti-Dreyfusards (mainly anti-Republicans), it was a struggle against forces which threatened national unity and national institutions (again, Church and army), fuelled by an anti-Semitic paranoia which was fostered particularly by Édouard Drumont’s La France juive (1886). By the end of the nineteenth century, it had become common to speak of les deux France, one Catholic, one Republican, which opposed ‘two ideologies, two political cultures, two traditions, two histories, two patriotisms’.11 As the twentieth century began, Church–State relations disintegrated further during the anticlerical Bloc des Gauches. Eager to resolve the Church question once and for all, the Government moved relentlessly towards the formal separation of Churches and State, which finally passed into law on 9 December 1905, thereby abrogating the 1801 Concordat which had recognised Catholicism as the religion of the great majority of French people. In 1905 Third Republic France completed the creation of its secular morality. In 1905, at the age of twenty-eight, Alphonse de Châteaubriant was beginning to establish himself as a writer. His first published piece 10 11

Tombs, France 1814–1914, p. 144. A full account of the Dreyfus Affair can be found in Eric Cahm, The Dreyfus Affair in French Society and Politics (Harlow: Longman, 1996). Tombs, France 1814–1914, p. 145.

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had appeared in 1898, and subsequent years saw the publication of a series of poems and short stories primarily in provincial journals such as La Revue nantaise, La Revue de l’Anjou and La Revue du Bas-Poitou, but also – from 1904 – in well-known Parisian journals such as La Revue de Paris, La Revue bleue and La Revue des poètes.12 Growing recognition of his literary ability led to the opportunity to join the editorial team at the weekly Chroniqueur de Paris. This prompted a move to the capital in 1903,13 the year of his marriage to Marguerite Bachelot-Villeneuve, the daughter of a well-to-do family from Piriac, near Saint-Nazaire, which had long-established connections with the navy and the law. But Châteaubriant never felt settled in Paris. Truly the homme de terroir, he spent increasingly lengthy periods of time in Brittany (where his two sons, Guy and Robert, were born in 1904 and 1906), either at his marital home, Le Petit Portail, near Nantes, or else in the Brière region where, as his Cahiers 1906–1951 (1955) reveal, he travelled and gathered notes for an early version of his second full-length novel, La Brière (1923) (C, pp. 11–55). A Breton by origin, Châteaubriant was born near Rennes into a Catholic family of prosperous gentilshommes campagnards, in a world far removed from the Republicans’ Republic. The tensions and crises of the Third Republic meant that his childhood and formative years coincided with significant events which would have far-reaching consequences for modern France, and his roots in the provincial Catholic humus operated both to influence his response to his environment and to mould him into the man he became. In 1879, when Châteaubriant was just two years old, the family moved to Nantes. Here he was educated privately rather than in Ferry’s newly established secular école de la République, attending the Catholic Externat des enfants nantais from 1883 to 1891, and the Catholic lycée in Nantes, 12 13

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See the bibliography for details of these publications, which concentrate on natural themes and thereby bear out Châteaubriant’s self-portrait as a ‘chasseur des paysages’ (Instantanés aux Pays-Bas, 1906, p. 8). Frédéric Lefèvre, ‘Une heure avec Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Les Nouvelles littéraires, artistiques et scientifiques, 37 (1923), 1–2.

where he passed the two-part examination for the baccalauréat de lettres in 1894 and 1895. By all accounts, Châteaubriant was a competent if not outstanding student, achieving mention assez bien for the bac overall and winning prizes for French composition and philosophy. After an similarly adequate year in rhétorique supérieure, and like many others of his class and education, he embarked on a preparatory course for entry to Saint-Cyr military college (near Versailles) and the army career expected by his father. But studying for Saint-Cyr failed to capture Châteaubriant’s interest, and he would regularly miss classes in order to explore the surrounding countryside, as he admits in his autobiographical work Les Pas ont chanté (1938, pp. 99–100). Not surprisingly, he failed the entrance examination for Saint-Cyr, and carried out his military service as an ordinary soldier, serving in the thirteenth army division based in Chartres between September 1898 and November 1900.14 Châteaubriant’s religious, regional and class origins represent significant formative influences in his life. Les Pas ont chanté recalls such features of a traditional Catholic upbringing as learning the catechism around the age of six (p. 43), studying Bible stories (pp. 53–54), and attending mass each Sunday where he acted as an altar boy (pp. 61– 63). His confirmation and first communion also took place at the conventional age of eleven in June 1888. His was an education based on instruction morale et religieuse, which made consistent reference to the teachings of the Church, offered a conservative reading of the modern world and rejected the ideals of the Third Republic. In terms of his regional origins, Châteaubriant acknowledges the formative effect of milieu, writing in a June 1931 entry in his diaries that: On ne peut guère se faire une idée des complexes commencements qui sont à l’origine de la personnalité et de l’œuvre d’un poète, si l’on ne sait en quel pays de la terre il a vécu ses premiers jours […]. Ce n’est pas l’homme qui fait le pays, c’est le pays qui fait l’homme. (C, p. 105, p. 106) 14

See Maugendre, Alphonse de Châteaubriant, Chapter 1, for details of Châteaubriant’s early life.

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His descriptions of his native and family regions of Brittany and the Vendée, both provinces classified as predominantly practising Catholic,15 confirm the influence of his source environment. Châtelet, his childhood home in Brittany, is described as a place of ‘déterminisme divin [qui] influençait nos esprits’ (PC, p. 56), while his preface to La Meute (1927) evokes the Vendée as a ‘terre maternelle, qui me donna mon premier fourrage’ (p. 16). Provincial and family roots are enduringly interdependent, as suggested by Châteaubriant’s description of the family’s château, Mothe-Saint-Sulpice, near Fontenay-le-Comte in the Vendée as: […] la vieille commanderie à quatre tours dans laquelle est né mon père et où j’ai été amené enfant. C’est là que s’élève l’antique berceau qui échut dans notre patrimoine par ma grand-mère, dernière héritière des vieux marquis de SaintSulpice. (LM, p. 18)

As a child, Châteaubriant was captivated by stories of his family’s past, especially those relating to his paternal grandfather, Gaspard de Châteaubriant (1795–1880), who had left Louis XVIII’s service around 1822 in order to settle on his wife’s estate at Mothe-SaintSulpice, thereby becoming a gentilhomme campagnard (p. 21). A gentilhomme campagnard is generally defined as ‘[quelqu’un] de petite noblesse qui vit sur ses terres’,16 although Châteaubriant provides his own fuller interpretation which immediately marks him out as an antiRevolutionary and indicates that his own reading of his class origin represents an important starting-point for an understanding of his evolution. The term, he writes, not only suggests communion with and dependence on the land, but also incorporates a sense of ‘noblesse’, and signifies ‘tout un complexe social, qui n’existe plus de nos jours’ (C, pp. 67–68). This complexe social is based on mutual duty between seigneur and serviteurs, itself the primary element in what 15 16

28

Roger Price, A Social History of Nineteenth-Century France (Hutchinson, 1987), pp. 288–89. Le Nouveau Petit Robert (Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1996), p. 1013, p. 1094.

Châteaubriant calls ‘la cellule patriarcale […] dans le grand être rural qu’est la France, la féconde cellule qui nourrit tout l’organisme’ (p. 74). The sense of regret at the loss of this complexe social is strikingly communicated in several of Châteaubriant’s early works. The short stories Le Baron de Puydreau (1908), Monsieur de Buysse (1909) and La Meute (1927),17 along with the novel Monsieur des Lourdines (1911), all represent a fusion of regional, class and family influences through their portrayal of the ‘monde finissant’ (LM, p. 22) of the gentilshommes campagnards in Brittany or the Vendée, and their exploitation of events from his family’s past, particularly around the time of the Restoration.18 But neither this nor the immediate pre-Revolutionary period embodies the golden age of Châteaubriant’s gentilhomme campagnard. Châteaubriant is no admirer of the Ancien Régime and the modern state as created by Richelieu from the mid-1620s, then extended under Louis XIV from 1643 to 1715. Rather, he is opposed to the establishment of the Court as a fixed institution, since this promoted administrative centralisation and effectively uprooted the nobility from the provinces, undermining its status by making it dependent on the king’s royal favours for its existence rather than on its seigneurial position (C, p. 70). Châteaubriant’s true regret is the death of feudal society, which he locates in the mid-sixteenth century. This, he believes, irrevocably damaged the key values of mutual duty and solidarity between community and leader, which had fostered an 17

18

Although not published until 1927, at least a preliminary version of La Meute had been written by 1911, as Châteaubriant confirms in a letter to Romain Rolland, dated 13 August 1911 (L’Un et l’autre: correspondance entre Romain Rolland et Alphonse de Châteaubriant, 1906–14, Cahiers Romain Rolland, 26 (Albin Michel, 1983), p. 36). Page references are to the 1935 edition of La Meute, which includes the stories Le Baron de Puydreau and Monsieur de Buysse. The preface to La Meute (p. 19, pp. 27–28) indicates that the opposing political sympathies of Monsieur and Madame de Néris, and the killing of the pedigree dogs by a pack of local hounds are both true events from Gaspard de Châteaubriant’s life at Mothe-Saint-Sulpice. The violin-playing Timothée des Lourdines in Monsieur des Lourdines is also based on Gaspard de Châteaubriant (PC, p. 219).

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organic definition of the nation as a living assemblage of ‘cellules naturelles, dont chacune réunit sa collectivité d’hommes, avec son noble au centre’ (p. 71), and a reading of the leader as ‘l’esprit qui régularise la circulation dans tout le corps de la communauté’ (p. 74).

The organic community: an ideal in embryo Châteaubriant’s promotion of the ‘organic’ features strongly in his early writings, where it represents an important indication of an embryonic theme, propagated in his Catholic origins, now in gestation, and awaiting the moment of its maturation in his encounter with Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. His short stories and first novel together introduced a substantial readership (no doubt augmented by the award of the Prix Goncourt) to his vision of an ideal community, one which was anti-modern, patriarchal and corporatist, anti-individualist and anti-capitalist, and which thereby betrays convictions typical of a late nineteenth-century intransigent Catholic mindset opposed to the France of the Revolution. Monsieur des Lourdines (1911), as its subtitle indicates, tells the ‘histoire d’un gentilhomme campagnard’ in the Poitou around 1840, opposing the threat of modern society – symbolised by Paris – with the benefits of patriarchal society as lived on Des Lourdines’s estate, Petit-Fougeray.19 Master and people are bound by mutual duty. Des Lourdines is ‘notre monsieur’ (p. 18), the orchestrator of the community, so harmonised to his environment that he and the estate ‘sortaient bien du même sol; ils étaient presque de la même couleur’ (p. 17). Des Lourdines is as devoted to his peasants as he is to the land: 19

30

Châteaubriant probably took the name Petit-Fougeray from a commune located twenty-five kilometres south of Rennes, his birth city. There is no real place of this name in the Poitou.

his right-hand man, Célestin, is not only his employee but also ‘son vieil ami’ (p. 19), and each evening he spends time in the kitchen with the estate’s workers. But the modern world invades this traditional, stable society in the form of the Des Lourdines’s son, Anthime. Two years before the story takes place, Anthime had left the family home for Paris following a quarrel with his parents over his racing and gambling debts, which his father had been forced to settle. His parents hope that he will return to take up his rightful place at Petit-Fougeray. Not surprisingly, however, Anthime has succumbed to the delights of life in the cosmopolitan capital. He has no desire to return to his roots and maintains little contact with his parents, thinking only of pleasure and spending more and more money. Anthime’s money-lender, Muller, finally writes to Monsieur des Lourdines to call in debts of 600,000 francs, thereby triggering the chain of events which leads to the sale of Petit-Fougeray and the death of Madame des Lourdines, killed by shock at the extent of her son’s debts. Anthime returns home to his mother’s deathbed, unaware of the reality of the situation. At PetitFougeray, Anthime is as dépaysé as his Russian greyhound, the symbol of his hedonistic life in Paris. His father finally announces that he has had to sell most of Anthime’s expected inheritance to settle the debts, and that their future income will be severely reduced. Anthime realises that he cannot return to Paris. He contemplates suicide, but is saved by the musical message of his father’s violin, and the rest of the novel deals with his reintegration into provincial life. Châteaubriant’s portrayal of the ideal community in Monsieur des Lourdines suggests a certain affinity of thought with two of the most influential Right-wing nationalist writers of the fin de siècle period, Maurice Barrès and Charles Maurras, who, from the early 1890s, employed their pens to formulate an assault on what they saw as the political and moral decline of the Third Republic, opposing this with a programme of integral nationalism. The reaction against decline was given momentum by the Boulanger crisis (1886–89), but their real stimulus was the Dreyfus Affair, which provided them with the 31

opportunity to promote an interpretation of the nation which was traditional, corporatist and xenophobic in inspiration, and which – in Maurras’s case – detached France from the Republic on the grounds that the Republic and grandeur were mutually exclusive. France, they argued, was a unique, self-sufficient nation, superior in culture and civilisation. The nation must be defended from non-French elements such as Jews, Freemasons, Protestants and ‘foreigners’, in other words, all those considered to lack the ancestral roots of the true French (in Barresian terms, the non-moi or the barbare). Catholicism was reconciled to this brand of patriotism: France, Barrès and Maurras declared, should remain Catholic, for Catholicism had always been the religion of the majority. But both allocated a primarily social role to the Catholic Church, seeing it principally as an instrument of social order and discipline, and therefore of institutional rather than religious importance. Indeed, Maurras himself was an avowed agnostic. Each was intent on the interests of the nation, although not always in defence of the same traditions. Barrès’s aspirations lay mainly in the moral domain, and focused on re-energising decadent France through the theory of la terre et les morts, ancestors and soil, which proclaimed cultural and racial rootedness as the essence of the nation. He dreamt of a charismatic, heroic leader who would form a mystical bond with the masses rather than just represent the interests of a privileged few. Maurras, however, viewed integral nationalism more in political terms, and focused on the need for appropriate institutions, advocating a social order similar to that of the Ancien Régime and calling for the restoration of the monarchy as the means to recover national grandeur. Both men tapped into a sympathetic audience of conservatives and traditionalists, among whom was Alphonse de Châteaubriant, whose intellectually formative years coincided with the genesis and development of integral nationalism in fin de siècle France.20 20

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On Barrès and Maurras, see Zeev Sternhell, Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français (Presses de La Fondation Nationale Scientifique, 1972), and Raoul Girardet, Le Nationalisme français, 1871–1914, 2nd edn (Seuil, 1983 [1966]).

Parallels can readily be drawn between Barrès, Maurras and Châteaubriant. The Petit-Fougeray estate in Monsieur des Lourdines appears as a hermetic, self-sufficient unit, and therefore a possible microcosm of an independent nation along the lines of Maurras’s ideal of la France seule. Anti-capitalism and anti-Semitism find their expression when capitalist, ‘foreign’ forces threaten the purity and survival of the organic ‘nation-estate’ (or pays réel, as opposed to pays légal, in Maurrassian terms) in the person of Muller, the money-lender, just as the Jews would later be seen by the Nazis as a threat to the purity of the German nation. As a ‘financier véreux’ (p. 86) and an ‘odieux exploiteur’ (p. 155), Muller can easily be read as a stereotyped representation of a Jew, one of Barrès’s non-moi, whose transient and destructive presence in the novel throws into sharp relief and threatens the enduring, rooted presence of the Des Lourdines family ‘qui naissait et mourait au Petit-Fougeray depuis des siècles’ (p. 17), and who illustrate perfectly Barrès’s theory of la terre et les morts. Where Muller is an archetypal Barresian non-moi by origin, Anthime is a classic Barresian déraciné. Barrès’s novel Les Déracinés (1897) extols integral nationalism and la terre et les morts in its portrayal of the dangers of physical and psychological déracinement. The novel focuses on the lives of seven young men from the Lorraine, whose move to Paris causes their lives to disintegrate to such an extent that, at one point, two of them brutally murder their friend Sturel’s foreign lover, Astiné. As a foreigner, Astiné represents the non-moi, and Sturel allows her killers to go free because they are fellow Lorrainers, thereby sacrificing the non-moi to the moi. In Monsieur des Lourdines, Anthime’s déracinement is symbolised by the uprooting and destruction of the healthy elm tree at the beginning of the novel (pp. 11–24), for, just as the tree has been cut off from its soil – the source of its nourishment – so Anthime has been separated from his ‘soil’, the organic community of Petit-Fougeray. His loss of his roots entails the loss of his community identity, and he becomes a mere individual who is no longer part of a corporate group (p. 220), thereby aptly illustrating Châteaubriant’s organicist and anti-individualist tendencies. The 33

harmful effects of Anthime’s déracinement are evident. He joins the ranks of the non-moi and, alongside Muller, becomes instrumental in the destruction of traditional life at Petit-Fougeray, for it is the financial ruin which he brings that causes the sale of the land and fragments the estate. Barrès believed that France was morally decadent, ‘dissociée et décérébrée’,21 and that resurrection was only possible if the nation returned to its roots. Anthime’s life has made him into a hedonistic dandy, a decadent ‘hero’ in the manner of Huysmans’s Des Esseintes (A rebours, 1884), and he seems to lack the vitality which Barrès regarded as necessary for moral regeneration. But Châteaubriant offers hope of redemption, for he hints that Anthime’s roots have not been totally destroyed, since ‘à son insu, le chasseur campagnard n’était pas en lui complètement mort’ (p. 157), so indicating the possibility of an appropriate and salutary ‘reawakening’ process. Indeed, the fact that Anthime is saved from suicide and reintegrates into provincial life at the end of the novel (an outcome of which Barrès would approve), is to be read as the reaffirmation of rootedness and thus as a victory over modern and ‘foreign’ influences, this despite the loss of PetitFougeray. The theme of leadership as handled by Châteaubriant suggests parallels with the Barresian notion of the chef rather than with Maurras’s call to restore the monarchy, and foreshadows his treatment of the same issue in his later encounter with National-Socialist Germany. Des Lourdines is the benevolent seigneur of the PetitFougeray estate, which serves as a mystical bond between master and peasants. He is sensitive both to the needs and problems of his tenants and to what is best for the estate as a whole. He is a leader who ‘awakens’ and ‘saves’ others, as seen in his relationship with his son. What matters most is his standing in the community as monsieur, rather than his individual status as Timothée des Lourdines. The theme of the benevolent seigneur is given further expression in La Meute, where it 21

34

Maurice Barrès, Les Déracinés (Fasquelle, 1897), p. 101.

is developed to exemplify the necessity of what Châteaubriant calls ‘le régime des hiérarchies’ (p. 120). If this is not preserved, he argues, then ‘l’homme animal’ (ibid.) will be unleashed. He illustrates his point by contrasting the behaviour of a group of farm dogs with that of the pedigree dogs belonging to Monsieur de Néris, the owner of the estate depicted in the story. The two pedigree dogs, aristocratic symbols of the Restoration, ‘savaient dominer leur instinct’ (pp. 99–100). In contrast, the farm dogs are nothing more than a rabble, approximated to a basic, uncivilised state, while the lead dog, Hugues, is spurred on by the same ‘démon hideux’ as the Revolutionaries of 1793 (p. 102). La Meute is an allegory of Châteaubriant’s view of mass human psychology. Lacking an aristocratic leader-figure to inspire them with honour, loyalty, selflessness and courage, the farm dogs instead follow Hugues, ‘une sorte de Danton à quatre pattes’.22 The subsequent fatal attack on the pedigree dogs represents a negative explosion of misdirected mass instinct, illustrative of the anti-Revolutionary thrust of Châteaubriant’s early writings. But La Meute should not be read as a statement championing a return to the monarchy, despite its positive opposition of the ‘Restoration’ dogs to the ‘Revolutionary’ dogs, for Châteaubriant, as we have seen, is no enthusiast of the Ancien Régime. The real theme of the story lies instead in its promotion of the principle of appropriate aristocratic leadership as illustrated by the opposition of Louis XVIII to Napoleon. In the story, Monsieur de Néris draws a distinction between his wife’s adoration of Napoleon as a heroic individual, ‘un être d’exception’ (p. 115), and his own veneration for the principle of aristocratic leadership represented by the King. This both demands and offers devotion and loyalty, and acts as a model of perfection in which the masses can believe and which they should strive to imitate. The ‘divine right’ monarch, whose authority is seen to come from God, requires a ‘respect de la Chose qui règne au-dessus de vous’ and 22

André Rousseaux, ‘Les Châteaux en Vendée d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, La Revue universelle, 63 (1935), 83–86 (p. 86).

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a ‘dévouement à la personne représentant cette autorité sacrée’ (p. 117). Obedience to this principle is presented as the only method for human salvation. This theme of a higher authority to be contemplated and imitated in the name of salvation recurs throughout Châteaubriant’s writings, and would take on its full significance in later years when Adolf Hitler would become its incarnation par excellence. There exists, then, an identifiable proximity of thought between Châteaubriant, Barrès and Maurras, for Châteaubriant can persuasively be classified as a writer of works which unveil reactionary and traditionalist tendencies, and intimate a sympathy with integral nationalism.23 In the early years of the twentieth century, the natural political outlet for many on the nationalist and Catholic Right was the counter-Revolutionary and extra-parliamentary leagues, such as the anti-Republican Ligue de la Patrie française, founded in 1899, or the Action française movement, which was converted to monarchism by Maurras around 1900. Maurras himself may never have been a believer, but Action française drew massively on Catholic support and came to embody political Catholicism, since many Catholics shared its authoritarian and traditionalist sentiments, and identified their own and the movement’s enemies as one and the same.24 But, although sickened by France’s debasement and keen to act, no political movement or party attracted Châteaubriant’s interest or support, for, as he explained to Romain Rolland in 1911, he considered them to be ‘tous plus mesquins, plus égoïstes, plus tarés les uns que les autres’ (UA, 1983 p. 80). Action française especially did not fit the bill, for 23

24

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It is interesting to note here that historians such as Zeev Sternhell and Robert Soucy have identified a number of significant common points between Barrès’s thought and later Fascist thought (see Sternhell, Ni droite, ni gauche. L’idéologie fasciste en France (Seuil, 1983), and Soucy, ‘Barrès and Fascism’, French Historical Studies, 1 (1967), 67–97). Others, like René Rémond, dispute a specifically French heritage of Fascism (see Rémond, Les Droites en France (Aubier, 1982)). Georges Bernanos, for example, found much to attract him in Action française. See John Cooke, Georges Bernanos: A Study of Christian Commitment (Amersham: Avebury, 1981).

Châteaubriant felt alienated not only by its enthusiasm for the Ancien Régime, but also – and particularly – by its subordination of all things to politics, as illustrated by its maxim of politique d’abord.25 So, although not politically without origin or direction, as seen by the counterRevolutionary interpretation which can be applied to his works, at this point in his career Châteaubriant was politically inactive in the sense of concrete engagement, principally because he was unable to find what he was looking for, namely, a suitable outlet for his particular beliefs. The meaning of Châteaubriant’s early writings evidently stretches beyond their repeated classification as regional texts which simply extol nature and the gentilhomme campagnard.26 But it is equally inappropriate to rest at a political interpretation of his works, for Châteaubriant was considerably less attracted by the political application of integral nationalism than by its poetic and ‘spiritual’ aspects, especially in terms of its regenerative capacity. The moral and spiritual decline of the gentilhomme campagnard detailed in his early writings serves to indicate that his primary message was the necessity of spiritual regeneration, thus confirming that his interests more nearly matched Barrès’s regenerative aspirations than Maurras’s political ambitions. The Baron de Puydreau’s moral decline is illustrated by his abuse of his power in his relationship with both his timid wife and his frail father-in-law (LM, pp. 145–61). Monsieur de Buysse shows little of the gentilhomme campagnard’s traditional interest in his lands, while his wife, a Parisienne dépaysée, longs to leave the confines of their estate and return to her former life in the capital (pp. 165–208). The De Néris’s also demonstrate little commitment to their lands, for the story depicts their first visit to the estate since it was inherited by Madame de Néris some ten years before the story takes place (p. 44). And the seeds of 25 26

On Action française, see Eugen Weber, Action française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962). On the Ligue de la Patrie française, see Cahm, The Dreyfus Affair, pp. 133–38. Readings of the early writings as regional texts include Maurice Gauchez, Romantiques d’aujourd’hui (Brussels: Renaissance d’Occident, 1924), p. 112, and Gilles Nélod, Panorama du roman historique (Éditions Sodi, 1969), p. 261.

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Anthime’s hedonism are shown to lie in his upbringing as a spoilt child at Petit-Fougeray (ML, pp. 40–41), indicating that his degeneration was not wholly caused by his life in Paris. None of these stories indicates that the succession will be assured: it seems unlikely that the impoverished Anthime will ever marry, and there are no children in any of the other three stories. Spiritual concerns manifestly dominate political, temporal and ‘national’ themes at this stage in Châteaubriant’s life. In Monsieur des Lourdines, for example, Anthime’s spiritual regeneration is Châteaubriant’s prime concern, and the only possible means to his redemption. Material losses are minor matters when compared with spiritual gains, for Châteaubriant is prepared to sacrifice PetitFougeray, indicating that the loss of this ‘nation-state’ is a small price to pay for the salvation of Anthime, the ‘enfant prodigue’ (p. 42) brought back from the brink of spiritual ruin. In later years, however, the spiritual and the political would be more closely entwined and eventually equated in Châteaubriant’s reception of National Socialism, as he came to believe in a potential for wider human regeneration through that ideology. The roots of that evolution lie in his religious thought as communicated through his early writings, for these carry layers of meaning which explain his attitudes and behaviour, and which therefore contribute substantially to an understanding of his later development as a collaborator.

Spiritual regeneration: seeking a pathway The anti-Revolutionary thrust of Monsieur des Lourdines indicates that the novel is to be read as a reaction against the modern and ‘godless’ times in which Châteaubriant lived, and confirms that he was a product of an intransigent Catholic humus. The novel further underscores that heritage in the prominence accorded to the theme of 38

spiritual regeneration, which can be seen to echo the broader Catholic integrist goal of the rechristianisation of society as recommended since Aeterni patris. But the text, alongside Châteaubriant’s diaries and his letters to Rolland, also serves to illustrate that he did not evolve in typical fashion, for together they offer solid evidence of the beginnings of a search for spiritual regeneration outside of the institutional Catholic Church, rather than evidence of support for the restoration of the traditional social role of the Church. Aspects of Monsieur des Lourdines indicate a shared mentality with the authors of what Richard Griffiths has termed the Catholic Revival, embodied by prominent writers such as Huysmans, Bloy, Claudel, Péguy, Barbey d’Aurevilly and Bourget, and defined as ‘a reaction of the Right […] taking an intransigent, reactionary attitude in relation to matters of both faith and politics’.27 These writers’ response to late nineteenth-century France was to defend traditionalism, patriotism, and political and religious order in the face of the onslaught of the turbulent, modern world. In their intransigence, they were also trenchant critics of their Church, charging it with mediocrity and weak sentimentalism, attacking the clergy and laity alike for their ‘compromise’ with the modern world and their lack of opposition to anti-Catholic forces (not the least of which was the Third Republic itself), and denouncing moderate, ‘modern’ Catholics, such as those within Marc Sangnier’s Sillon movement, which was influential from the 1890s and is widely regarded as the forerunner of Christian Democracy in France (pp. 231–39). Generally, the writers of the Catholic Revival favoured Ultramontanism, which had been the dominant tendency in Catholicism since Pius IX’s 1870 declaration of papal infallibility, Pastor aeternus. Their reactionary attitude was such that Leo XIII was attacked as a ‘liberal’ for his attempts to deal with the secular power, as at the time of the Ralliement, while, under the 27

Richard Griffiths, The Reactionary Revolution: The Catholic Revival in French Literature 1870–1914 (Constable, 1966), p. 4. Subsequent immediate references to this book are given in the text.

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more reactionary Pius X (1903–14), their intransigence became stronger still, rivalling even that of the Pope (p. 20). These Catholics desired to see Christianity afresh, their reaction finding expression in ‘an immense nostalgia for a time when the world was different, and when society was nearer to perfection’ (p. 230), namely the Middle Ages, a period of ‘a hard asceticism, a heroic acceptance of suffering and an intransigent intolerance of compromise’ (p. 232). The enthusiasm and intensity of many of their number has been seen to stem from their status as recent converts to Catholicism, on the basis that converts are often more intransigent believers than those born into a faith. This enthusiasm sometimes found expression in exaggeration and apocalyptic predictions (as, for example, in the case of Bloy), and rendered them susceptible to dangerous pathways such as occultism and satanism, thereby illustrating the tendency of some ‘towards heresy founded on misunderstanding or distortion of Catholic doctrine’ (p. 143). The medieval atmosphere which impregnates Monsieur des Lourdines through the presentation of idealised feudal structures and the saintly, contemplative figure of Timothée des Lourdines suggests that Châteaubriant holds a view of the period which is as similarly stylised as that of the Catholic Revival. He also shares their dissatisfaction with the institutional Catholic Church and their enthusiastic desire to see Christianity afresh. Griffiths even roots Monsieur des Lourdines directly in the Catholic Revival, describing it as an example of ‘nostalgic literature’ on the basis of its depiction of the struggle between ancient and modern in a regional setting (p. 269). But the novel carries a far deeper message than a simple expression of regret for times past. Monsieur des Lourdines looks to the past as a way of looking to the future, for, as will be seen shortly, it contains the seeds of Châteaubriant’s search for a new approach to religion, imbued with elitist and medieval flavours, which would develop to dominate his spiritual and political thought during his later encounter with Adolf Hitler and National-Socialist Germany.

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Châteaubriant’s intransigence in religious matters, although similar in intensity to that of a Bloy, a Claudel, or a Péguy, was not based on the enthusiasm of the convert, since he had been born and brought up in the Catholic Church – an essential distinction which sets him apart from many other unorthodox Catholic writers. But in 1893, one year after the Ralliement and on the eve of the Dreyfus Affair, the sixteen-year-old Châteaubriant lapsed from Church-based religious practice (C, p. 324).28 This lapse was no failing of his personal commitment to Christianity, however, for his diaries and correspondence confirm that he maintained a keen interest in the religious developments of the day, and that he was aware of the appropriate papal encyclicals and of the thrust of contemporary debate. Rather, it is persuasive to interpret his lapse as the first clear sign of his dissatisfaction with the methods and evolution of the Catholic Church. Looking back on his religious formation from some fifty years’ distance, Les Pas ont chanté later records Châteaubriant’s complaint with the mediocrity of the institutional Church, as expressed in its methodology for the communication of faith through what he bills as its ‘lowest common denominator’ sacraments: Mais, mon âme […] garde toujours à l’intérieur une odeur de sanctuaire. Ce qu’on vous apprend a tellement besoin d’être appris autrement! L’essence de la vérité est tellement plus auguste que l’étrange petite formule offerte à la faim moyenne de la foule… (pp. 120–21)

Illustrating his tendency towards spiritual elitism, Châteaubriant considers the traditional ritual ceremony adequate to satisfy the masses but insufficient for himself. He judges his religious education to have been sterile, based on ‘un bon catholicisme de tradition et de respect qui n’avait pénétré de son enseignement que les couches superficielles’ (Fragments d’une confession, 1953, p. 18). This failed to awaken his ‘moi actif et religieux’, because ‘le Dieu que l’on m’avait appris ne s’était pas 28

Châteaubriant returned to Church-based religious practice on 25 December 1948 (C, p. 324).

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formé en moi’ (PC, p. 266). He defines the God he seeks as ‘un Dieu beaucoup plus puissant que ce Dieu de l’éducation, un Dieu héréditaire, un Dieu légué dans mon sang’ (p. 267), thereby indicating his susceptibility to the idea of what the National Socialists would later define as a God beyond the Catholic God. Châteaubriant may have shared in the Catholic Revival’s accusation of Church mediocrity, their desire to renew Christianity and their reference to the Middle Ages, but his methodology for regeneration was ultimately to differentiate his approach. Unlike the authors of the Catholic Revival, Châteaubriant did not bow to papal infallibility, but was instead prepared to question the authority of the Pope, as seen in his response to Pius X’s condemnation of Sangnier’s Sillon movement in 1910. Its brand of integral Catholicism rested on a ‘soyons peuple’ approach which emphasised fraternity and equality, rather than on the ‘allons au peuple’ stance which characterised the more paternalistic and hierarchical forms of Catholicism. The Pope’s condemnation had resulted from his objection to the increasingly secular nature of the movement, illustrated by its co-operation with both non-Catholics and non-believers, and which led it to claim freedom of action outside Church control. Châteaubriant would clearly not have supported the Sillon movement on the level of principles, since its ‘soyons peuple’ approach would have been far too democratic and egalitarian for his liking. Nor would he have been in sympathy with its secularisation, just as he rejected Action française for the prominence it accorded to secular matters. But he did support its claim to freedom of action, and viewed the condemnation as an expression of the negative nature of the Pope’s absolute authority – a reaction markedly different in tone to that of the Catholic Revival authors who welcomed such rigorous papal direction. Writing on this matter to Rolland in September 1910, he comments that ‘ce qui me révolte, c’est que cela soit fini de par l’autorité d’un seul homme; que ce seul homme ait le pouvoir d’éteindre en des milliers de consciences le don sacré de la vie’ (UA, 1983, p. 52). He holds that papal infallibility is nothing short of intellectual despotism, but he is also confident that this can be 42

successfully challenged, for ‘il faudra bien que le pouvoir d’un seul finisse par se fondre dans le pouvoir de tous’ (p. 53). He takes comfort from Renan’s Vie de Jésus (1863), in which he has read that ‘l’enseignement de Jésus se renouvellera sans cesse’;29 but, while hoping that this will happen, he writes that ‘pour le moment apprenons-nous à nous passer de ceux qui le représentent si mal’ (ibid.). In Châteaubriant’s opinion, spiritual vitality and the potential for spiritual regeneration do not reside in what he considers to be the mediocre, sterile, rigidly structured and tightly controlled institutional Catholic Church. He evidently does not share the enthusiasm of those working for a New Christendom through neo-Thomism, as the Church had upheld since Aeterni patris, while his willingness to question the Church’s structures and systems suggests a tendency to heterodoxy. Certainly, his rejection of papal infallibility does not make him a Gallican, for his criticisms applied equally to Rome and to the French Catholic Church; nor does it permit his classification alongside other unorthodox Catholic writers whose acceptance of papal authority conditioned their response. As Châteaubriant’s writings confirm, by the early twentieth century he was already in the process of searching for a new approach to religion, for a ‘direct line’ to God outside the institutional Church. Monsieur des Lourdines offers a preliminary exploration of that quest. The novel provides a vision of what Châteaubriant calls ‘la présence divine en toutes choses’ (C, p. 44), illustrated in the text by a representation of God in nature and music (significantly, this is a theme which would later be promoted in National-Socialist Germany). This is not in itself a new approach to religion (it recalls, for instance, the religious individualism of Rousseau),30 but it does nonetheless provide the point of departure for Châteaubriant’s ideas. The estate’s 29 30

This is a paraphrase of part of the final sentence of Renan’s Vie de Jésus, which reads ‘son culte se rajeunira sans cesse’ (Michel Lévy, 1863), p. 459. Châteaubriant acknowledges Rousseau’s influence in Les Pas ont chanté, p. 83.

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forest is compared to a holy place (ML, p. 27), and a huge cross stands on a high plateau beyond the forest, representing the fusion of nature and religion. For Des Lourdines, the plateau is his Mount of Olives (p. 184), while his violin is compared to a sacred object whose music takes him onto a higher religious plane, as indicated by his eyes, ‘des yeux transportés hors du monde, et comme, seuls, peuvent en avoir les saints’ (p. 246). It is in the development of Des Lourdines’s role in the novel that Châteaubriant begins to travel a different religious pathway, for the major role of spiritual redeemer is allocated to Des Lourdines himself, since he ‘saves’ Anthime, while the priest (Madame des Lourdines’s confessor) has a purely cameo role and is seen to function simply along traditional, institutional lines (pp. 130–32). Redemption and communication with God are therefore seen to occur without the traditional intermediaries of priest or religious dogma, and outside the usual boundaries of church buildings. Reviews of Monsieur des Lourdines have defined a major theme of the novel as ‘le rachat de l’homme par ses propres efforts’,31 although Châteaubriant himself was to introduce a more explicit elitist tone, writing in April 1933 that ‘ce n’est qu’une élite chrétienne qui peut sauver le monde’ (C, p. 128), a role traditionally performed by monks in monasteries, especially in the Middle Ages. In La Meute, Châteaubriant explains that appropriate aristocratic leaders receive their authority from God. In Monsieur des Lourdines, Timothée des Lourdines embodies that authority, and is thus a potential member of Châteaubriant’s Christian elite. He fulfils a social and political role as the natural leader of the organic community of Petit-Fougeray, a leader who represents the principle of mutual duty and commands the loyalty and deference of his people in much the same way as the King does for De Néris in La Meute. But, significantly, he is also

31

44

Maugendre, Alphonse de Châteaubriant, p. 112, and André Niderst, Dictionnaires des littératures de langue française (Bordas, 1984), p. 438.

‘l’instrument inconscient de la Divinité’,32 ready to be awakened to a spiritual role as his son’s redeemer. In bearing both roles, Des Lourdines represents an early incarnation of Châteaubriant’s fusion of the spiritual and the political. In later years, Châteaubriant would accord Adolf Hitler many of the qualities attributed to Des Lourdines. He would also see the need for a Christian elite and the theme of salvation through the contemplation of God by that elite in the process of realisation within the Nazi pseudo-monasteries for the infamous Schutzstaffelen (SS). Châteaubriant’s future spiritualisation of politics in his treatment of Hitler’s Germany therefore has readily identifiable roots in his early writings, which, in turn, are easily sourced in his interpretation of the Catholic faith. To sum up, Alphonse de Châteaubriant shared the intransigent and reactionary mentality of many of his fellow-travellers of similar background and tendencies who would themselves follow the pathway of integral nationalism. A corresponding classification of Châteaubriant is tempting, given the thrust of his early writings. However, as his record of the First World War will confirm, Châteaubriant’s brand of nationalism did not develop into the full-blown extreme nationalism of a Barrès or a Maurras, but rather turned him into a committed Europeanist who advocated cross-national cooperation. Châteaubriant ultimately journeyed neither the pathway of integral nationalism nor that of the integral Catholicism upheld by the Catholic Church. He was an anti-Revolutionary and an antiRepublican, but no devotee of the Ancien Régime. He was neither one of Maurras’s ultras, nor one of Sangnier’s ralliés. He was no monarchist, but nonetheless upheld a notion of aristocracy and betrayed definite elitist tendencies. Heterodox but not heretical – in similar fashion to those writers of the Catholic Revival, men such as Bloy, Claudel and Péguy, who themselves travelled dangerous pathways – Châteaubriant was repeatedly critical of the structures and 32

Jean de Lassus, ‘L’Ame des pays et le pays des âmes dans l’œuvre romanesque d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, La Revue européenne, 45 (1926), 16–25 (p. 25).

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systems of the traditional, institutional Roman Catholic Church, and disappointed with the sterile religion of his birth and education. He too, like many others, desired to see Christianity afresh, but personally began to look outside rather than to the Church for spiritual regeneration. By the eve of the First World War, Châteaubriant had embarked on the dangerous pathway which would lead to his journey’s end across the Rhine. As the war and its immediate aftermath would soon confirm, Alphonse de Châteaubriant was a collaborator in waiting.

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2 A Collaborator in Waiting The First World War At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, President Poincaré’s rallying-call for a union sacrée met with almost universal acceptance. Internal political quarrels and rivalries were shelved as the nation faced the prospect of a fresh conflict against Germany, the old enemy whose defeat of France in 1870 had been neither forgotten nor forgiven. Patriotic duty commanded national solidarity. France, so Poincaré proclaimed, would be defended by all her sons.1 Bolstered by the belief that right was on France’s side, that war would offer delivery from the many dissatisfactions of civilian life and create an opportunity for moral, social and political renewal, and that a short war would suffice to ensure victory, the national mood in the summer of 1914 was one of widespread optimism, enthusiasm and exhilaration. But the nightmarish reality of the conflict would soon tell an entirely different story, for it quickly became clear that the war was in fact an unparalleled crisis of civilisation, a ‘traumatic experience which permanently changed, or indeed destroyed, values and beliefs as well as men and materials’.2 Germany declared war on France on 3 August 1914. Alphonse de Châteaubriant was mobilised the following day and stationed in barracks in Nantes until his departure on 15 August for Maubeuge, on 1 2

Raymond Poincaré, Au service de la France, 10 vols (Plon: 1926–34), IV (1928), 546. John Cruickshank, Variations on Catastrophe: Some French Responses to the Great War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 27. The causes of the First World War need not be rehearsed here. For a lucid analysis of France’s decision to go to war, see John Keiger, ‘France’, in Decisions for War, 1914, ed. by Keith Wilson (UCL Press, 1995), pp. 121–49.

the border between France and Belgium, as a corporal with the eleventh transport corps. Châteaubriant’s unit was operational within the military ambulance service rather than as fighting soldiers, and was responsible for the transfer of the injured and dying from front-line ambulance stations to the field hospitals. Promoted to the rank of sergeant in May 1915, Châteaubriant would see the war through to its end, drafted to various postings across the grim battlefields of the Marne, Verdun and the Somme which scarred north-eastern France. On the eve of active service, Châteaubriant shared the mood of national enthusiasm. Recent illness could have spared him the conflict, but he was determined to participate in ‘cette formidable Iliade’, which he imagined to be a spiritually and physically elevating Homeric adventure from which he would return (if he returned) transformed, ‘bronzé, plus fort, plus grand, meilleur’.3 This expectation of personal renewal was matched by a conviction that the war represented a means to regeneration on a wider moral, spiritual, social and political level. Two years before the outbreak of war, as the international situation worsened, Châteaubriant had proclaimed to Rolland that ‘la barbarie […] est le salut et le moyen de toute civilisation’ (UA, 1983, p. 138). In July 1915, one year into the bloodiest conflict of modern times, he was still prepared to justify violence, arguing that ‘il faut qu’un retour à la barbarie nous sauve de la bestialité du civilisé’, and adding that ‘j’espère que des guerres sont à la veille de bouleverser la face du monde, de façon que le monde puisse reprendre à piedd’œuvre son ascension’ (Lettres des années de guerre, 1914–1918, 1952, p. 104). War therefore becomes both necessary and positive, ‘belle, grandiose, justicière’ (p. 82). Such allusions to the Nietzschean themes of the Übermenschen (the ‘supermen’ strengthened in war), purification through violence and the construction of a new, nobler world are

3

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Letter to Romain Rolland dated 14 August 1914, L’Un et l’autre: correspondance entre Romain Rolland et Alphonse de Châteaubriant, 1914–1944, Cahiers Romain Rolland, 30 (Albin Michel, 1996), p. 31.

unmistakeable.4 The fact that Nietzsche would later be claimed by the Nazis as a forerunner of National Socialism (albeit unjustifiably) shows with hindsight how some who shared Nietzsche’s views could develop, as would be the case with Châteaubriant.5 Reshaping life and the world anew was Châteaubriant’s goal, vigourously promoted throughout the war. To that end, he exploited the war as a startingpoint for a critique of the ‘civilisé’, examining the state of contemporary society and delineating his programme for the creation of a new post-war Europe.

La bestialité du civilisé Protest against physical suffering and the dehumanisation caused by the First World War was common to writers such as Henri Barbusse (Le Feu, 1916), Roland Dorgelès (Les Croix de bois, 1919) and Georges Duhamel (Vie des martyrs, 1917; Civilisation, 1918). All held, as Barbusse wrote in Le Feu, that the war was ‘aussi hideuse au moral qu’au physique’ (p. 275). But, for Châteaubriant, the physical suffering inflicted on the world was nothing when compared with the moral decline revealed by the bloodshed (LAG, p. 50). Although haunted in similar fashion by the war’s consumption of human flesh (p. 138), Châteaubriant – like Pierre Drieu la Rochelle in his retrospective novel on the war, La Comédie de Charleroi (1934) – interprets the conflict

4

5

The popularity of Nietzsche’s ideas across Europe during the First World War was such that his most famous work Also sprach Zarathustra (1883) became a best-seller (see James Joll, Europe since 1870, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976 [1973]), pp. 165–68). As Joll notes (ibid., p. 167), Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth reworked her late brother’s ideas to fit her own and her husband’s extreme nationalist views. This was the Nietzsche claimed by the Nazis.

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primarily as the confirmation rather than the cause of humanity’s moral decline and mediocrity, defining it as: […] le spectacle extérieur d’un drame plus profond, du drame de la consomption qui nourrit dans la conscience de l’homme la décadence des essences et l’abaissement incalculable de toutes les valeurs de l’esprit. (p. 166)

The nature of modern humanity, rooted in selfishness, blind materialism, unlimited greed and a total ignorance of the divine, has convinced Châteaubriant that ‘l’ère du Christ a pris fin et que celle de l’ogre ne fait que commencer ses ravages’ (pp. 159–60). This notion of the end of the spiritualised world, illustrated by the decline of âme and esprit, is the principal element of Châteaubriant’s critique of the modern world, and would underpin his search for a fresh spiritual beginning and the foundation of a regenerated world. This he would ultimately choose to find in Hitler’s Germany, defining the National Socialists as ‘l’apparition humaine d’un recommencement de l’œuvre de Dieu’ (La Gerbe des forces, 1937, p. 161). Châteaubriant, as Drieu would later do, roots humanity’s mediocrity in modern scientific society, spawning what Drieu would ironically call ‘cette guerre de civilisation avancée’.6 Humans have sold their souls to the machine, and the First World War is the price to be paid. Like many cultivated in the intransigent Catholic humus, Châteaubriant is highly critical of ‘l’homme issu du “progrès scientifique moderne”’ (LAG, p. 96). Modern science may have improved the material world in practical, concrete ways, but, he argues, it is not evidence of real human progress, which must be ‘par essence moral et intérieur’ (ibid.). The worst mistake that society can make, Châteaubriant asserts, is to confuse the two. Any society which has faith purely in science, material advances and rational thought is heading for disaster, and carries with it such damaging consequences as class struggle, a dampening of creative activity and the debasement of human nature (p. 98). Moreover, the speed of scientific advance is 6

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La Comédie de Charleroi, p. 81.

such that humans have had no time to formulate an appropriate moral response, the result of which is that ‘l’âme ainsi devancée cesse de progresser, demeure immobile, si elle ne rétrograde’ (pp. 98–99). Democracy, abhorred by many Catholics, is defined by Châteaubriant as the political manifestation of destructive modern ‘progress’ (p. 236), and an ideology which therefore has equally damaging consequences for âme and esprit as science and rational thought. He contrasts democratic society with ancient societies, which are ‘plus morales que les nôtres, plus respectueuses en fait de la personnalité humaine’ (p. 58), and argues that there is no comparison between ancient societies based on centuries of culture and discipline and those based on ‘modern’ democracy (pp. 196–97). Although slavery formed an integral part of ancient societies, Châteaubriant contends that this only curtailed freedom of action and that the inner being remained essentially free. In contrast, although modern democracy may have freed humans from such external chains, he holds that it controls the inner being since it promotes temporal, human principles over eternal, divine principles. Slavery, he claims, is no longer physical, but spiritual (p. 58). Châteaubriant’s roots in an intransigent Catholicism are further confirmed by his attitude towards the bourgeoisie, a section of modern society he equates with liberalism and materialism and which he consequentially deems to be particularly bereft of âme and esprit.7 Châteaubriant condemns ‘les futilités qui font le pâle et vague bonheur de la société bourgeoise’ (p. 103), contrasting the simplicity of his existence in war with the ‘formes puériles’ (p. 86) of bourgeois life and criticising their ‘course folle au bien-être et au confortable’ (p. 151). He comments that he feels much closer in spirit to the ordinary men he encounters at the front line than to any of his bourgeois acquaintances (p. 105). This is no statement of equality with his fellow soldiers, for Châteaubriant, as will be seen, believed himself superior to those 7

On this theme, see Émile Poulat, Église contre bourgeoisie: introduction au devenir du catholicisme actuel (Casterman, 1977).

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around him, but rather a striking expression of distance from the bourgeoisie. In contrast to modern, democratic society, dominated by the bourgeoisie, Châteaubriant admires disciplined and hierarchically structured societies which he believes prioritise what is eternal and essential in human beings rather than focus on temporal, ephemeral existence. As later chapters will elucidate, he would elect NationalSocialist Germany as his desired society.

Nationalism and Europeanism The First World War was a conflict of nations, in which patriotism was widely equated with nationalism. Men like Barrès and Maurras, the gurus of integral nationalism since late nineteenth-century France, saw the war in purely national terms and trumpeted their Germanophobia to the skies, confident that their words would find sympathy with a population keen to avenge itself on the old enemy.8 But many writers and intellectuals of different social and political convictions soon began to criticise not only the war, but also the nationalism which sustained it. Barbusse, for example, for whom the conflict was a class war, wrote in Le Feu that ‘les chauvins, c’est d’la vermine’ (p. 277), since ‘à la vérité éternelle ils substituent chacun leur vérité nationale’ (p. 284). Bernanos, a Catholic and a supporter of Maurras’s Action française movement, distanced himself from integral nationalism, choosing on humanitarian grounds to view the war more as a spiritual than a political issue. And Drieu, who did not publicly record his view of the war until 1934, at the time of his conversion to Fascism, offers a 8

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Barrès, for instance, wrote in 1917: ‘Il nous faut relever la patrie de son abaissement et la guérir de sa mutilation. Il faut que les crimes soient vengés, les dommages indemnisés, les sacrifices récompensés. Le tout aux dépens des Allemands’ (Maurice Barrès, Mes cahiers, 14 vols (Plon, 1929–57), XI (1938), 228).

clue to the source of his Europeanism when he brands nationalism as ‘l’aspect le plus ignoble de l’esprit moderne’, announcing that ‘je voudrais voir une patrie européenne triompher sur les autres’.9 Châteaubriant’s exploration of the question of nationalism during the First World War provides the key to the source and tenor of his Europeanism. His stark denunciation of ‘nos vieilles nationalités pourries’ (LAG, p. 82) rests on their definition as ‘monstres dévorants, institutions purement humaines, exclusivement politiques même, dans notre monde moderne’ (p. 68). This not only indicates his rejection of purely temporal and political institutions, but also, by implication, reveals his quest for a world shaped and guided by factors beyond the temporal and political. Châteaubriant’s quarrel lies with the extreme ‘negative’ nationalism gingered by the newspapers and by writers such as Barrès (p. 35) and Péguy (p. 209). But he is equally keen to defend the retention of national identity, defining this as a positive form of resistance to ‘l’égalisation ethnique qui s’opère progressivement entre tous les peuples du monde’, the effect of which is that ‘la vie va du simple au composé: Bretagne–France–Europe’ (p. 243). This combination of a rejection of extreme nationalism and a defence of national identity underpins Châteaubriant’s brand of Europeanism, based as it was on the retention of national (even regional) identity within the larger entity that is Europe, and hints at an early ‘federal’ interpretation of Europe. The First World War hence confirms that the Maurrasian concept of la France seule is insufficient for Châteaubriant, and that, as suggested earlier, he was no integral nationalist. In Monsieur des Lourdines, Châteaubriant had introduced the theme of the salvation of humanity through individual spiritual regeneration, as illustrated by Anthime, which was seen to be more important than any political interpretation of the text. The war letters then register an evolution on Châteaubriant’s part, revealing a potential political application for the spiritual ideas of the novel, for he now also treats the wider issue of human salvation in a specifically European political 9

La Comédie de Charleroi, p. 219, p. 220.

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context, arguing that ‘la grande coopération européenne serait actuellement, pour les peuples épuisés et intérieurement détruits dans leurs hiérarchies, la seule arche de salut’ (p. 254). In a letter written to his wife shortly after the 1918 Armistice, and therefore in the light of the demands placed on Germany by the Allies, Châteaubriant emphasises his conviction that, no matter what, ‘nous marchons vers une Europe une, de plus en plus une’ (p. 252). He deplores the strictly national interpretation placed on the outcome of the war, and the weakening of Germany which resulted from the terms of the Armistice. Instead of pursuing an ideal of ‘entraide mutuelle et collaboration’, Europe’s governments – controlled by the hated bourgeoisie – are accused of retreating into an old-style politics based on ‘faux nationalismes impénitents’ (p. 253). They are capable only of interpreting conflict ‘sous la forme des guerres de peuple à peuple’, and thus fail to comprehend that the real issue at stake is ‘[le] salut de l’Humanité’ (p. 254). The ‘new’ politics Châteaubriant wants to see in operation is based neither on ‘false’ nationalisms nor on what he calls the total ‘compénétration des nations’ (p. 253). Rather, he is committed to ‘la réalisation du grand organisme européen’ (p. 253), constructed of interdependent ‘cells’, or nations, thereby reinforcing and developing the organic theme introduced in Monsieur des Lourdines and voicing this in a precise political context. Châteaubriant was not alone in his advocacy of collaboration between nations, for the theme appealed to many who wished to see an end to this and all wars, and who called for co-operation between those of similar ideological persuasion rather than a retreat into separate national units. For example, Romain Rolland (Châteaubriant’s friend and regular correspondent) placed human interest above national interest, calling in Au-dessus de la mêlée (1914) for European unity and an end to war and militarism, goals he still upheld at the end of the conflict. And Henri Barbusse, who defined the war as ‘la Révolution française qui continue’, held internationalism as an ideal and looked forward to ‘l’entente des démocraties, l’entente des immensités, la levée du peuple du monde’ (Le Feu, p. 340, p. 348). In 54

the inter-war period, both Rolland and Barbusse would eventually travel the pathway of Communism, although neither without some hesitation and disquiet at times. Communism, however, was Châteaubriant’s nightmare. Like his fellow Catholics, he was horrified by its rejection of God; and he also abhorred its ‘democratic’ political system, which in his view reduced all of humanity to its lowest common denominator. His particular preferred model for European unity was constructed instead on conservative and aristocratic principles, mobilised precisely to combat what he calls the ‘démence populaire’ (LAG, p. 252) of Bolshevism. Writing in 1918, a year after the October Revolution in Russia, he argues that the time has come for conservative governments to act together against the common enemy that is international Bolshevism, and he predicts a fresh conflict between ideologies rather than nations, between ‘les deux éléments, aristocratique et démocratique, autorité et prolétariat’ (p. 252). At the dawn of the post-war era, his preference is clearly for a non-democratic, Communist-free Europe, where nations function in harmony. This Europe, he proclaims, must be led by an elite, made up of ‘hommes instruits et éclairés’ (p. 252), for only this can bring about the salvation of humanity from the debasing effects of Bolshevism. Moreover, he specifically advises co-operation with Germany, whose ‘principe aristocratique et militaire’ (p. 253) he believes should have been preserved rather than crushed at the end of the war. In so doing, Châteaubriant travels further down the pathway which would lead to his advocacy of collaboration with NationalSocialist Germany, for in later years he would interpret National Socialism as the rebirth of aristocratic Germany. His elitist Europeanism voiced at the end of the war, coupled with his specific call for Franco-German co-operation, stand as a telling indication that in 1918 he was already a collaborator in waiting. Indeed, as subsequent chapters of this study will underline, of the future collaborators, none was so clearly attracted by Germany at this stage as Alphonse de Châteaubriant.

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Regeneration through war: the elitist model Although clearly concerned to advocate the construction of a particular political future for post-war Europe, Châteaubriant also argues that the outcome of the war must be social and not simply political, and that, to that end, it must demolish ‘ce vieil édifice d’illusions et de mensonges où nos âmes traînent une vie précaire’ (p. 82). For Châteaubriant, this goal of the salvation of souls turns the First World War into a medieval-style crusade, indicating that he can envisage a militant form of religion. Based on his understanding of the Old Testament, he announces that the war is ‘la plus divine, la plus voulue par Dieu de toutes celles qui ont sévi sur notre monde depuis les grandes invasions’ (pp. 82–83). The spilling of blood, he declares, is the ‘rosée nécessaire aux renaissances de l’âme’ (p. 102), a small price to pay for the purification of humanity, just as the loss of PetitFougeray was insignificant in comparison with the redemption of Anthime. With the exception of authors of the Catholic Revival such as Péguy and Psichari (who, in any case, both died in the first year of the war), few Catholics who experienced battle at first hand viewed the conflict as a crusade,10 that response being largely reserved for many of the clerics and lay Catholics who stayed at home.11 And yet, Châteaubriant maintained his reading of the war as a guerre sainte until its end, evidence of a willingness to justify, bypass and undermine the horrific reality of a temporal event of which he was well aware in pursuit of his exploration of his view of the eternal and the universal. As we shall see later, Châteaubriant’s interpretation of the First World War as a crusade foreshadows his detailed and sustained spiritualisation of the Second World War. Throughout the First World War, Châteaubriant’s letters reveal the continuation of his quest for a different spirituality and a fresh 10 11

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See Griffiths, The Reactionary Revolution, pp. 325–32. See Jacques Fontana, Les Catholiques français pendant la Grande Guerre (Cerf, 1990).

spiritual aristocracy from those offered by the Roman Catholic Church, a theme introduced in Chapter One. He is, he announces, the bearer of a message for the world, a message which predicts the advent of ‘la spiritualité appelée à gouverner le monde de l’avenir’ (p. 241). In what stands as an expression of his conviction of his own spiritual ‘superiority’, Châteaubriant announces that this fresh spirituality will be both ‘simple’ and ‘true’, purged of the trappings of popular, institutional Catholicism which, in his opinion, have created a ‘false’ view of Christianity from which he is protected by his ‘true’ understanding. The real meaning of the Gospel is, he declares, ‘aussi différent des compréhensions auxquelles la lettre a donné lieu, que le visage du charpentier de Nazareth des figures de cire qui prétendent le représenter’ (p. 48). His self-imposed separation from the Catholic Church is restated when, writing of Péguy (a convert and staunch follower of intransigent Catholicism), he describes him as ‘catholique’ rather than ‘chrétien’; he then attacks Péguy’s brand of Catholicism as a sterile religion which emphasises the Church as a building rather than a movement, and which is holding back the new brand of religion which Châteaubriant advocates (p. 209). The source of this new spirituality lies in what he defines as a so-far unexplored area of Christianity, his interpretation of which is clearly influenced by his reading of Nietzsche, as he admits: Le monde spirituel reparaîtra fondé et édifié sur une nouvelle pierre, pierre tirée d’une carrière inconnue du catholicisme, du christianisme même; pierre qu’il me semble bien que prophétiquement Nietzsche nous ait fait toucher du doigt. (p. 181)

Châteaubriant, it seems, already believes that he has the key to a future nouvelle chrétienté. This reference to Nietzsche further reinforces our earlier point that Châteaubriant’s advocated brand of spiritual regeneration is distinctly elitist. He remains convinced of the need for a new ‘aristocratie de l’esprit’ (p. 52), and firmly believes himself blessed with this attribute. He regards himself as both a prophet and a potential 57

redeemer of others, writing of ‘la lumière dont j’ai le dépôt sacré’ (p. 42) and classifying himself as ‘une âme qui ne se sent plus respirer que pour le salut de la multitude’ (p. 50). He also notes with a certain arrogance that he acts as spiritual guide to an actual priest, thereby revealing an odd notion of pastoral ministry: Quand on songe que les pasteurs comme les prêtres ont pour mission de soutenir les âmes, en ce qui nous concerne les rôles se sont retournés: c’est moi le pasteur et c’est lui qui écoute. […] Je lui ai fait certainement beaucoup de bien. Chose encore curieuse, le vrai sens de la figure du Christ ne s’est révélé à lui que depuis nos entretiens. (p. 48)

Châteaubriant’s reference to ‘le petit dieu intérieur avec lequel je m’entretiens’ (p. 211) represents an enthusiasm characteristic of the Catholic Revival writers, as is the vision of Christ he experienced in early 1915 which he believes singled him out from the anonymous masses, described disparagingly as ‘les grandes foules inconscientes et aveugles’ (p. 49). Writing of this event some twenty-five years later in Fragments d’une confession, Châteaubriant summarises the message of the vision as the theory of oubli de soi (pp. 32–33), that is, the necessity of selfless thought and action in order to find the love of God. As we shall see later, this notion would underpin Châteaubriant’s theory of contemplation, which, in turn, he would develop within his later appreciation of National-Socialist Germany. Châteaubriant’s elitism also finds justification in his reading of Arthur de Gobineau’s Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (1853–55), a copy of which he asked his brother Guy to send him in May 1916 (LAG, p. 137). Châteaubriant judges Gobineau’s arguments on race to be particularly powerful, but considers that ‘cette nourriture de vérité est d’une essence trop délicate pour être à l’usage de l’esprit public’ for ‘dans les démocraties, il est nécessaire que l’idée directrice soit à la mesure du plus grand nombre’ (p. 173). His reading of Gobineau leads him to classify human beings into two groups:

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[…] de braves gens, ce qui n’est pas grand-chose, mais ce qui est tout de même quelque chose, au moins dans la vie, et […] des âmes d’élite, des âmes fortes, des âmes lumineuses, des âmes de maîtres, ceux que Gobineau appelait ‘des fils de roi’. (p. 234)

These âmes d’élite are, quite simply, the crusaders whose role will be to direct human regeneration. They are: […] des êtres qui portent une symbolique croix rouge entre les épaules, et ont à trouver Dieu, à arriver jusqu’à lui coûte que coûte, parce qu’ils ont à assurer […] une place de tête dans la grande caravane du troupeau humain. (FC, p. 20)

Gobineau’s racial theories would prove influential in both France and Germany, in the latter especially during the 1930s.12 During the First World War, Châteaubriant’s evident admiration of these theories is mobilised in justification of his notion of an elite made up of ‘hommes supérieurs’ (LAG, p. 232), possessing aristocracy of intelligence and authority from a higher force (clearly God), rather than in order to formulate a specific sense of a racial elite. He is, moreover, primarily concerned with ‘superior’ ideologies which he connects to certain nations, as in his association of Germany with the aristocratic principle. But Châteaubriant does already hold definite opinions on the question of race. He bemoans what he calls ‘le mélange incessant des races et des cartes [qui] a fini par créer dans l’ensemble de l’humanité une sorte d’égalité ethnique’, and counters this with his call for an aristocracy of spirit (p. 52) and for a great leader, ‘un homme politique, une intelligence et une énergie à la Cromwell’ (p. 75), someone he believes to be singularly lacking in the First World War. The distance between Châteaubriant’s promotion of an aristocracy of spirit – composed of men of merit and marked by the identification of his desired type of leader – and his adoption of a theory of an aristocracy of race is but a short one. And, indeed, rejection of ‘égalité 12

See George Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1966), and Zeev Sternhell, ‘Les Origines intellectuelles du racisme en France’, L’Histoire, 17 (1979), 106–14.

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ethnique’ coupled with his elitist tendencies would inevitably prompt him to begin to explore the question of racial superiority, an avenue soon travelled in his second novel, La Brière (1923). This, in turn, would lead him to conclude in later years that only those of a particular race possess ‘aristocratie de l’esprit’ and represent the authority of God, and are therefore suitable to lead. Such men he would find in National-Socialist Germany, while his Cromwell would be Adolf Hitler. Victory for the Allies in 1918 did not bring the social and political changes Châteaubriant desired. War, he believed, could have administered a short, sharp shock to wrest modern humanity from its decline. But by 1917 the war had already gone on too long for this to be achieved, leading him to conclude that ‘cette guerre au lieu de tout rajeunir aura tout usé’ (LAG, p. 183). Writing in his diaries in April 1919, he records his disillusion and bitterness at the world he sees around him, and notes that he feels isolated on an ideological level (C, p. 55). The ‘new’ post-war Europe, he laments, is no different to its pre-war counterpart. Lessons have not been learned, and France remains alarmingly blind to the ‘truth’. In a variation on his views first voiced in 1918 (LAG, pp. 253–54), he now recommends an alliance with Germany rather than England in order to ensure France’s peace and prosperity (C, p. 59). This, he believed, was the right way forward, and stands as a clear precursory indicator of where his sympathies and antipathies would lie when choices had to be made in 1940. Châteaubriant’s despair at ‘ce présent [qui] dégage un crapuleux éclat, qui me fait mal et m’inflige un douloureux désir d’autre chose’ (p. 58) was heightened by what he saw as the increasing Bolshevisation of contemporary society. In a move ‘qui me repose de la lecture de L’Humanité […] [et] me repose de la prose de ce Barbusse et de ses Clartés’ (p. 56), he chose to focus on re-writing La Brière, begun in 1906, shelved to allow work on Monsieur des Lourdines (UA, 1983, p. 39), and then lost during the war (PC, p. 338). On completing the novel in October 1922, Châteaubriant declared that ‘La Brière appartient à une autre époque de mon existence’ (C, p. 60), namely the 60

pre-war period, a claim which can be supported by the novel’s proximity of theme and approach to his pre-war writings, as will be seen in the next section. But, beyond these initial similarities, the novel in fact illustrates a further evolution in Châteaubriant’s thought, introducing an exploration of the question of race which confirms that, in the post-war period, his Europeanism swiftly acquired an explicit racial nature which carried him still further down the pathway towards collaboration with Germany.

La Brière: racial identity and racism La Brière (1923) provides additional proof of Châteaubriant’s roots in an intransigent Catholicism in its restatement of the antiRevolutionary and anti-modern stance of his earlier writings, seeming thereby yet again to illustrate integral nationalism.13 The novel’s regional location in Brittany corresponds to Châteaubriant’s previous choice of the Vendée, and the Brière region itself symbolises a hermetic unit, comparable in its self-sufficiency to the ‘nation-estate’ of Petit-Fougeray in Monsieur des Lourdines. As peat-diggers, the Briérons depend on the land for their existence in much the same way as the peasants at Petit-Fougeray. They, too, are formed by their soil, for the Brière is ‘la pâture de leur pauvre vie’ and ‘une âme subtile y nourrissait la moelle de leur os’ (p. 13). The novel details the conflict between tradition and progress in its representation of the region’s struggle to maintain its traditional way of life in the face of the modern, ‘foreign’ forces of the industrial firms of Saint-Nazaire ‘qui 13

La Brière’s serialisation in 1923 in Henri Massis’s journal La Revue universelle further corroborates our classification of Châteaubriant, for the journal ‘called Right-wing intellectuals to arms against the international of the revolution’ and was regarded as ‘one of the most significant publications of the Catholic Right’ (Weber, Action française, p. 503).

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voudraient s’approprier la Brière, pour y installer leurs exploitations’ (p. 31). The defence of the ‘nation-region’ is entrusted to Aoustin, the aptly employed garde of the village of Fédrun, who is instructed to find the lost letters-patent of 1462, which grant permanency of tenure to the Briérons (p. 33), and whose recovery will thereby safeguard the region’s independent existence. Aoustin appears to be the personification of integral nationalism, ‘le fanatique de son pays et de sa race […], l’individu intégral, produit du milieu et du climat’.14 Not only is he rooted in his land, like Timothée des Lourdines, but he and the land actually become one. Taking the recovered letters-patent to a lawyer in Saint-Nazaire, he is shot by Jeanin – his daughter Théotiste’s lover, who is enraged at Aoustin’s refusal to allow them to marry – and subsequently loses a hand (p. 287). He extracts a section of tree embedded in the peat floor of his house from which he has a replacement hand fashioned (pp. 316–18). The new hand represents the fusion of the human form with its ‘soil’, namely the peat bog, and Aoustin now defies people ‘de me dire où la Brière finit, et où moi je commence!’ (p. 338). His devotion to the Brière is complete. He sees the region and its people as independent entities, separate from the rest of the world: Et la carte du globe décidément pour lui se divisait en deux parts: les continents d’un côté, et la Brière de l’autre. De même qu’il y avait deux espèces humaines: les hommes d’ailleurs, et ses compatriotes de la tourbe. (pp. 11–12)

Not surprisingly, therefore, he disapproves of those Briérons tempted by the wages offered by the industrial giants (p. 14), and who have uprooted their families to go and work in the town rather than stay on the marshes. Aoustin’s job is to oversee the extraction of peat from the marshes on behalf of the Government’s Département des Eaux et Forêts, and he thereby operates at the junction of the pays réel and the pays légal. He was appointed to the post after the previous three 14

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Jean de Pierrefeu, ‘La Brière’, Le Journal des Débats, 4 July 1923, p. 3.

‘foreign’ gardes brought in from outside the region all disappeared in mysterious circumstances (p. 101). He holds that the land must be protected from excessive exploitation, but resents the Government’s dictates to the region and prefers to believe that in applying its laws he is acting in the interests of the Brière rather than serving the State (p. 102). Like Timothée des Lourdines, Aoustin has a special status in the region, for the population looks to him as ‘le meilleur homme’ (p. 37) and ‘l’homme nécessaire’ (p. 42) in the issue of the letters-patent. In serving the region, Aoustin works in the interests of both the land and the Briérons. He even subordinates individual, family concerns to those facing the community as a whole, for, on hearing of the threat to the Brière, the task of finding the letters-patent takes precedence over his domestic problems. Aoustin’s fanatical defence of the region’s independence is echoed in his attitude towards his own family. We learn that Aoustin has already cursed his son for marrying ‘sa Bretonne, une brezounec d’on ne savait où’ (p. 23). The son’s subsequent departure with his wife for Nantes mirrors Anthime’s departure for Paris in Monsieur des Lourdines, and the harmful effect of this uprooting, along with the result of Aoustin’s curse, can be seen in the death of the son’s wife (p. 70) and the paralysis of their child (p. 195). Aoustin’s refusal to allow Théotiste to marry Jeanin, a basket-maker from a neighbouring village, stems from the same reasoning. Like Muller in Monsieur des Lourdines, Jeanin is a non-moi, since he is not a ‘Briéron vieux sang, natif des îles’ but hails from Mayun, a village on the northern edges of the marshes, and whose men are described as ‘le type le plus accompli de ces garçons dont une fille de Fédrun n’aurait pu vouloir sans se coiffer de ridicule’ (p. 44). For Aoustin, Jeanin is the worst possible partner for Théotiste. His resistance to their marriage is ‘national’, in that he opposes family union with someone who is effectively ‘foreign’, being from a different village. Aoustin’s pride in the status of his family causes him to behave with prejudice towards outsiders, seemingly casting the novel as an expression of ‘chauvinisme du village’ or

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‘xénophobie archaïque’,15 a conclusion ostensibly supported by Aoustin’s own maxim of ‘chacun chez soi’ (p. 12). Châteaubriant, of course, despaired at ‘guerres de peuple à peuple’ (LAG, p. 253), as his war letters confirm. It is, in fact, patently insufficient to interpret La Brière as an allegory of integral nationalism, compelling though this may seem from an initial reading of the text, since this both ignores Châteaubriant’s maturing Europeanism and does not accord adequate significance to the notion of race which permeates the novel. La Brière goes beyond a consideration of ‘nation’ alone. Rather, it is to be understood as an allegory of Châteaubriant’s Europeanism as outlined in his war letters, and so constructed on the basis of the preservation of national identity within the wider European organism, but within which he now also develops his notion of racial difference. The theme of racial difference was first introduced in Monsieur des Lourdines in the character of Muller, the Jewish money-lender, the nonmoi harmful to those originating from Petit-Fougeray. In La Brière, racial difference is explored through the representation of Jeanin, Théotiste’s lover. Their relationship has made Théotiste aware that other, different people exist beyond the confines of the Brière islands, and, as a result, she has come to dislike ‘la rudesse des hommes de son sang’ (p. 46). Her father, however, possesses an instinctive sense of racial difference: for him sang et sol dictate the choice of a future marriage partner, for ‘tout ce qui n’était pas Briéron vieux sang, natif des îles […] se trouvait à l’avance évincé de toute possibilité d’union’ (p. 44). The doctor who treats Aoustin’s wounded hand claims to have carried out an ethnological study of the region’s population, and represents an ‘educated’ view which lends weight to the notion of racial difference in the novel, contrasting in particular the ‘Briérons du 15

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Georges Bergner, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Alsace-Française, 20 (1923), 467– 68 (p. 467); André Thérive, ‘La Brière’, L’Opinion, 6 July 1923, pp. 8–9 (p. 9). Given France’s history, it is not surprising that a journal entitled Alsace-Française should view La Brière as an expression of integral nationalism.

centre’ (including Fédrun) and those from Mayun, on the edge of the region (pp. 246–47). Aoustin illustrates Barrès’s Darwinian vision that ‘racial pollution must be resisted at all costs lest the fit be made unfit’.16 He is proud of the previous racial purity of his family, for the men have always married Fédrun women (p. 153), and believes that his son has scorned his roots by marrying outside his blood group (p. 23), while the resultant new family is ‘unfit’ as indicated by their frailty. Aoustin will allow no further dilution of Fédrun blood, and so refuses his daughter’s marriage. Théotiste is sacrificed to her father’s ideal: accused of getting rid of her illegitimate child in the marshes and subsequently imprisoned (pp. 291–92), she is abandoned by Jeanin (p. 387) and eventually goes mad and dies as Aoustin takes her across the marshes in his boat to hospital (pp. 411–22). To view the Brière as a hermetic ‘nation-state’ is to underline its unity to the detriment of its obvious diversity. The Brière is made up of ‘dix-sept communes riveraines’ (p. 32), and so exists as a collective of individual but interdependent islands and villages (or ‘nation-states’) rather than a single ‘nation-state’ in itself. Their diversity is emphasised, for ‘chaque village de Brière a sa physionomie, ses mœurs, son métier’ (p. 110), and the people from each village have traditionally married their own kind, thereby preserving the ‘national’ and ‘racial’ identity of the group. Within the Brière, the racial group of the Saxonorigin Briérons vieux sang – ‘[ceux] du centre, ceux des îles’ (pp. 246–47) – is deemed superior, while the Mayun people – ethnologically different, of sallow skin (p. 247) and judged to be of inferior ‘esprit’ (p. 44) – are marginalised in the region both geographically and racially. The island people of true Brière stock therefore represent a community of ‘nations’ of the same blood origin, each retaining its individual ‘national’ identity within the broader racial collectivity of the Briérons vieux sang. The Brière region clearly illustrates Châteaubriant’s vision of Europe. It is united and yet diverse, representing an organism of 16

Soucy, ‘Barrès and Fascism’, p. 79.

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interdependent cells with individual identities, working together through the ‘syndics’ (p. 31), and thus operating a system ‘d’entraide mutuelle et de collaboration’ as advocated by Châteaubriant in his war letters in pursuit of the goal of ‘une Europe une’ (LAG, p. 253, p. 252). Whereas Barrès’s resistance to racial pollution is mobilised solely in the interests of the French nation, with the French deemed superior to the Germans, Châteaubriant’s operates on a broader, European level which judges people of different nations but the same blood group superior to others. In La Brière, the Briérons vieux sang are Châteaubriant’s superior Europeans, the racially purest and the guiding focal group within the region, symbolically physically located at the heart of the Brière. Blood (or race) rather than village origin (or nationality) is the dominant determining factor in the operation and management of the region, indicating that Châteaubriant’s sense of the ‘appropriate’ construction and direction of his new Europe is also already distinctly racist. His subsequent reception of Hitler’s Germany, and his vision of the role that he would foresee for both France and Germany in his new Europe would in future years permit that racism to find concrete expression.

Leadership: the error of spiritual arrogance The question of leadership permeates Châteaubriant’s writings. As we have seen, by the end of the First World War he had developed a notion of leadership which emphasised principles above personalities, and wherein appropriate leaders are ‘hommes supérieurs’ (LAG, p. 232) who receive their authority from God and are bound to the masses by a sense of mutual duty and affection. Châteaubriant’s preferred leaders are men who, like Timothée des Lourdines, deserve their role on merit, whereas he is critical of those born to lead but who abuse their power and privilege, such as the Baron de Puydreau. 66

Timothée des Lourdines incarnates the spiritual aristocracy and benevolent authority which Châteaubriant considers essential in a leader, and aptly fulfils his role as head of the Petit-Fougeray community. In La Brière, in contrast, Aoustin is not one of Châteaubriant’s superior men, but represents instead an undesirable form of authority, one which is negative and despotic, which is exploited to advance an individual cause before that of the community, and which therefore serves to illustrate the divide between what Châteaubriant sees as spiritual arrogance and spiritual aristocracy. In La Brière, Aoustin is presented as ‘ce grand despote à l’œil de percette’, a man who is feared by those around him and who has no friends (p. 42), and for whom anger is ‘cette vieille compagne de sa vie’ (p. 304). He is accustomed to being in a position of authority, but, like the Baron de Puydreau, that authority is based on fear and force rather than on mutual duty and respect. His ability to inspire longstanding fear is shown particularly by his daughter, Théotiste, who, as a small child, would become anxious and hide when she heard her father’s approaching step (p. 43), while his wife, Aoustine, clearly harbours the grudges of thirty-five years of difficult marriage (p. 49). Châteaubriant himself indicated that La Brière represents an ‘étude de nuit, étude surtout de nuit humaine’,17 and images of darkness recur as a leitmotiv throughout the novel. For instance, the adjective noir features repeatedly in descriptions of Aoustin, and his dark character takes on a concrete form when, at the height of his arrogance, his substitute hand makes its first appearance, fashioned from black wood (pp. 338–39). Pride dictates his behaviour. Following his departure from the marital home and his sighting of Jeanin visiting Théotiste, the injury to Aoustin’s pride is described as a ‘sillon de chair vive’ (p. 136). His desire for revenge on Jeanin is, however, self-centred, since it becomes clear that he wants revenge for the shooting incident rather than for his daughter’s honour (p. 314). And wounded pride takes 17

In René Pichard du Page, ‘De Monsieur des Lourdines à La Brière: notes sur Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 1 (1923), 1–8 (p. 8).

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precedence over Théotiste’s misfortunes once more after the death of her child, for Aoustin is less concerned with her imprisonment than with the fact that his job as garde is given to another during his stay in hospital after the shooting incident (p. 308). Aoustin’s pride leads him to behave with arrogance on a spiritual level. Not only is he the garde of the Brière, he claims, but also the ‘garde de la Vérité’ (p. 154). He believes that his authority and his actions are justified by God, taking as evidence of this the curse against his son fulfilled by ‘le grand Berger’ (p. 70). In his dealings with Jeanin, Aoustin holds that God is also on his side: vengeance is his by right, and he finds consolation in its contemplation (p. 314). He declares that his substitute hand (with which it is implied he will attack Jeanin) has been given to him by God (p. 339), while the hand’s nickname of Sainte-Justice suggests his belief in an Old Testament, ‘eye for an eye’, vengeful religion rather than in the forgiveness and love advocated in the New Testament. Indeed, at one point Aoustin announces categorically that ‘il n’y a pas d’amour de Dieu’ (p. 7). As in Monsieur des Lourdines, Châteaubriant’s major concern in La Brière is again spiritual redemption from moral ruin. This theme is introduced with the choice of Lucifer as Aoustin’s nickname (p. 30), evoking the ‘prince des méchants’ (p. 224) and indicating that Aoustin is a ‘fallen’ character. Julie – a local woman known for her charity and one of the few people Aoustin respects – points to his pride as a sin and the source of his moral ruin, and introduces the prospect of punishment for his behaviour (pp. 91–92). She reminds Aoustin that ‘Dieu est le maître’ (p. 131) and asks him if he accepts that ‘il y a quelqu’un au-dessus de toi’ (p. 386). It is Julie who remarks that Aoustin’s substitute hand is ‘la main du diable […] la main de Lucifer’ (p. 344), thereby suggesting that the actions committed by the hand will be inspired by the devil in Aoustin rather than by God. And the hand does indeed symbolise Aoustin’s arrogance and desire for vengeance, for his moral decline is at its most serious when he imprisons Jeanin, telling him that he is nothing more than ‘un bouquet dans la main de Lucifer!’ (p. 397). 68

For the greater part of the novel, Aoustin refuses both to accept that there can be any truth other than his own, and to repent for his actions. He rejects forgiveness for Jeanin and denies any responsibility for Théotiste’s fate, entrenching himself in his anger and his desire for vengeance on Jeanin. It is only with the death of Théotiste that Aoustin is finally humbled and pardons Jeanin, realising that ‘il est une justice plus sainte que la sienne sous laquelle tous doivent s’incliner’.18 After a night on the marshes, Théotiste’s death is accompanied by the dawn, and the black world in which Aoustin has lived is countered by the light of redemption: Une lumière céleste brillait entre les nuages, ainsi qu’un regard éternel tombant sur sa misère! […] Ses yeux la voyait pour la première fois!… Cette lumière transperçait son âme, et la jugeait!… (pp. 422–23)

Both Monsieur des Lourdines and La Brière seem to end on a note of ruin, for they entail the deaths of Madame des Lourdines and Théotiste, the loss of Petit-Fougeray and the continuation of the modern threat to the Brière with the erection of the first telegraph pole at Saint-Joachim (p. 359). But both really end on what is intended to be a spiritually positive note, for La Brière confirms the conclusion drawn from our earlier analysis of Monsieur des Lourdines that, for Châteaubriant, material losses are insignificant in comparison with spiritual gains. Both also further indicate that he is prepared to accept human losses in the name of spiritual redemption. Just as Christ died in order to save humanity, so the deaths in both novels can be seen as necessary for the redemption of Anthime and Aoustin: Anthime’s return to Petit-Fougeray after his mother’s death and his reintegration into provincial life at the end of Monsieur des Lourdines signal his renewal; while Aoustin’s humbling at the end of La Brière after his daughter’s death signals his ‘rebirth’, significantly occurring as a new day dawns,

18

Louis de Mondadon, ‘Chronique des lettres: Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Études, 18 (1923), 716–27 (p. 718).

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and serves to make him a potentially suitable leader since it is indicated that henceforth he will be guided by God.

Spiritual vitality Despite the modern ‘ère de dégénérescence de toute fidélité’, Châteaubriant notes in his diaries in May 1924 that a certain freshness of religious expression still exists in rural Brittany, ‘[où] s’est gardée verte l’idée de Dieu, la croyance dans les valeurs de l’âme’ (C, p. 62). He is weary of ‘l’état de misère qu’est la condition de la vie de l’âme dans nos milieux de prétendue civilisation’, and considers that only in such a wholesome God-fearing environment is it possible that ‘on devient capable de la grande inspiration éternelle’ (ibid.). Religious expression in rural Brittany may be superstitious and pagan, as Châteaubriant admits, but he holds that ‘les pauvretés de la superstition ne sont pas plus indignes de l’homme – peut-être moins – que l’indifférence végétative de l’affreux matérialisme’, and describes the Bretons in positive terms as ‘êtres de fraîcheur’ (ibid.). The simple religious faith and activity of the rural Bretons is given expression in La Brière, where it represents yet further evidence of Châteaubriant’s preference and quest for a fresh approach to religion. Théotiste, we are told, was born on the feast of Corpus Christi, which inspires in her mother ‘la foi en une prédilection céleste’ (p. 47). Aoustine finds comfort in the repetition of prayers (p. 242). As a girl she had wanted to take the veil, and she sees the same destiny for her daughter, commenting on her rescue from the marshes at the age of four that ‘Jésus l’a nourrie, Jésus la mariera’ (p. 48). Julie’s simple compassion and humility provide a telling foil to Aoustin’s spiritual arrogance, for, although poor herself, she has taken in her sister’s orphan children and lives her life in true Christian fashion (p. 132). It is Julie’s function in the novel to ‘le ramener [i.e. Aoustin] dans la voie’ 70

(p. 289), this and Aoustin’s ‘conversion’ on the marshes reinforcing Châteaubriant’s representation of redemption outside traditional intermediaries and boundaries as introduced in Monsieur des Lourdines. The Briérons approximate events in their lives to stories from the Bible, for Julie interprets the region’s struggle to remain independent as an illustration of the story of Jacob, adding ‘c’est comme la Brière, pourvu qu’elle aussi soit la plus forte’ (p. 61). And, during the discussion of the prospective uses external forces (represented by ‘la grande ville’) may make of the region, one of the syndics refers to the parable of the fruitless fig tree in Luke 13 as a way of expressing his concerns about the Brière’s future if its traditional resources are exhausted (p. 330). The novel’s representation of religion underscores the importance of the Church in the life of the community, for the Briérons take their sick cattle to the church to be cured ‘le dimanche de la Sainte-Corneille, patron et guérisseur de bétail’ (p. 45), and the church is a meeting-place where discussions and important announcements concerning the Brière take place (pp. 56–57, pp. 319– 20). Such indications of the interpenetration of spiritual and temporal concerns provide a key to Châteaubriant’s view of the necessary role of the spiritual in the contemporary world, a point which will be developed in the next chapter through an examination of the elaboration of his notion of a New Christendom. In conclusion, the First World War served to confirm for Châteaubriant his overwhelming sense of the decadence of the modern world, rooted in individualism, materialism and inappropriate political systems and ideologies, such as democracy and Communism. His call for a radical transformation of the world focuses particularly on the need for spiritual regeneration. Dismissive of the traditional, institutional Catholic Church as the engineer of spiritual renewal, Châteaubriant has chosen to bypass the Church in his quest for a fresh spirituality to incarnate his vision and thereby confirms his tendency to spiritual arrogance, a characteristic he would have us believe he deplores. He has evolved to treat the issue of spiritual renewal in a specific social and political context, for he envisages that regeneration 71

can only occur within a framework which is distinctly elitist and racist in inspiration, and which forms the basis of his vision of a new, nobler Europe. Europe, he proclaims, needs men of merit and vision (in which category he includes himself) to lead the anonymous masses, men he would soon identify in ‘superior’ racial terms. Châteaubriant betrays clear evidence of hostility to the non-moi. In his demonisation of the Other, his animosity is formulated in racial rather than national terms: the purity of the blood group is all-important, while discrimination based on skin colour and esprit is evident from his categorisation of the Briérons vieux sang and the Mayun people. The war revealed that, for Châteaubriant, national concerns come second to his vision of a new, organic Europe constructed and led by those he judges the fittest in racial and intellectual terms. Unlike the integral nationalists, Châteaubriant was certainly no Germanophobe, but rather a committed Europeanist with a particular predilection for a Germany modelled on elitist lines, tendencies which made him a collaborator in waiting. As the critical inter-war years would show, Châteaubriant’s social, political and spiritual ideas were to become clearly fused as he pursued his chosen pathway in his quest for a New Christendom.

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3 The Quest for a New Christendom Refaire une chrétienté The idea of a nouvelle chrétienté, or New Christendom, was already evident in the later nineteenth century, given impetus by Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni patris (1879) on the restoration of a Thomist-based Christian civilisation. In the twentieth century, as Yvon Tranvouez has shown, the inter-war period saw the re-emergence and triumph of nouvelle chrétienté, although it subsequently declined in influence and favour during the 1940s and 1950s, and then disappeared altogether around the time of Vatican II (1962–65), ‘victime certainement d’un nouveau langage’.1 In Aeterni patris, the Pope chose Saint Thomas Aquinas (1226–74) as the Christian doctor, and called on Catholics to uphold his systems as their model of Christian philosophy in the modern age. Catholic thinkers of both the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries were therefore encouraged, as David Luscombe writes: […] to view the thirteenth century as the golden age of medieval scholasticism and Aquinas as the central point of a story for which earlier chapters were a preparation and later ones a postscript.2

The mainstream nouvelle chrétienté which re-emerged in the 1920s drew on the recommendations of Aeterni patris in its reaction against the modern world. In France, the atmosphere for its development resulted at least partially from the sense of crisis apparent in the immediate post-war period, for many Catholic thinkers emerged from the conflict with a common diagnosis, namely that ‘la guerre a montré 1 2

Tranvouez, Catholiques d’abord, p. 109. David Luscombe, Medieval Thought (Oxford: OUP, 1997), p. 3.

la faillite de la civilisation moderne, issue des principes de 1789’.3 The nature of the ‘cure’ varied, however, between the ‘évocation passéiste’ of the diehard reactionaries who advocated the mobilisation of Catholic forces to restore the Ancien Régime, and the ‘projet d’avenir’ of the Social Catholics who ‘cherch[aient] moins à détruire et restaurer qu’à épurer et baptiser’ (p. 103), and who therefore contemplated the construction of a new world risen from its ruins in which the spiritual would play a significant role. No less intransigent in their condemnation of the modern world, their way of being anti-modern was to bring about ‘une autre modernité, une vraie modernité, une version catholique de la modernité’ (ibid.).4 Social Catholics found much to interest them in neo-Thomism (pp. 237–38). Firstly, they identified therein a social and economic doctrine which could be marshalled equally against capitalism and socialism, and which emphasised such principles as the common good, a patriarchal interpretation of society and property, and the fair treatment of workers. Secondly, they found a theory of political power which could be applied in the new post-Revolutionary period, namely the doctrine of indirect power, defined as ‘[la] distinction du spirituel et du temporel, primauté du premier, impliquant une compétence latérale en tout ce qui, dans le domaine du second, peut toucher à la foi et à la morale’.5 Human regimes were thereby put into perspective through a reaffirmation of the primacy of the spiritual, which had been effectively eliminated by the Enlightenment. Thirdly, neoThomism offered a philosophical alternative to a Catholic traditionalism flavoured by obscurantism. It seemed thereby to favour thirteenth-century Christianised Aristotelianism, which endowed reason with its own domain, over earlier Augustinianism, which rested on the doctrine of the divine illumination of the human mind. Faith 3 4 5

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Tranvouez, Catholiques d’abord, p. 114. Subsequent immediate references to this book are given in the text. The italics are the author’s. Émile Poulat, L’Église, c’est un monde. L’ecclésiosphère (Cerf, 1986), p. 231. Cited in Tranvouez, p. 237.

had long exercised authority over reason, but, for Aquinas, reason and faith were separate yet complementary. Reason therefore became neither independent nor supreme. Rather, it was used to support revelation, and thereby to supplement and complete faith. Several factors played a part in the successful establishment of nouvelle chrétienté in 1920s France (pp. 114–18). Firstly, the accession of a new Pope, Pius XI (1922–39), who was considerably more popular in France than his predecessor – the allegedly ‘pape boche’ Benedict XV (1914–22). Pius XI reactivated the goal of the restoration of a Christian social order in two early encyclicals, Ubi arcano (1922) and Quas primas (1925), the content of which was popularised and disseminated by the French Church through the youth movements within Action catholique spécialisée which developed from 1926. Their message was subsequently complemented by Quadragesimo anno (1931), which stood as the foundation of Catholic social teaching after Rerum novarum (1891). Secondly, the growth of Catholic activity against the secular State and the development of Catholic groups such as the antiGerman and anti-Communist Fédération nationale catholique (created in 1925 and popular among anciens combattants), indicated that there was a considerable Catholic element keen to defend the role of the Church in French society. Thirdly, French Catholic thinkers were influenced by the thought of the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdiaev, whose call for the restoration of social order to combat liberalism and Communism was encapsulated in his Un nouveau Moyen Age, published in France in 1927. And last, but by no means least, in 1926 Pius XI famously condemned Maurras’s Action française movement – which had tried to harness the French Catholic Church to its cause – on the grounds of its philosophy of politique d’abord. The Pope’s action indicated the Church’s rejection of the temporal’s exploitation of the spiritual, and was instrumental in prompting some well-known French Catholic thinkers to debate and present a programme for the regeneration of society based on the primacy of the spiritual. Within France, nouvelle chrétienté’s most prominent theoretician throughout the inter-war period was Jacques Maritain, a convert to 75

Catholicism and a former member of Action française who, along with other notable Catholics such as Georges Bernanos, separated from the group over the years following the 1926 papal condemnation.6 Four years earlier, Maritain’s Antimoderne (1922) had summarised his critique of ‘le présent désordre’: […] il importe d’intégrer l’immense matériel de vie contenu dans le monde moderne, [mais] il convient de haïr le monde moderne pris dans ce qu’il regarde comme sa gloire propre et distinctive: l’indépendance à l’égard de Dieu. (pp. 216–17)

His subsequent work, La Primauté du spirituel (1927), represented a call to arms, ‘à une restauration intégrale des valeurs chrétiennes, à une universelle réinvention de l’ordre’ (p. 116), designed to combat the problems of modern society engendered, so he held, some five hundred years previously with the Reformation and the Renaissance, and evident to the present day. Maritain believed that the crisis of modern civilisation was rooted in the individualist and totalitarian regimes of the day. In Humanisme intégral: problèmes temporels et spirituels d’une nouvelle chrétienté (1936), the fruit of over a decade of reflexion on the theme, he wrote of the problems he associated with nineteenthcentury individualism, arguing that modern democracies erroneously promoted the individual above the common good, and often professed only symbolic respect for ‘la personne en chacun des individus de la masse’ (p. 206). The totalitarian regimes which had appeared in reaction to individualism were also tainted, for ‘le totalitarisme politique veut en tout cas que l’État devienne la réalité absolument souveraine de la vie temporelle des hommes’ (p. 286). They thereby prioritised the temporal and demanded ‘que le spirituel […] s’intègre, dans la conscience, à l’État ou à l’esprit du peuple, et les serve’ (p. 287).

6

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On Maritain and Bernanos’s involvement in Action française, see Paul Sérant, Les Dissidents de l’Action française (Copernic, 1978), pp. 57–168.

Maritain held that spiritual regeneration could lead to what he called ‘une politique chrétienne’. In La Primauté du spirituel he argued that this should ‘choisir son analogue historique, non dans le siècle de Louis XIV, où tant d’orgueil de la vie pourrissait parmi tant d’éclat, mais dans la civilisation théologale du Moyen Age’ (p. 109). His intention, however, was not to make the twentieth century into a servile copy of the Middle Ages, but rather to adapt medieval principles to the contemporary context. As he later explained in Humanisme intégral: Nous pensons que l’idéal historique d’une nouvelle chrétienté, d’un nouveau régime temporel chrétien, tout en se fondant sur les mêmes principes (mais d’application analogique) que celui de la chrétienté médiévale, comporterait une conception profane chrétienne et non pas sacrale chrétienne du temporel. (p. 168)

Nouvelle chrétienté, he believed, should accept the evolved status of the temporal, which has its own strengths, aims and function which are distinct but not separate from those of the spiritual, while at the same time underlining that the spiritual possesses absolute primacy (p. 182). In this way, Maritain accorded the spiritual indirect power over the temporal in the modern context, in contrast to the direct power which the spiritual had exercised over the temporal in the Middle Ages. For Maritain, as for other important Catholic thinkers of the day (for example, Étienne Borne, Marie-Dominique Chenu, Étienne Gilson and Henri-Irénée Marrou),7 the reactivation of a medieval Christendom would be nothing more than a misguided attempt to go back in time, while its adaptation to the modern context turned nouvelle chrétienté into a forward-looking project for the restoration of a Christian civilisation in the modern age. 7

See Étienne Borne, ‘Pour refaire une chrétienté’, La Vie intellectuelle, 9 (1936); Marie-Dominique Chenu, ‘Dimension nouvelle de la chrétienté’, La Vie intellectuelle, 12 (1937); Étienne Gilson, L’Esprit de la philosophie médiévale (Vrin, 1932) and Pour un ordre catholique (Desclée de Brouwer, 1934); Henri-Irénée Marrou, Fondements d’une culture chrétienne (Bloud et Gay, 1934).

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Maritain’s diagnosis of contemporary social disorder was shared by the so-called ‘non-conformist’ groups of young intellectuals of the 1930s: Esprit (the most influential, headed by Emmanuel Mounier), La Jeune Droite and L’Ordre nouveau. In their eyes, the modern world was intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt, and they identified the roots of the contemporary crisis in ‘une civilisation née au XVIème siècle avec la Renaissance, la civilisation de l’individualisme’.8 Their ideological proximity to Maritain is further reinforced by their elaboration of the notion of a necessary spiritual revolution, ‘conçue comme une rupture créatrice de l’homme avec le désordre établi pour susciter un “ordre nouveau” fondé sur la primauté des “valeurs spirituelles”’ (p. 296). In their opinion, as Mounier confirmed, ‘“révolution spirituelle d’abord” est le mot d’ordre indispensable aux chefs de demain’ (p. 300). Such a revolution would be directed by an elite and would engender ‘un homme transformé, un homme transfiguré, un homme “nouveau”’ (p. 301). The non-conformist groups were also critical of individual and totalitarian regimes, as illustrated by Mounier’s seminal article in the first number of Esprit, published in October 1932, in which he wrote that ‘la communauté n’est pas tout, la personne isolée n’est rien’.9 The theory of personalism which rested on this notion held that it was essential to appreciate the difference between the individu and the personne, between ‘ce qu’il y a en l’homme de matériel, de corporel et, ici, de social (l’homme-individu) et l’aspect raisonnable, spirituel et supérieur de son être (l’homme-personne)’ (p. 342). Mounier’s later Manifeste au service du personnalisme (1936) indicated his preference for ‘toute civilisation affirmant le primat de la personne humaine sur les nécessités matérielles et sur les appareils collectifs qui soutiennent son développement’ (p. 7). 8 9

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Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle, Les Non-conformistes des années 30: une tentative de renouvellement de la pensée politique française (Seuil, 1969), p. 266. Subsequent immediate references to this book are given in the text. Emmanuel Mounier, ‘Refaire la Renaissance’, Esprit, 1 (1932), 1–68.

Maritain’s ideas certainly bear comparison with those developed by Mounier and his young non-conformist contemporaries. But their respective goals differed, in that, as Michel Winock has pointed out: Maritain visait, selon la philosophie thomiste dont il était l’expression contemporaine la plus célèbre, à fonder les bases d’une nouvelle chrétienté; Mounier, lui, cherchait les voies d’une nouvelle civilisation où chrétiens et incroyants, sans mutilations réciproques, pussent trouver leur place et créer ensemble, sur la base d’une ‘primauté du spirituel’, une société d’hommes libres.10

Although Maritain could envisage co-operation between Christians and non-Christians, he believed that the initiative rested with Christians, precisely because his goal was to ‘refaire une chrétienté’. In contrast, Mounier’s goal of a new civilisation rested from the outset on collaboration between believers and non-believers (pp. 38–39). The quest for a New Christendom was apparently as much a feature of Alphonse de Châteaubriant’s life in the 1920s and 1930s as it was of the other Catholic thinkers discussed above. However, it is difficult to evaluate precisely to what extent his personal search was influenced either by those associated with mainstream nouvelle chrétienté or by the events of the time, or to what extent he was aware of but simply chose to ignore other writers and events, since his diaries from 1918 to 1936 contain little comment on the contemporary situation and all the entries for 1925 to 1928 were lost in 1944 (C, p. 78). There is, therefore, no direct indication of his response to Pius XI’s encyclicals, nor to the papal condemnation of Action française in 1926 and the implantation of Action catholique spécialisée within France from the same date. Nor does he refer directly to any of the various groups and movements of the day which attracted Catholic support and which represented the pluralism of Catholic thought, including the extreme Right-wing Action française, the Right-wing Fédération nationale catholique, the Croix de Feu (founded in 1927), the centrist Parti démocrate populaire 10

Michel Winock, Histoire politique de la revue ‘Esprit’, 1930–1950 (Seuil, 1975), p. 38. Subsequent immediate references to this book are given in the text.

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(created in 1924), and the non-conformist groups which emerged in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Not surprisingly, given his reaction in 1919 against ‘toutes les politiques et tous les manifestes’ (C, p. 56), Châteaubriant appears to have remained withdrawn from this context of Catholic activity throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s. He concentrated instead on his literary output, writing and publishing a series of texts which indicate the continuing importance of regional themes in his works. In 1923 he published the rewritten La Brière, collaborating on a film version of the novel in 1924 and lecturing on la création littéraire in the same year.11 And in 1927 he published both a final version of La Meute in book format, publicising its appearance with a lecture, and a short work extolling the Dutch countryside, Instantanés aux Pays-Bas.12 However, in the late 1920s, Châteaubriant began to work on the manuscript of his third full-length novel, La Réponse du Seigneur (1933), and on what was intended to be the first volume of a meditative journal (C, p. 78). This volume, constructed of notes written between 1930 and 1938 (LCM, p. vii), was finally published posthumously in 1951 under the title Lettre à la chrétienté mourante.13 Together, these two books represent the elaboration of Châteaubriant’s search for his own nouvelle chrétienté (a quest begun in his earlier works, as we have seen), and confirm that, whether he was aware of it or not, he formed part of the broad contemporary movement seeking regeneration through respiritualisation. In their critique of modern society and their emphasis on the primacy of the spiritual as the necessary means to regeneration, both La Réponse du Seigneur and the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante contain elements common to mainstream nouvelle chrétienté 11 12 13

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The text of the lecture is published in Les Nouvelles de Versailles, 17 April 1924, p. 1. The text of the lecture is published in Les Nouvelles de Versailles, 16 March 1927, p. 3. Although not published as a full-length book until 1951, major extracts from the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante were published in article form in La Revue universelle in 1933 and 1934. See the bibliography for details.

thought in the inter-war period. But, as we shall see, Châteaubriant’s own brand of nouvelle chrétienté was quite distinct from that of the mainstream since it promoted a very different project of regeneration and became increasingly idiosyncratic, especially in its relationship to 1930s National Socialism. La Réponse du Seigneur bears a striking initial resemblance to Monsieur des Lourdines on the level of regional, feudal and antiRevolutionary themes, for the society it depicts is provincial, patriarchal and traditional. The novel is set in Brittany (p. 21), on an estate surrounded by ‘une vieille muraille de clôture’ (p. 24), similar to the ‘nation-state’ of Petit-Fougeray. The owner, Félicien de Mauvert, another gentilhomme campagnard, resembles Timothée des Lourdines in appearance and status (pp. 36–37). At the beginning of the book, he leads the community in his sister’s funeral procession, ‘le premier et tout seul’ (p. 40), and it becomes evident as the novel progresses that this community operates along similar lines to that at Petit-Fougeray. De Mauvert’s exposition of the golden age of the nobility, which he roots in the pre-1600 period, restates an earlier Châteaubriant theme, evoking a time when masters and servants co-existed and co-operated to their mutual benefit (pp. 124–32). De Mauvert’s servants and peasants are his ‘family’ and he is their monsieur. The strength of the community lies in its collective sense, best illustrated by the servant Mariette’s grammatically incorrect ‘j’avons’ for ‘j’ai’ (pp. 133–36). Just as a wave cannot exist without the sea, so the individual is less important than the collective: society, De Mauvert proclaims, must ‘ne point diviser ce qui est indivisible, […] ne point séparer l’individu de la cohésion de ceux qui forment avec lui son espèce’ (p. 135). But, like Petit-Fougeray, the Mauvert community also illustrates the decline of the gentilhomme campagnard, for, with no direct heirs, De Mauvert’s succession is uncertain. La Réponse du Seigneur further echoes Monsieur des Lourdines in its promotion of the theme of human spiritual regeneration. However, in this novel, as in its theoretical partner, the synchronal Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, Châteaubriant’s critique of the modern world is 81

more outspoken, while the project envisaged operates on a much wider scale, in line with the development of his thought at the end of the First World War (LAG, p. 254). The titles of the two works alone are significant, for the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante suggests a theme of Catastrophism not only evident in the earlier works of the Catholic Revival writers but also common to contemporary Catholic thinkers,14 while La Réponse du Seigneur foregrounds Châteaubriant’s proposed spiritual answer to this crisis. In the early pages of the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, he records the urgency of his ‘mission’ as an ‘ombre sommée de parler’ in whom ‘a été mis un secret qui est la réponse au mal de tous’ (p. 4), a response to the modern world ‘[qui] fait tout simplement l’effet d’un monde qui s’éteint, d’un monde qui se carbonise, où tout devient noir’ (p. 182). As we shall discover, Châteaubriant’s version of Maritain’s présent désordre rests on a criticism of the modern world’s emphasis on science, materialism, intellectualism and individualism to the detriment of intelligence, faith, essence, the collective sense and what he terms ‘la Substance’ (p. 143) or ‘la Vérité’ (p. 145). These themes, together with his limited but direct and eulogising references to the philosophy of Plato (c.427–347 BC) (pp. 60–63), and to the thought of such medieval luminaries as Saint Augustine (345–430) (pp. 49–50), Saint Bernard (1091–1153) (p. 179, p. 233), Saint Anselm (1033–1109) and Saint Bonaventure (c.1217–74) (p. 233) – who all saw faith as a starting-point for knowledge and emphasised the divine illumination of the human mind – suggest that Châteaubriant’s sympathies lie with his view of Augustinianism rather than with his interpretation of the Christianised Aristotelianism of such thinkers as Saint Thomas. His preference for a time before reason or ‘intellect’ permeated Christianity (as he sees it) and for universals above particulars, together serve to define him as an essentialist, a realist rather than a nominalist, one for whom form or essence or ‘species’ (or, in Châteaubriant’s case, the collective) comes 14

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See, for example, Marcel Moré, ‘Notes sur le marxisme’, Esprit, 11 (1934), 453– 70.

before the individual. As we shall see, his ideas are based on his interpretation of medieval texts and debate, the meaning of which he believes has been ‘revealed’ to him. He considers himself a seer, a philosopher working on the principle of voyance and with a special insight into the higher truth of essences which the mass does not and cannot possess. This initial conclusion immediately suggests that Châteaubriant would not welcome any call for the restoration of Thomism, and that he is therefore looking for a different New Christendom than that sought by mainstream thinkers like Maritain.

The Lettre à la chrétienté mourante: a theory for a New Christendom Study of the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante confirms Châteaubriant’s allegiance to an intransigent Catholicism. His standard Catholic antimaterialism – introduced in his first two novels through the contrast drawn between countryside and city – is now emphasised by the equation of materialism with human destruction. In his opinion, ‘le développement d’une civilisation matérielle intégrale, c’est-à-dire sans vision métaphysique qui enfante dans les esprits la notion d’un principe spirituel, est une condamnation à mort’ (p. 170). This clearly illustrates his search for a ‘metaphysic’, a quest shared by others seeking a New Christendom. His abiding anti-materialism is matched by a restatement of the anti-science, anti-positivism and anti-machine approach of his war letters, all of which are traditional Catholic themes given a ‘mystical’ tinge by Châteaubriant.15 Humans, he writes, are ‘les victimes de la réduction du monde aux formules, de l’artificielle abstraction logique et scientifique’ (p. 77). He holds that ‘l’homme 15

Nikolai Berdiaev’s L’Homme et la machine (Éditions ‘Je sers’, 1933) also treats anti-machine and anti-industrial themes.

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s’abêtit par sa science’ (p. 100), objecting to the scientific approach to life and its promotion of objectivity on the grounds that this takes no account of subjective esprit in its attempt to understand the world. In rejecting esprit, ‘la science veut savoir par elle-même au lieu de n’aspirer qu’à reconnaître ce qui est su éternellement’ (p. 115), the result of which is that ‘la science aboutit au vide’ (p. 149). His pessimistic conclusion is that: […] dans le ciel noir de ce vide, devant la formule mathématique à laquelle aboutit la science, nous demeurons sans espérance, comme dans le domaine des signes, dans la région de la représentation sans réalité, dans le cercle de la formule. (pp. 160–61)

Châteaubriant’s interpretation of intellectualism reinforces the conclusion that he is an essentialist. He defines the contemporary period as an intellectual age (p. 78), while intellectualism is ‘l’aboutissement d’une erreur de plusieurs siècles sur la définition de l’esprit’ (p. 77). In what is clearly a reaction against intellectualism, presumably rooted in his personal reading of Saint Thomas, Châteaubriant consistently opposes intellect (or reason) – humanity’s ‘faux dieu’ (p. 174) – with ‘intelligence’ (or illumination), the way of thinkers such as Saint Augustine, Saint Anselm and Saint Bonaventure, for whom all truth was revealed truth and for whom knowledge was dependent upon grace. Saint Thomas, of course, accepted the validity of revealed truth, but endowed reason with its own domain and held that reason supported revelation, not denied it. Châteaubriant, however, wrongly believes that Saint Thomas allowed reason validity independent of faith, and that he was therefore something of an empiricist. Châteaubriant evidently understands that his preferred thinkers distrusted reason when divorced from faith and pursued for its own sake, but he does not recognise that they accepted reason as an instrument in the demonstration of what they already believed. On this evidence, Châteaubriant’s true understanding of medieval thought is open to question.

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Intellect, Châteaubriant writes, does not represent truth, but is an ‘image morte’ (p. 100) or ‘tout simplement l’image sans la substance’ (p. 190).16 Intellectual existence differs from ‘la vraie vie, qui est Dieu ou substance sans images’ (pp. 77–78). Those who have not truly found God toss and turn in a world beset by ‘représentations sans substance, représentations qui, sans la substance, ne correspondent à rien qui vive’ (p. 143). Châteaubriant’s reading of the Old Testament leads him to equate this world with the ‘chambre d’images’ described in Ezekiel 8.7–12. Humans live in chambres d’images, where ‘tout n’est que formules et figures’ (p. 134). They have no time for anything other than ‘les images que leurs passions ont fait naître en eux-mêmes’ (p. 31) and which they mistake for ‘substance’ (p. 133). They have lost the ability to recognise and serve higher principles, and have become wrongly focused both on ‘la chair et l’apparence [qui] sont mêmes choses que l’erreur’ (C, p. 138) and on their ‘moi psychologique’, their ‘moi des sensations et déroulements représentatifs’, their ‘fameux faux moi’ (LCM, p. 247). Châteaubriant’s reference to the chambre d’images in Ezekiel is echoed by his reading of Plato’s allegory of the cave in The Republic (pp. 60–63).17 He shares Plato’s conviction that there are two levels of reality – the everyday, physical world and the ‘superior’ level of eternals and absolutes – and that the temporal is only the shadow of the eternal. Plato’s cave is used by Châteaubriant to reinforce his argument that humans must close their eyes to the temporal, illusory world of shadows, and look within to discover ‘une autre réalité, une seconde évidence’ (p. 62) which will reveal what is essentially true and genuine. Châteaubriant exploits Dostoyevsky’s Karamazov brothers further to illustrate ‘le terrible élément humain’ (p. 23). Together, they incarnate ‘l’impulsivité, la sensualité, la bassesse, la violence, la haine, toutes les saletés les plus exécrables’ (p. 33), although the worst 16 17

The italics are Châteaubriant’s. Plato, The Republic, ed. and trans. by Desmond Lee, 2nd edn, rev. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987 [1974]), pp. 316–25.

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brother by far is ‘le constructeur d’idées’ because ‘c’est l’intelligence sans Dieu qui est la coupable’ (p. 42).18 In Châteaubriant’s opinion, humans must strive to imitate Albrecht Dürer’s German knight, Stefan Baumgartner, who ‘a tué le Karamazov en lui’, thereby killing the dragon ‘qui porte toutes les têtes du mal’ (p. 24).19 This theme of the ‘beast within’ represents an important leitmotiv in Châteaubriant’s work, introduced with the theme of ‘l’homme animal’ in La Meute (p. 120) and further illustrated by the serpent Kaa (based on the serpent of Genesis 3) in his 1934 diaries (C, p. 147), and would find its most significant manifestation as the ‘Schwein’ in La Gerbe des forces (1937, p. 64), his eulogy of National-Socialist Germany. The Karamazov episode illustrates Châteaubriant’s conviction that humans must struggle to break free of the intellectual in order to attain the spiritual (LCM, p. 79), although the spiritual which he envisages is not to be found in institutional religion. Pascal Ory has written that, in the 1930s, La Réponse du Seigneur ‘révèle soudain l’état de manque d’un chrétien déçu’.20 But Châteaubriant’s disappointment with the Church was hardly sudden, as we have seen, since it can be clearly dated to his early writings. Rather, this theme is reinforced in 18

19

20

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Châteaubriant’s acquaintance with Dostoyevsky’s work was long-standing, since he wrote in a letter to Jacques Copeau on 16 August 1912 that the author was ‘un des écrivains dans lequel j’ai le plus cherché’ (Louis-Alphonse Maugendre, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant et Copeau’, La Pensée catholique, 167 (1977), 73–78 (p. 74)). Dostoyevsky was also a reference for Berdiaev: see his L’Esprit de Dostoïevski (Éditions Saint-Michel, 1931). This is a reference to Albrecht Dürer’s (1471–1528) woodcut (c.1505), in which Baumgartner is depicted as a Saint George figure, standing over a slain beast. Châteaubriant evidently admired Dürer’s work, describing him as ‘un des compagnons de ma vie’ (LCM, p. 183). Other woodcuts referred to in the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante include Melancholia (p. 123), John the Baptist (p. 183) and Apocalypse (p. 248). Dürer’s works also feature in La Réponse du Seigneur and form the basis for illustrations in La Gerbe in 1943 and 1944, where Châteaubriant describes him as the newspaper’s ‘patron’, alongside Joan of Arc (20 April 1944). Pascal Ory, Les Collaborateurs 1940–1945 (Seuil, 1976), p. 15.

the 1930s, as witnessed by his 1931 diaries in which he writes that ‘Dieu est mort en nous de l’intellectualisation de l’idée de Dieu’ (C, p. 130), that religion is not simply ‘un code de croyances et de formalités à savoir et à pratiquer pour tâcher de couper à la damnation’ (p. 127), while ‘les vrais fonds baptismaux ne résident pas dans l’ombre froide des églises’ (p. 119). This is no denial of religion per se, for Châteaubriant’s disillusion with the modern Church is not accompanied by a rejection of the Bible, since paraphrases and direct quotations from both the Old and New Testaments feature in La Réponse du Seigneur and especially the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante. Instead, his comments amount to a restatement of his discontent with what he sees as the negative effect of intellectual society on contemporary religion, and with the Church’s complicity in that process, accompanied by a search for a fresh religious outlet. Where mainstream nouvelle chrétienté thinkers saw the creation of Action catholique spécialisée and the encyclical Quadragesimo anno as representative of a potential regenerative force, Châteaubriant makes no reference to these events and so effectively rejects the Church as a regenerative force. Instead, as we shall see, his project becomes a mission to be accomplished by an elite not operating through the institutional Church.

Rebirth through purification Based on his reading of Genesis, Châteaubriant argues that humanity’s problems began with Adam and Eve. As a result of their original sin – the consumption of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil (LCM, p. 138) – they ceased to be the image of God ‘pour être comme des dieux, les centres illusoires d’un faux univers’ (p. 140). The serpent of Genesis 3 promised intelligence but delivered only intellect (p. 190), and humanity’s task is to rediscover the being of Genesis 1, to ‘refaire l’homme des commencements […] reconstruire l’homme chrétien sur 87

l’homme primitif’ (p. 98). In a passage which plainly distinguishes Châteaubriant’s thought from that of mainstream thinkers, he confirms that his nouvelle chrétienté demands complete renewal rather than the partial adaptation recommended by men such as Maritain: ‘Le christianisme, dans son œuvre révolutionnaire et recréatrice, ne consiste pas […] en une simple application “nouvelle” des anciens principes humains connus; il est la révélation du monde totalement nouveau’ (p. 193).21 Châteaubriant was well aware of contemporary debate, but chose to consider this inadequate and to follow his own pathway. Rebirth is the key to rechristianisation, and a major theme of the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, sourced in the requirement of John 3.7 that ‘il faut que vous naissiez de nouveau’ (p. 228). The type of rebirth envisaged supports our interpretation of Châteaubriant as a meditative voyant who places ‘revealed’ truths before rational truth, and who therefore rejects his reading of Saint Thomas in favour of his understanding of Augustinianism. He proclaims that ‘le grand christianisme […] ne se trouve pas dans l’intellectualité’ (p. 100) and argues for a redefinition of intelligence, ‘laquelle sera fondée enfin sur les possibilités de l’intelligence les plus hautes, et non sur les plus basses’ (pp. 55–56). The human being delivered from intellect is ‘le privilégié de la “nouvelle naissance”, le roi du royaume de l’intelligence’ (p. 63). Châteaubriant maintains that, without what he calls ‘naissance dans l’esprit’ – which offers the prospect of eternal life – humans remain ‘de pauvres fétus abominables’, rooted in their ‘naissance dans la chair’ (p. 244). He is convinced of the need to ‘devenir aveugle aux choses vieilles’ (p. 200) in order to ‘see’, and develops this theme through the opposition of ‘ceux qui “raisonnent”’ and ‘ceux qui “voient”’ (among whom he clearly counts himself), stating that ‘ceux qui voient n’ont point besoin de raisonner, […] parce que ce qu’ils voient est “la raison” même’ (p. 216). Voir is directly linked to what he terms connaissance, as opposed to reason or intellect. Blindness to the external 21

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The italics are Châteaubriant’s.

contemporary world, symbolic of the rejection of that world, is therefore linked with ‘vision’, which will permit knowledge and intelligence of God, since ‘avoir l’intelligence, c’est connaître Dieu’ (p. 257). The form of vision recommended rests on the theory of contemplation. Christ is presented as the perfect model (p. 242) whom humans should ‘contempler sans cesse pour lui devenir semblable’ (p. 224) and thereby access eternal life. But, according to Châteaubriant, many humans want neither to see nor understand (p. 223, p. 259) and so ignore the call to rebirth. Given this apparent widespread dismissal of the call to rebirth, Châteaubriant prefers to address his words to those who understand what it means to ‘see’ (p. 215). Throughout the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante he emphasises the need for an intuitive elite composed of ‘grands intellectuels sanctifiés’ (p. 56) who will bring about spiritual regeneration. This notion of an indispensable elite operating to generate a nouvelle chrétienté finds its echo in, for example, the nonconformist groups who also emphasised that ‘la révolution nécessaire est la révolution aristocratique’,22 and who called French intellectual youth to action in pursuit of a spiritual revolution. For these groups, France was the ‘terre décisive’23 where the revolution to save Europe and the West would take place. In contrast, Châteaubriant’s desired revolution was not necessarily rooted in France, although he did recognise the need to regenerate ‘le pays de France perdu’ (p. 5). But in neither the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante nor La Réponse du Seigneur does he allocate this mission to France alone, preferring instead to call on a group composed of those broadly defined as ‘ceux dont la mission est de penser’ (LCM, p. 57), who are nowhere characterised in specific national terms. Châteaubriant’s nouvelle chrétienté, then, is to be led by an intelligent Christian elite. To this theme, he subsequently adds a hierarchical 22 23

Thierry Maulnier, La Revue française, 4 (1933), p. 548; in Loubet del Bayle, p. 319. Robert Aron and Arnaud Dandieu, La Révolution nécessaire (Grasset, 1933), p. 277; in Loubet del Bayle, p. 321.

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notion of Christianity, announcing that although ‘le christianisme est la religion de tous’, it is also ‘au-dessus de cela, une religion pour une élite’ (p. 173), and that the Christian is ‘un homme au-dessus de l’homme, […] un homme en qui le Christ accomplit ses merveilles’ (p. 239). Châteaubriant thereby reactivates the Nietzschean theory of the superman which he initially explored during the First World War. In the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, he applies this theory to the domain of religion, arguing that humans can only become real supermen through religion. Nietzsche’s ‘error’, he suggests, was to create his superman ‘aux lieu et place du Christ’ (p. 96), thereby constructing only ‘l’homme presque nouveau’ (p. 84), while his own ‘true’, totally new superman is defined as ‘le Christ dans l’homme’ (p. 91). The function of the religieux within Châteaubriant’s hierarchical Christianity is to ‘abandonner la foule et ne songer qu’aux élites’, devoting their prayers to the benefit of the elite, ‘pour que les élites sauvent la foule’ (p. 174). He thereby clearly makes his heroes take the place of the saints, and considers that his new Christian elite rather than the traditional religieux will save the masses. His nouvelle chrétienté demands of this elite ‘autre chose que des credo obéissants’ of traditional, institutional religion, advocating instead ‘l’héroïsme individuel’ (p. 168). The final section of the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante takes the form of Châteaubriant’s explanation of the book of Revelation, and largely summarises earlier themes raised. In what amounts to an idiosyncratic magnification of the usual crise mentality, he turns the common Catastrophism of a mainstream Catholic thinker like Marcel Moré into a full-blown Apocalypticism, a theme favoured in the Middle Ages. The Apocalypse, Châteaubriant contends, represents not only ‘la conclusion de toute une série d’événements mythiques et historiques, qui débutent avec la Genèse’, but also ‘l’exposé de la solution donnée par Dieu lui-même aux inextricables difficultés créées par le péché humain’ (p. 213). He believes that the modern world is currently in the period of Great Tribulation detailed in Revelation 7.14, describing this as ‘l’aventure terrible de l’illusion de la chair’ (p. 259). The world’s refusal to promote God first and foremost (p. 260) has led to the 90

wrath of God visiting the earth in the form of the earthquakes, war, fire, plague, pain, blood, sores and demonic spirits of Revelation 16 (p. 262). The Beast of Revelation is a manifestation of all humans who have not received revelation (p. 252), while those who come through the Great Tribulation and succeed in detaching themselves from their ‘première naissance’ are ‘les rachetés de la terre’ (p. 262), further defined as ‘les voyants et les hommes de la seconde naissance’ (p. 263), men who will experience the new Jerusalem promised by Revelation. As will be seen, Châteaubriant’s apocalyptic interpretation of Revelation, his definition of Christianity as a religion for an elite, and his theory of human salvation effected by a new Christian elite, would become major elements of his spiritualisation of National-Socialist Germany.

La Réponse du Seigneur: a blueprint for the future Châteaubriant’s theory of a nouvelle chrétienté detailed in the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante receives further expression and elucidation in his third novel, La Réponse du Seigneur. In what stands as a restatement of his self-allocated spiritual ‘superiority’, he notes that in writing the text ‘il avait pensé s’adresser à la masse ignorante et matérialiste pour lui rappeler l’urgence des problèmes spirituels’.24 In Monsieur des Lourdines and La Brière, spiritual regeneration is limited to its achievement in single characters, namely Anthime and Aoustin. In La Réponse du Seigneur, however, it becomes a more ambitious project intended to be implemented on a much wider scale than is suggested in either earlier novel. The ageing De Mauvert wishes to pass on his ‘message’ to the 24

Joseph Calvet, ‘Une interview de Monsieur de Châteaubriant à propos de La Réponse du Seigneur’, Bulletin de l’Institut catholique de Paris, March (1934), 57–64 (p. 64).

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travelling student who witnesses Mademoiselle de Mauvert’s funeral and subsequently becomes a guest at the château. De Mauvert sees the student as a providential visitor, the man for whom he has been waiting all his life (p. 87). He intends him to understand and take forth his message and ‘me remplacer dans le monde… faire ce que je n’ai pu faire… porter aux hommes ce que je n’ai pu leur porter’ (p. 221). A considerable section of the novel is devoted to the preparation of the student for the transmission of the message, although for some time he misunderstands his host’s purpose, a technique which permits Châteaubriant space and time for the elaboration of his ideas. Romantically minded, the student finds a girl’s bonnet (p. 111) which, along with his host’s comment that ‘vous êtes déjà un peu ici comme mon fils’ (p. 88), he interprets as evidence that De Mauvert has a daughter, a Sleeping Beauty figure who lives in an old tower of the castle and whom he is destined to marry. It is only when De Mauvert eventually reveals his message towards the end of the novel that the student is finally disabused of his dreams. In the communication of the message, Châteaubriant employs De Mauvert as a channel through which to make substantial speeches directly related to his programme for regeneration. A major element of this programme is his notion of servir, which Châteaubriant develops within his theory of the collective unit, and which exalts the principles of order and mutual duty in contrast to the alleged harm caused by individualism. His belief in the benefits of feudal society was clearly expressed in his earlier writings, and he now builds on these themes in order to promote his vision of the ideal head of a community as leader, model and servant of the masses. De Mauvert’s praise for feudal society is rooted in the concept of servir. His understanding of the role of the gentilhomme campagnard emphasises that: On n’était pas sur terre pour se faire servir. On ne venait le premier que pour mieux servir soi-même. Tout le monde servait, selon la hiérarchie, chacun à sa place, ce qui est au-dessus de tous; et commander et obéir était le même grand acte commun. (p. 126)

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And, in what stands as further evidence of Châteaubriant’s rejection of the Ancien Régime, he has De Mauvert regret ‘les habitudes salonnières que pour le plus grand mal du pays nous avons été prendre à la cour des rois’ (p. 125) and evoke in preference the period when ‘maîtres et serviteurs jouaient tous ensemble aux boules, et tous ensemble luttaient sur l’aire’ (p. 128). This reading of leadership would become especially significant within Châteaubriant’s later appreciation of National-Socialist Germany. The theme of the leader as an ideal model for ordinary people to aim to emulate provides an opening for Châteaubriant to explore his theory of contemplation, introduced in the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante (p. 224), and now given full development in La Réponse du Seigneur as the methodology for human salvation. Châteaubriant roots this theory in the Bible. He has De Mauvert suggest that ‘je trouverais tout dans ce synopsis de la vérité, si je savais le lire avec l’esprit que Dieu veut’ (RS, p. 207), and thus advocates a return to a particular reading of the Bible in the search for regeneration, which shows that he considers that there is a ‘right’ (and so equally a ‘wrong’) way to read God’s word. For De Mauvert, humans have wrongly contemplated themselves, centring their existence on themselves rather than on God and therefore ignoring the first commandment in Exodus 20.3 that ‘Tu n’auras pas d’autres dieux devant ma Face’ (p. 200). Verses from Deuteronomy, Isaiah and Kings follow in De Mauvert’s exhortation of the need to contemplate God and Christ (p. 201), which together underline the concept that ‘sans vision, le peuple périt’, written in Proverbs 29.18 and first referenced by Châteaubriant in La Meute (p. 118). De Mauvert believes that contemplation through prayer offers the key to salvation, proclaiming that ‘la perfection naît de la contemplation de la Perfection’ (RS, p. 284). Indeed, as he continues: ‘Quand l’homme contemple Dieu et devient semblable à Dieu, […] ce sont les lourdes chaînes du vieil homme qui tombent à ses pieds […]. Et alors, là se lève un géant chevelu’ (pp. 301–02). In order to explain his message to the student, De Mauvert offers three illustrations of his theory of salvation through contemplation 93

and prayer. The first exploits a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne set in a village at the foot of a rocky escarpment in which nature has sculpted a human face.25 Legend has it that one day a man resembling the rock sculpture will arrive in the village and carry out good works. A village child grows up entranced by this story, constantly watching the rockface and wondering when the promised hero will arrive. As the years go by and the child becomes an adult, he grows to resemble the rock sculpture, until one day his fellow villagers realise that the man predicted by the story is already among them. By dint of contemplation, says De Mauvert, the child became the object of his contemplation (p. 172). The student’s incomprehension of this tale leads De Mauvert to attempt a second illustration, this time based on the Dürer engraving The Knight, Death and the Devil (1513), which depicts a heavily-armoured knight forging his way forward, oblivious of the two grotesque images of Death and the Devil which try to accost him. De Mauvert’s interpretation suggests that the knight was saved from his human misery through contemplation of ‘le rempart de salut, […] la cité de Dieu’ (p. 179), and that, armed and transformed by prayer, he becomes ‘l’homme pardonné et nouveau’ (p. 180), while Death and the Devil become nothing more than vestiges of the old world. The student is somewhat sceptical, saying to De Mauvert that the Bible extracts he has used ‘ne sont que des textes’ (p. 183), that Hawthorne’s story ‘n’est qu’une légende’ (ibid.) and that ‘votre chevalier n’est qu’un conte’ (p. 184). Having thus far failed to convince the student of his message through abstract discussion, De Mauvert moves to a final concrete illustration based on his interpretation of mimesis, and shows the student a leaf on which a butterfly has alighted and remained, ultimately fusing with the leaf until the two are barely distinguishable (p. 193). De Mauvert has no interest in this as a scientific chameleonlike process, whereby the butterfly may have been trying to hide from 25

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Châteaubriant provides no title, but the story referred to is The Great Stone Face, published in The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (Edinburgh: Paterson, 1851).

its hunters, and suggests that the real interest lies instead in asking how rather than why the butterfly acted in this way (p. 196). He argues that ‘ce papillon a voulu devenir ce qu’il avait intérêt à devenir’, and that this came about because ‘le papillon n’a pas fait lui-même autre chose que prier’ (p. 199). The butterfly’s mimesis represents a lesson for all humanity, ‘que prier n’est pas demander à recevoir, mais demander à devenir’ (p. 205). Humans must adopt the butterfly’s state of total acceptance (p. 211), based both on ‘la foi simple, lucide, fondamentale, la foi des premières heures’ (p. 212) and on complete humility (p. 213). De Mauvert’s message thus offers an invitation to self-transformation through prayer and contemplation of an ideal, a message defined as ‘la clé peut-être du salut de tant d’hommes’ (p. 216).

Orthodoxy or heterodoxy? Châteaubriant’s dissatisfaction with the traditional, institutional Catholic Church, which we have traced to his early writings, features also in La Réponse du Seigneur, with De Mauvert’s comment that, for him, faith is something other than ‘la croyance aux dogmes qu’enseigne l’Église’ (p. 130). Moreover, references to the Church are as scarce in this text as in his other writings, for the Church is exploited as the location for Mademoiselle de Mauvert’s funeral (p. 41) but otherwise plays no direct role in the novel. With the publication of La Réponse du Seigneur in June 1933, contemporary critics openly deliberated for the first time over the orthodox or heterodox nature of Châteaubriant’s spiritual thought, based on an examination of his contemplation theory. None, however, saw the seeds of his development in his first two novels or his short stories, as we have argued, and none related his fictional exploration of his brand of nouvelle chrétienté to his theoretical examination of the theme in the articles published in La Revue universelle both before and after the novel 95

appeared, and which later formed part of the posthumous Lettre à la chrétienté mourante.26 The first reviews of La Réponse du Seigneur appeared in July 1933, and were generally cautious, if not openly critical. In L’Europe nouvelle, for example, Gabriel Marcel wrote that Châteaubriant’s contemplation theory represented ‘un raccourci qui pourrait éveiller certaines objections chez un théologien’, on the basis that, as André Billy argued in L’Œuvre, the novel suggests that ‘le mysticisme devient ainsi du mimétisme’, in other words, that what is science is presented as theology. Châteaubriant’s persistent lack of reference to the authority of the Church led Yves Gandon, writing in the Rightwing L’Intransigeant, to detect a ‘fumet d’hérésie’ in the novel, and caused Billy to conclude that ‘en d’autres temps, la Faculté de théologie eût certainement condamné et fait brûler le roman de Châteaubriant’.27 These reviews in the non-confessional press were matched in tone by an early review in the confessional press, published in the Dominican journal La Vie intellectuelle – set up to further Catholic social teaching in the modern world and to dialogue with it – where the contemplation theory is described as ‘une mystique dangereuse [qui] n’aboutit qu’à un chimérique égarement’, on the basis that it looks at ‘things’ rather than at God. Moreover, in his review, the Right-wing Catholic writer Robert Valléry-Radot questioned the novel’s hierarchical notion of Christianity, suggesting that ‘peut-être ce livre laisse-t-il se dégager de lui quelques vagues relents de théosophie’, a comment which undoubtedly refers to De Mauvert’s claim to

26 27

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Twelve extracts from the future Lettre à la chrétienté mourante were published in La Revue universelle in 1933, and a further five extracts were published in 1934 (see the bibliography for details). Gabriel Marcel, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur par Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, L’Europe nouvelle, 16 (1933), 695–96 (p. 696); André Billy, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur’, L’Œuvre, 11 July 1933, p. 5; Yves Gandon, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur’, L’Intransigeant, 6 July 1933, p. 2.

personal divine inspiration (or illumination, as Châteaubriant would prefer) and to the emphasis on natural forces in the novel.28 Châteaubriant clearly did not consider his thought to be out of step with true Christian ideas, or at least with his reading of them. In a series of letters to Jacques Copeau in July and August 1933, he attacked his critics’ ‘failure’ to understand the novel (or, to employ his own style, to ‘see’ the truth contained therein), writing that: La plupart ne comprennent pas, parce qu’il faudrait faire un effort qu’ils ne savent pas faire. Quelques-uns ne veulent pas comprendre. Ils ont réussi à convaincre tout le monde de l’absurdité des idées contenues dans ma pitoyable élucubration.29

He further categorically refuted Valléry-Radot’s charge of theosophy, announcing that ‘mon livre n’a rien d’un livre de théosophie. Il contient exactement la métaphysique de saint Paul…, qui est la grande métaphysique chrétienne’ (p. 88), a claim no doubt justified in his eyes by Saint Paul’s emphasis on the idea of the ‘new man’ – a theme central to Châteaubriant’s own project for regeneration. Keen to cast La Réponse du Seigneur in a favourable light, Châteaubriant announced to Copeau that he had received several individual commendatory letters, some from ordinary priests and people, and others from well known writers, including ‘un mot très touché et significatif de M. [Henri] Bergson’ (author of Les Deux sources de la morale et de la religion, 1932) and ‘trois pages serrées très approbatrices et chaleureuses d’Ét[ienne] Gilson, directeur des Hautes Études Religieuses’ (p. 85),

28

29

G.S., ‘La Réponse du Seigneur’, La Vie intellectuelle, 23 (1933), 470–73 (p. 471); Robert Valléry-Radot, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur’, La Revue hebdomadaire, 32 (1933), 7. Mounier’s journal Esprit would also not have approved of the novel on the basis of its theory of nouvelle chrétienté, although there is no review to confirm this conclusion. Louis-Alphonse Maugendre, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant et Copeau’, La Pensée catholique, 169 (1977), 83–88 (pp. 84–85). Subsequent immediate references to this article are given in the text.

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the latter’s approval being especially surprising since he is generally regarded as in the mainstream of nouvelle chrétienté.30 To counter the negative press La Réponse du Seigneur received, Henri Massis – the director of La Revue universelle – mobilised sympathetic writers like Copeau to an open defence of the novel,31 with the result that several reviews in the confessional press were distinctly more favourable, if somewhat general in their approach, and viewed the text as an illustration of spiritual conviction rather than heterodoxy. For José Vincent, writing in La Croix, the Catholic newspaper par excellence, the novel was ‘un avertissement providentiel à notre temps’; in his review for La Vie catholique (which had been rejected by Le Temps),32 Jacques Copeau argued that ‘après avoir lu ce livre, on prie mieux’; while in the Jesuit Études, Louis de Mondadon defined Châteaubriant as a ‘chrétien convaincu’.33 Châteaubriant welcomed these reviews, writing that ‘c’est dans les journaux et les revues de cette nuance que je désire être défendu, d’une façon qui porte et par des personnalités qui comptent’,34 and so clearly indicating that he wanted official Catholic acceptance in validation of his ideas. He was, therefore, particularly pleased at the appreciative reception he enjoyed on the occasion of an open interview on his book held in February 1934 under the presidency of Monseigneur Baudrillart at the Institut catholique in Paris, and reported in its bulletin a month later.35 Many Right-wing Catholics of the day disregarded elements of the Church’s social teaching but without moving into heterodoxy. 30 31 32 33

34 35

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There is no hard evidence of the existence of these letters. Maugendre, Alphonse de Châteaubriant, p. 163. Massis published several articles by Châteaubriant in 1933 and 1934 (see note 26). Ibid. José Vincent, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur’, La Croix, 15 October 1933, p. 3 & p. 4 (p. 3); Jacques Copeau, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur’, La Vie catholique, 2 September 1933, p. 16; Louis de Mondadon, ‘Un roman mystique: La Réponse du Seigneur’, Études, 3 (1933), 587–99 (p. 599). Maugendre, ‘Châteaubriant et Copeau’, 169 (1977), p. 87. See Calvet, ‘Une interview de Monsieur de Châteaubriant’.

Châteaubriant is an exception, however, on the grounds that he did not simply ignore the Church, but chose to consider its modern teaching inadequate, to bypass its systems and recommendations, and to put forward his own programme for regeneration in its place, based on the framework of Catholic mentality he had acquired through his religious education and his reading of Christian texts and debate. Moreover, as a self-nominated seer with a special insight into ‘truth’ and ‘essence’, Châteaubriant certainly did not possess the modesty he recommended to others. He was a bad Catholic on the level of humility and obedience to the Church, and La Réponse du Seigneur must be read as an illustration of heterodoxy because of the brand of Catholicism it advocates. And yet there was no official criticism of the text, while other reviews – many of them published in the Catholic press – were evidently sympathetic. Châteaubriant’s earlier writings had signalled his heterodox tendencies, but with La Réponse du Seigneur he took for the first time a very public step further down his chosen pathway, openly walking the fine line between heterodoxy and orthodoxy.

Crusaders and heroes La Réponse du Seigneur overflows with references to the Middle Ages, from the link identified between the De Mauvert family and the Knights Templar, to the inclusion of the story of the Holy Grail, and the role allocated to the student as ‘le jeune Perceval, […] l’évangéliste attendu, […] le chevalier de la contemplation’,36 and whom De 36

Paul Audiat, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur’, La Revue de France, 4 (1933), 704–08 (p. 705, p. 708). In German literature, the character of Percival is named Siegfried, a name later used by Châteaubriant in La Gerbe des forces to describe the National Socialists.

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Mauvert hopes will travel the world to proclaim the message of spiritual regeneration, thereby acting as a modern crusader in the style of the medieval knights De Mauvert so esteems. Where Châteaubriant’s earlier writings offer indications of his admiration for the medieval age, La Réponse du Seigneur serves to illustrate and explain this appreciation in some detail, underlining the importance of the period in terms of his programme for human regeneration and the form that he predicts that this will take. Early in the novel, De Mauvert introduces the student to the ‘grandes époques’ of the Middle Ages and recommends that he read the stories of the Knights Templar, the Knights of Saint John, and the Knights of Malta and Rhodes (p. 66), as well as the story of the Holy Grail, ‘le plus beau roman qu’on pût lire’ (p. 69). Châteaubriant’s admiration for the medieval chevalier focuses particularly on the Knights Templar and the Knights of the Holy Grail. As the Knights of King Arthur, Galahad and his comrades are the elite incarnation of a temporal authority. But Châteaubriant underlines that their primary role is spiritual, resting on their quest to recover the Holy Grail, defined as ‘le divin trésor’ which represents ‘le Salut du monde’ (p. 70). De Mauvert suggests that their mission accords them ‘des airs de moniales’, each accomplishing ‘l’acte qui vient le premier de tous par excellence […], à regarder le vase sublime, à regarder devant soi le Graal’ (p. 71). Turning to the Knights Templar, De Mauvert notes that they are seen to have acquired power in the temporal domain through their military role and their administration of finance. But, in their case also, their primary role is deemed to be a spiritual one, since their temporal activities are carried out ‘sous l’emblème de la croix et la main sur l’Évangile’ (p. 102). They always wear the sign of the cross whether in times of peace or war, and are defined overall as ‘des moines guerriers, armés de foi dedans et de fer au dehors […] qui acceptaient jusqu’à la mort l’exil et la guerre sainte’ (p. 101). Both the Knights Templar and the Knights of the Holy Grail are used to represent a fusion of the spiritual and the temporal, but with the temporal subordinated to the primacy of the spiritual. The ‘warrior100

monk’ idea was clearly attractive to those on the Right as the Spanish Civil War drew nearer, and would also have a certain impact in France during the Vichy Regime.37 Châteaubriant, however, followed a different pathway with his own particular vision of the warrior-monks, since, as we shall discover, he would choose to see the German National Socialists – and especially the SS – as new Teutonic Knights, and so as modern-day warrior-monks. At the end of La Réponse du Seigneur, De Mauvert tells the student to direct his efforts at an elite group of sacrificateurs, defined as ‘ceux qui, par une contemplation infatigable, travailleront à recomposer au profit de l’espèce l’idéal dont elle a besoin’ (p. 300). The sacrificateurs, we are told, will save the world: ‘Voilà les hommes qu’il nous faut’, announces De Mauvert, adding that ‘et il est grand temps qu’ils apparaissent!’ (ibid.). Châteaubriant’s sacrificateurs are his incarnation of Nietzsche’s supermen and Thomas Carlyle’s heroes. His reading of Carlyle, referenced in his diaries in June 1931 (C, p. 110), indicates that he was influenced by Carlyle’s respect for strength and his conviction of a God-given mission as seen, for example, in his On Heroes, HeroWorship, and the Heroic in History (1841). Such themes find their echo in La Réponse du Seigneur where he predicts the imminent arrival of a new breed of elite warrior-monks, described as ‘des chevaleries humaines sublimées qui assureront bel et bien un ordre nouveau sur la terre’ (RS, p. 305), men who will carry out a new crusade to rechristianise the world and re-impose the primacy of the spiritual, thereby implementing a nouvelle chrétienté to replace the désordre établi. This elite will represent that predicted at the end of the story of the Holy Grail, which announced that ‘dans un certain avenir, d’autres temps paraîtront, marquant la fin de ces âges de l’aventure et l’heure prédestinée où les “chevaleries terriennes” seront devenues des “chevaleries célestiennes”’ (ibid.). But this new crusade will operate on

37

See John Hellman, The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage 1940–1945 (Montreal: McGill–Queen’s, 1993).

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a much greater scale, for the new chevaliers will number far more than the eighteen Knights of King Arthur, consisting instead of: […] des centaines et des centaines de milliers, toute l’immense armée humaine devenue nécessaire, et contemplant non plus la substance orfévrée d’un vaisseau, mais la nouvelle naissance qui nous est promise. (ibid.)

For Châteaubriant, the hour of the new crusade would soon strike. In both its critique of the modern world and its project of regeneration, Châteaubriant’s nouvelle chrétienté can be profitably compared to that of other Catholic thinkers in the 1920s and 1930s, in particular the pre-1930s Maritain of Antimoderne and La Primauté du spirituel. Common points include anti-individualism and antimaterialism, an emphasis on the primacy of spiritual, on the need for a new order to replace the established order, and for hommes nouveaux and an elite to lead regeneration, as well as reference to the medieval period. And yet his programme does not correspond either in register or content to Maritain’s project as later expressed in Humanisme intégral. Châteaubriant’s emphasis on Christianity as a religion above all for an elite resulted in an uncommon hierarchical notion of Christianity, further defined by his call for a Christian elite group of warrior-monks to save the world and by his idea of what constituted appropriate leadership. His rejection of neo-Thomism and his preference for his reading of Augustinianism (based on his opposition of intelligence and intellect, of ‘essence’ and ‘existence’), as well as his emphasis on the total renewal of the world rather than the adaptation of former principles to the present situation, all served further to differentiate his idiosyncratic nouvelle chrétienté from the mainstream. Châteaubriant wrote in his diaries in June 1929 that his contemplation theory: […] contient tout un programme, je veux dire toute une philosophie, toute une religion, toute une conception individuelle et collective, c’est-à-dire toute une science de la vie en général et jusqu’à une méthode de direction politique. (C, p. 90)

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Evidently able to conceive of his contemplation theory as a potential method of political direction, he also thereby revealed his conviction that the political could and should be spiritually inspired. The fact that La Réponse du Seigneur was completed on 31 May 1933 (RS, p. 313), just four months after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, is, of course, a coincidence. With the advent of Hitler to power, 1933 marked the beginning of a turbulent period in European history. The period is equally significant in the telling of Châteaubriant’s history, for his particular nouvelle chrétienté would shortly find its incarnation in National-Socialist Germany.

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4 Gesta Dei per Germanos

If ‘jadis, les Croisades furent des gesta Dei per Francos’,1 then, for Alphonse de Châteaubriant, National Socialism would represent a new crusade – or what can be termed gesta Dei per Germanos – for he would regard Hitler’s Germany as a salutary force not only for France but for Europe as a whole, a force capable of bringing about the renaissance and respiritualisation of nations and peoples floundering in the depths of the modern crisis of civilisation. This belief underpinned his collaboration with Germany during the Second World War. That Châteaubriant was a committed and active collaborator is without doubt, and his own words and deeds prove the point. But it is the nature of his personal response to Fascism which indicates the pathway he followed in his reading of National Socialism. His early writings raise certain themes which can be identified in 1930s Fascism, such as his anti-individualist, anti-modern, anti-democratic and anticapitalist tendencies, as well as his emphasis on spiritual regeneration and heroic leadership. But many shared such ideas without necessarily adopting Fascism as a result, as Marc Simard has shown,2 and Châteaubriant certainly did not see himself as a Fascist or openly support Fascism. It would be superficial to define Châteaubriant as a Fascist just because he endorsed Hitler’s Germany and became an active collaborator, for such a conclusion not only ignores Sartre’s accurate pronouncement that not all collaborators were by definition 1 2

Léon Poliakov, Le Mythe aryen: essai sur les sources du racisme et des nationalismes (Brussels: Éditions Complexe, 1987), p. 29. ‘Qu’ils se disent personnalistes, fascistes, nationalistes ou même spiritualistes, [beaucoup] ont en commun cette hantise de la modernité. […] Le fascisme ne serait qu’une des pousses ayant crû dans le terreau fertile de la pensée antimoderne’ (Marc Simard, ‘Intellectuels, fascisme et antimodernité dans la France des années trente’, Vingtième Siècle, 17 (1988), 55–75 (p. 73)).

Fascists, but also takes insufficient account of the true reasons behind Châteaubriant’s individual commitment. As we shall discover, despite the common ground he shared with a French intellectual Fascism, it is unsatisfactory to identify Châteaubriant as a Fascist in the manner of a Brasillach or a Drieu, for example, precisely because his principal theme is an original form and treatment of nouvelle chrétienté. In his case, the sensitive and shocking truth (especially for Catholics) is that he would collaborate because of his particular interpretation of his religious faith rather than because of any particular sympathy with Fascism. He was not interested in National Socialism as an end in itself, or as a manifestation of a temporal, contemporary political ideology (that is, as a German Fascism), as many others were, but instead chose to interpret and to endorse it as the modern-day incarnation of the eternal and universal Christian values he prized so highly. This is not to say that Châteaubriant was no Fascist (indeed, the evidence to the contrary is persuasive), but rather to note that he himself never acknowledged that his tendencies were fascist and never claimed Fascism as his motivation. What is certain is that his personal and idiosyncratic interpretation of National Socialism and his choice of pathway in the 1930s – expounded in La Gerbe des forces: Nouvelle Allemagne (1937) – set the seal on his future collaboration.

The turbulent Thirties and the rise of intellectual Fascism Within France, there was a widespread belief during the early years of the decade that the nation had ‘entered a period of crisis marked by a sense of political, social and moral, and economic malaise’.3 The world economic crisis engendered by the Wall Street Crash in 1929 began to 3

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James McMillan, Twentieth-Century France: Politics and Society 1898–1991 (Edward Arnold, 1992), p. 102.

take effect in France from 1931 and sent economic confidence plummeting. A series of short-lived governments proved incapable of formulating a satisfactory solution to the nation’s difficulties, creating an atmosphere of general political incompetence. Then, during 1933 and 1934, a series of scandals served to level accusations of immorality and financial and political corruption at Third Republic society and its institutions. In Notre avant-guerre (1941), Brasillach records the nation’s fascination with the Violette Nozières case (1933), and exploits Nozière’s patricide and her alleged involvement in a seedy world of drugs and sexual depravity as illustrative of contemporary decadence and ‘un atroce monde sans Dieu’ (pp. 143–44). Other minor scandals followed, but paled into insignificance alongside the notorious Stavisky Affair. Stavisky was a financier of dubious honesty who had escaped prosecution for years, allegedly thanks to influential friends within the government itself, and who apparently committed suicide in January 1934 while wanted for questioning on fraud charges. The Right relished such indications of Republican corruption which they considered symptomatic of a weak parliamentary regime, and even claimed that Stavisky had been murdered in an attempt to shield his ministerial protectors. Indignation at the subsequent alleged cover-up by Premier Daladier turned the Affair into a major political crisis, sparking the events of 6 February 1934 when several extreme Rightwing leagues (including Pierre Taittinger’s Jeunesses patriotes, François Coty’s Solidarité française and the Camelots du Roi) staged violent antigovernment street demonstrations. Their identifiably fascist traits (anti-parliamentarianism, anti-liberalism, pro-nationalism and cult of order and action) prompted many Republican politicians to believe that they represented a broad-based Right-wing plot to overthrow the Republic and install a French-style dictatorship in its place. But the disparate nature of the groups involved, coupled with the low-key or non-involvement of other groups on the day (Colonel de la Rocque’s Croix de Feu and Marcel Bucard’s Francistes respectively), indicate that

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the extreme Right actually lacked unity of plan and action, and historians widely agree that 6 February was no organised conspiracy.4 And yet the importance of these events in the development of Fascism in France should not be underestimated, for they revealed a significant level of dissatisfaction with the current regime and indicated, as James McMillan has pointed out, that ‘French democracy was […] vulnerable and by no means predestined to escape the fate of Italy, Germany or Spain’.5 For the purposes of this study in particular, however, the importance of February 1934 rests on its motivating role in the development and crystallisation of a French intellectual Fascism. This did not suddenly originate in the February 1934 events, but resulted instead from what Raoul Girardet has called a more gradual ‘phénomène d’imprégnation fasciste dans l’histoire du nationalisme français entre les deux guerres’.6 The appearance of a string of extreme Right-wing journals such as 1928, 1933 and 1934, in which antimodern, anti-capitalist, pro-order and pro-youth themes were major features, indicates that the scent of Fascism was definitely in the air in the late 1920s and early 1930s. But many intellectuals did not actually openly adhere to Fascism until after 6 February 1934, as evidenced by the case histories of Robert Brasillach and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, both of whom were observers rather than participants in the events. For them, Fascism’s value was rooted in the potential it offered for spiritual regeneration from modern decadence. In Notre avant-guerre, Brasillach describes 6 February – despite its failure – as ‘une instinctive et magnifique révolte’, which represented the ‘espérance invincible d’une Révolution nationale, la naissance exacte du nationalisme social 4

5 6

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See ibid., p. 107; Maurice Larkin, France since the Popular Front: Government and People 1936–1996, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997 [1988]), p. 50; Jean Plumyène and René Lasierra, Les Fascismes français 1923–1963 (Seuil, 1963), p. 77. McMillan, Twentieth-Century France, p. 107. Raoul Girardet, ‘Notes sur l’esprit d’un fascisme français’, Revue française de science politique, 5 (1955), 529–46 (pp. 530–31). The italics are the author’s.

de notre pays’ (p. 161).7 Les Captifs, begun while Brasillach was a prisoner of war in Germany in 1940, provides a fictional account of his personal commitment to Fascism, recording the main character’s conversion following the 1934 riots, full of admiration for the passion and spontaneity he sees on the streets and convinced that he has found a new ‘faith’. Equally in direct response to 6 February, Drieu publicly proclaimed himself a Fascist in March 1934, and, later the same year, published Socialisme fasciste in which he expounds his theory of Fascism as spiritual regeneration. In his later novel, Gilles (1939), Drieu’s hero also views February 1934 and the emergence of Fascism in France in terms of renewal, saying of the events that ‘c’est la première fois que je vis depuis vingt ans’ (p. 597). For men such as Brasillach and Drieu, for the men of Je suis partout or L’Insurgé – extreme Right-wing publications par excellence8 – the appeal of Fascism lay in its esprit rather than in its potential as a political or economic doctrine. Poetry, romanticism and enthusiasm litter their individual accounts of their encounter with that spirit. In their eyes, Fascism was the realisation of a long-held regenerative aspiration, while fascist man was an almost mythical hero-figure embodying the élan vital necessary for human renewal. For these men, as Girardet has suggested, ‘c’est aux forces passionnelles, c’est à l’imagination et c’est à la sensibilité que le fascisme français prétend d’abord s’adresser’.9 Châteaubriant clearly shared such regenerative aspirations, although he was no card-carrying Fascist, as we have already suggested. No written evidence exists, for instance, of his personal response to the events of February 1934, or of any involvement in the leagues, or of any self-proclamation as a Fascist in the manner of Brasillach and Drieu. He did occasionally encounter Brasillach at the 7 8 9

The programme of the Vichy Regime would be termed the révolution nationale. Under the influence of Brasillach, Bardèche, Rebatet and others, Je suis partout (founded 1930) swiftly became the most violent extreme Right-wing, proFascist publication of the period. L’Insurgé was founded in 1937. Girardet, ‘Notes sur l’esprit’, p. 532.

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offices of the journal 1933, as Brasillach records,10 but never contributed to its pages. He also signed the October 1935 Manifeste des intellectuels français pour la défense de l’Occident et la paix en Europe, which was produced in support of Italian nationalism and expansion into Ethiopia, and which was (not surprisingly) described by the Left-wing Europe as the ‘manifeste des intellectuels fascistes’.11 But signatories to the manifesto were not exclusively fascist, for Right-wing, non-fascist Catholics such as Henri Massis and Marcel Moré could be found among their number. Châteaubriant evidently operated on the edges of a French intellectual Fascism, motivated by the same desire for regeneration, but which – in his case – was set in a particular and highly individual ‘Christian’ context. His commitment to NationalSocialist Germany rested on his interpretation of Christianity.

Explorers of Fascism From 1934, young French fascist intellectuals like Brasillach, Drieu, Rebatet and Jouvenel travelled Europe, keen to discover foreign fascist countries and to witness Fascism in practice. Their numerous exploratory journeys took them to Italy, Germany, Belgium and Spain, but also to less obvious destinations such as Romania and England. Some travelled extensively, often making repeated trips to the same country.12 For many of the future collaborators, these journeys represented an initiation into the fascist experience, and functioned, as Pascal Ory has argued, ‘comme autant de préludes à l’engagement 10 11 12

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Robert Brasillach, Œuvres complètes, ed. by Maurice Bardèche, 12 vols (Club de l’honnête homme, 1963–66), VI (1964), 608–09. Europe, 15 November 1935, p. 449. Brasillach, for instance, visited Spain (1934, 1938, 1939), Belgium (1935, 1936), Italy (twice in 1937) and Germany (1936, 1937); Drieu visited Germany (1934, 1936) as well as Italy and Spain (both in 1936).

décisif en terrain français’.13 But Alphonse de Châteaubriant, born in 1877 into a different generation, was not one of these young fascist explorers, and, in contrast to others at the time, his experience of foreign Fascism was limited. He did make a short trip to Belgium in 1935, but never travelled to Italy or Spain, focusing his attention instead on Germany, as we shall do here, which he visited initially in 1935 prior to an expedition of several months’ duration from May to December 1936, following which he produced his study of Hitler’s Germany, La Gerbe des forces.14 The end of the First World War had triggered a widespread conviction among intellectuals that Franco-German rapprochement was the only way to avoid another conflict between the two nations. In the first half of the 1920s, such conviction was expressed in, for example, Paul Colin’s Allemagne (1918–1921) (1923), an enthusiastic account of a visit to Germany, or André Lamande’s Ton pays sera le mien (1925), in which the author considered the prospects for a FrancoGerman ‘marriage’. In the later 1920s and early 1930s, further efforts were made in France to support intellectual rapprochement, notably the creation of new journals of pro-German tendencies such as La Revue européenne (which reviewed Monsieur des Lourdines and La Brière in 1926, and serialised La Meute in 1927), L’Europe nouvelle (which reviewed La Réponse du Seigneur in 1933) and La Revue d’Allemagne. Other significant events included a programme of exchange lectures given by such well known French and German writers as Jean Giraudoux, André Gide, Thomas Mann and Ernst Robert Curtius; and celebrations in France in 1932 to mark the hundredth anniversary of Goethe’s death.15 13 14 15

Ory, Les Collaborateurs, p. 24. Maugendre, Alphonse de Châteaubriant, p. 188, p. 190, p. 194. For details of these and other Franco-German cultural events, see Jean-Marie Carré, Les Écrivains français et le mirage allemand (1800–1940) (Boivin, 1947), pp. 176–79. Carré also notes French concerns about Germany’s activity and intentions, as indicated by, for example, Jacques Bainville’s articles in Action française between 1918 and 1933 (p. 179).

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Adolf Hitler’s arrival in power in January 1933 was accompanied by a German eagerness to showcase National Socialism. A key figure in this process was the self-confessed Francophile Otto Abetz, who would be appointed Germany’s Ambassador to France during the Occupation, and who had been involved in the organisation of Franco-German youth meetings since 1930.16 From 1934, Abetz organised trips around Germany for invited French intellectuals and journalists, including Châteaubriant, during which they experienced showpiece events such as the annual Nuremberg Congress or the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, all expenses paid. The almost inevitable result of such trips was the publication of the French visitors’ impressions of National-Socialist Germany and of Hitler himself, who sometimes gave appeasing interviews to his French admirers. The first of these was accorded to Fernand de Brinon on 19 November 1933, and an account of the event was published in the Right-wing daily Le Matin four days later. A string of books and articles on Germany followed, including Châteaubriant’s panegyric La Gerbe des forces, published in May 1937, and his enthusiastic account of his interview with Hitler on 13 August 1937, published in Le Journal on 2 September 1938.17 Had Châteaubriant died in 1933, upon the completion of La Réponse du Seigneur, he would have been remembered as a novelist in the traditional and regionalist mould and as an author of works with a 16

17

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In 1935, Abetz was a prime mover in the relaunch of the Deutsch–Französische Gesellschaft and its French equivalent, the Comité France–Allemagne, and also played a part in the control of the associated journal, the Deutsch–Französische Monatshefte – otherwise known as the Cahiers franco-allemands – in which Châteaubriant would publish four articles between 1937 and 1943. Others who interviewed Hitler include Jacques Chastenet (Le Temps, 17 December 1933); Lucien Lemas (L’Intransigeant, 13 September 1934); Jean Goy (Le Matin, 18 November 1934); Bertrand de Jouvenel (La Flèche, 7 March 1936). Other publications by ‘explorers’ of National-Socialist Germany include Louis Bertrand, Hitler (Fayard, 1936); Robert Brasillach, ‘Cent heures chez Hitler’, La Revue universelle, 61 (1937), 55–74; Pierre-Antoine Cousteau, ‘Nuremberg, cœur de l’Allemagne’, Je suis partout, 10 September 1937, p. 9.

spiritual flavour.18 That persona was at least partially sustained by the fact that other significant writings – such as the Lettres des années de guerre 1914–1918, or his Cahiers 1906–1951, or the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, all of which, as we have shown, contain important pointers to a full and proper understanding of Châteaubriant’s thought and earlier published works – did not reach the public arena until after his death in 1951. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that Monsieur des Lourdines, La Brière and La Réponse du Seigneur detail both Châteaubriant’s response to the modern world and the development of his project for regeneration, and are therefore integral to his evolution towards collaboration. But that conclusion could not have been drawn at the time, and no contemporary critic saw the path Châteaubriant was treading. In 1937, the content of La Gerbe des forces took intellectual France by surprise. Today, however, the combination of Châteaubriant’s pro-German stance, which we identified at the end of the First World War, and his search for a suitable incarnation of his nouvelle chrétienté, suggests that he was almost predestined to locate his quest in Germany, and that he was therefore incapable of objective investigation and report. Châteaubriant himself admits no such thing, of course, and argues instead that ‘je suis parti non point convaincu que je trouverais là-bas ce que je cherchai, mais animé énergiquement du désir d’interroger et de comprendre’ (GF, pp. 9–10). La Gerbe des forces does confirm his enthusiasm for inquiry. But, as we shall discover, it also demonstrates his swift acceptance of his hosts’ statements and explanations, betrays an obvious lack of reference to certain aspects of National Socialism, and simply dismisses others, suggesting that he saw what he wanted to see and heard what he wanted to hear, unaware of or ignoring everything else. Clearly the 1930s marks a period when Châteaubriant would become more directly involved in the events of the day, but his exploratory journeys across the Rhine serve to endorse long-held ideas rather than to generate new ones, while La Gerbe des forces stands as a mid-1930s 18

Pascal Ory makes a similar but undeveloped point (Les Collaborateurs, p. 15).

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expression of his long-standing commitment to a policy of alliance with his particular Germany, exhibiting a single-mindedness which is confirmed by his general lack of reference to other fascist countries.19

France and the Popular Front: a diagnosis of errors The beginning of Châteaubriant’s second exploratory journey to Germany in late May 1936 followed hard on the heels of the April– May electoral victory of the Popular Front (a combination of the disparate forces of the Left – Socialists, Radicals and Communists – which had reorganised after 6 February 1934), and preceded by just a few days the installation of Léon Blum’s coalition government of Socialists and Radicals, the first Socialist-led government in France.20 Not surprisingly, most on the Right opposed the Front. For the fascist Right, political responsibility for the decadence of France lay with the regime, while the Right-wing majority of Catholics feared that the Front’s arrival in power would revitalise anticlericalism and la guerre religieuse, concerns which were played on by conservative Catholic newspapers such as L’Écho de Paris and La France catholique which were implacable in their opposition to the regime. At this time, most Rightwing Catholics simply ignored the Church’s social doctrine as detailed in Quadragesimo anno (1931) and their intransigent convictions naturally 19

20

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In La Gerbe des forces, Châteaubriant makes one reference to Spain, suggesting that in the Spanish Civil War the nation was threatened by Bolshevism and that ‘le clergé d’Espagne n’a pu ni empêcher ni même pressentir ce qui le menaçait’ (p. 253). Right-wing intellectuals generally interpreted the Spanish Civil War as a crusade against the godless Republicans. There is no reference to Italy in the text. The Communists refused to participate in the Blum cabinet, believing that it could achieve little, and so chose to remain free to criticise as it saw fit (Larkin, France since the Popular Front, 2nd edn, p. 53).

dictated a negative response to the Front. But other Catholics judged the Front’s campaign against the social ills of poverty, unemployment and injustice to be not dissimilar to the Church’s programme of Action catholique, and hence adopted a more positive attitude to the Front. To the horror of the Right-wing Catholic press, several publications of Christian Democratic tendency, such as La Vie intellectuelle, Sept, L’Aube and La Vie catholique, subsequently activated a debate on the potential for co-operation between Catholics and the Left on specific social objectives.21 And a small minority of extreme Left-wing Catholics, mainly those on the journal Terre nouvelle, even reacted positively to the Communist Maurice Thorez’s main tendue, first proffered in 1936, seeking unity of action and looking to Communism as the implementation of Christian values.22 In common with the Catholic and the fascist Right, Châteaubriant rejected the Popular Front. Writing in 1941, he described 1936 as ‘exactement le temps où sévissait en France cet esprit diabolique qui fut le père de cet extraordinaire règne que connaîtra l’Histoire, sous le vocable non moins extraordinaire de Front populaire’.23 In words evocative of his Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, and which suggest that he viewed the Front as a modern-day incarnation of France’s longstanding failings, he further defined the regime as ‘rien qu’un grand vide de pensée, qu’un grand vide de dispositions, de conscience, de substance’ (ibid.). For Châteaubriant, Catholic co-operation with the 21

22

23

Sept, for example, published Léon Blum’s thoughts on this topic on 19 February 1937, noting that ‘s’il y a coïncidence entre certaines initiatives du Front populaire et les réformes demandées par l’école sociale catholique, nous ne voyons aucune raison pour ne pas leur donner loyalement notre appui’. René Rémond, ‘Les Catholiques et le Front populaire (1936–1937)’, Archives de sociologie des religions, 10 (1960), 63–69. Ecclesiastical intervention following the Blum interview resulted in Sept’s suspension in August 1937, while Terre nouvelle, the ‘organe des chrétiens révolutionnaires’, was placed on the Index in July 1936 (Claude Bellanger, Histoire générale de la presse française, 4 vols (PUF, 1972), III, 556). Jean Boissel, Mon discours de Nuremberg (Éditions du Réveil du peuple, 1941), preface by Alphonse de Châteaubriant, 3–6 (p. 3).

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Popular Front under the aegis of Action catholique was simply not to be countenanced. He would, instead, promote collaboration with National Socialism, preferring to accept Hitler’s main tendue as the solution to the contemporary crisis.24 In La Gerbe des forces, Châteaubriant restates his familiar critique of the modern catastrophic world, but now specifically contrasts modern France’s decline to National-Socialist Germany’s vitality: ‘L’Allemagne n’a jamais été finie, la France est parachevée. La France est mesurée et tiède, et l’Allemagne démesurée et brûlante. […] L’Allemand comprend et vit l’Apocalypse; le Français se moque de l’Apocalypse’ (p. 41). France, he indicates, lacks direction and is worn out, and the causes of her decline are his customary enemies, namely ‘le développement monstrueux de la machine, la ruée des masses dans l’arène, l’usure totale des aristocraties historiques, l’effroyable déchristianisation de l’esprit moderne’ (p. 32). The French have been educated ‘non point pour élever et surélever des hommes, mais afin de confectionner des électeurs et aussi des champions de toute thèse ennemie de l’Idée de Dieu’ (pp. 21–22). Democracy has destroyed ‘Unanimité’ and encouraged humans to ‘s’aveulir dans les anarchies sans issues de la petite volonté individuelle’ (p. 158). Châteaubriant abhors the modern emphasis on equality and laments ‘cette mort de toutes les hiérarchies et de toutes les noblesses, cette extinction de toute cette force de sang et de cœur dans les anciennes classes’ (p. 247), arguing starkly that ‘nous manquons d’héroïsme’ (p. 114). And he contemptuously dismisses France’s many present-day mediocre leaders on the grounds that they are ‘simplement intelligents et simplement spécialisés dans leur technique professionnelle’ rather than intelligent in a much more fundamental way (p. 23). Reactivating his earlier evaluation of the medieval debate on reason versus faith, he denounces the French as a people ‘[qui] raisonne[nt] et ne voi[en]t pas’ (p. 119), who have chosen the pathway of objectivity and have therefore ‘mis le monde et Dieu en dehors d[’eux]’ (p. 135). In his 24

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The title of Chapter 5 of La Gerbe des forces is ‘La Main tendue’.

view, individualism, objectivity and equality have combined to permit the implantation of Bolshevism and the proletarian society, which absorbs and depersonalises humans, reducing them all to the same base level (p. 255). But Bolshevism, he argues, is not simply a modern phenomenon, for it has surfaced whenever humanity has been deprived of an appropriate higher authority (pp. 257–58). It results from two factors, namely ‘la décomposition de la vie d’une culture, et la décadence de l’esprit religieux’ (p. 258). And since his typical intransigent Catholic anti-Revolutionary attitudes lead him to believe that ‘l’athéisme moscoutaire n’est qu’une accentuation dans le sens nihiliste de l’esprit jacobin de France’ (p. 259), then France is evidently susceptible to its influence and must raise her guard. Châteaubriant views the Republic as a vehicle of dechristianisation, and argues that France has been dominated by an ‘odieux esprit sectaire’ (p. 226) and ‘dévoré par l’anti-cléricalisme’ (p. 227) especially since the 1905 Loi de séparation des Églises et de l’État. In his opinion, the French ‘organism’ requires resurrection and new cohesion (p. 33), and the key to regeneration lies in the successful search for l’homme nouveau, while renewal must be guided by an appropriate elite (p. 114). They, in turn, must be led by an ultimate chef, for ‘personne autre qu’un homme de génie ne peut résoudre de façon grande ou heureuse la situation mondiale que les temps ont fait surgir’ (p. 24). These forces are to be mobilised in the fight against Bolshevism, and, to this end, he advocates ‘une épuration totale’ (p. 259). Respiritualisation through revolution and regeneration remains the necessary salutary path, but society’s traditional religious representatives are ‘disciple[s] affaibli[s], qui ne [savent] plus construire’ (p. 246), a theme raised in the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante. Furthermore, the institutional religious responses to Bolshevism within Europe have proved ineffective, as in Germany where ‘le Centrum n’a pu empêcher six millions de communistes de se constituer’ (p. 253).25 Faced with such weakness, Châteaubriant 25

The term Centrum refers to the German Catholic Centre Party, which played a key role in German politics until 1933.

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continues to believe that the reimposition of order in the face of established disorder can only come about through a new form of Christianity, defined as ‘un christianisme autrement servi et conscient, autrement armé des forces de Dieu’ (p. 253), in other words, a New Christendom.

The view from abroad: French responses to National Socialism in the mid-1930s In broad terms, Châteaubriant’s critique of the modern world in La Gerbe des forces and his programme for salvation confirm that he shared a basic antimoderne attitude with many of his contemporaries. His antiindividualism, anti-Bolshevism and anti-capitalism approximate his thought to that of the conservative Catholic Right in France. Such themes, when added to his call for spiritual regeneration – designed to combat mediocrity, to create an homme nouveau and a new elite, and to reinvent order – indicate goals common also to Right-wing fascist intellectuals or to those seeking a nouvelle chrétienté. And yet, despite these similarities, the reviews of La Gerbe des forces in conservative, Catholic and fascist publications were largely negative. In Action française, L’Époque, L’Ordre, Le Temps and Vendémiaire, all on the conservative and Catholic Right, in the Jesuit Études and the nonconformist Esprit, and in the fascist Je suis partout, the reaction was the same: La Gerbe des forces, as André Thérive summarised in Vendémiaire, was ‘le panégyrique le plus effréné que vous puissiez imaginer de Hitler et du National-Socialisme’.26 As we shall learn, it was the precise 26

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Pellisson (pseud. Charles Maurras), ‘La Gerbe des forces’, Action française, 4 July 1937, p. 1; Robert Brasillach, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: La Gerbe des forces’, Action française, 8 July 1937, p. 3; François Porché, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: La Gerbe des forces’, L’Époque, 26 July 1937, p. 5; Robert d’Harcourt, ‘L’Allemagne comme la voit Monsieur de Châteaubriant’, L’Époque, 1

nature of Châteaubriant’s interpretation of Germany and of his programme for regeneration which differentiated his thought from that of the majority of his contemporaries at this point in the mid1930s, and which earned him such widespread criticism. His reading of Germany was truly rare, for he chose openly and wholeheartedly to endorse Adolf Hitler and National Socialism at a time of significant Fascist hesitation, Catholic concern, papal condemnation and popular fear of National-Socialist Germany, and at a time when the nation was perceived as overly nationalistic, excessively revolutionary, basically pseudo-spiritual and even anti-Christian. Many fascist intellectuals were interested by Hitler’s Germany, but did not share Châteaubriant’s view that ‘le national-socialisme est, dans le monde moderne, la première forme d’État qui porte en sa constitution la volonté de lutter contre le mal’ (GF, p. 57), or his total commitment to ‘une renaissance et [un] salut européens par la renaissance germanique’ (p. 97). Drieu, for example, was impressed by Germany’s dynamism, but, in Robert Soucy’s words, ‘continued to dislike Hitler’s chauvinism, disapproved of a single leader wielding so much power, and regretted the privileges which big business still enjoyed in Germany’. In his wish to create a strong French fascist state, ‘[Drieu’s] Fascism was by no means subservient to Germany at this point’, and he favoured Jacques Doriot instead, joining his Parti September 1937, p. 1 & p. 2; Pierre Loewel, ‘La Vie littéraire: La Gerbe des forces’, L’Ordre, 19 July 1937, p. 2; André Thérive, ‘Un héraut du Troisième Reich: Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Vendémiaire, 28 July 1937, p. 6 and ‘La Gerbe des forces: Nouvelle Allemagne’, Le Temps, 16 September 1937, p. 3; Henri du Passage, ‘La Gerbe des forces’, Études, 2 (1937), 564–55; Emmanuel Mounier, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: La Gerbe des forces’, Esprit, 59 (1937), 687–88; Lucien Rebatet, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: La Gerbe des forces’, Je suis partout, 3 September 1937, p. 8. A review in La Vie intellectuelle could have provided a useful Social Catholic angle, but, disappointingly, no such piece exists. Positive reviews of La Gerbe des forces are rare, notable exceptions being Tyl in the Fascist Choc, 30 September 1937, p. 4, and André Castelot, Cahiers franco-allemands, 10–11 (1937), 350–54, in which the author notes that the text was ‘violemment attaqué par les deux-tiers de la grande presse de France’.

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populaire français in June 1936.27 Nor did the Je suis partout team (Brasillach, Cousteau, Rebatet and Daye) fall under the spell of National Socialism, for while their published accounts of Hitler’s Germany recognised and appreciated the appeal of National Socialism, they also expressed a degree of hesitation and concern about certain aspects, such as Germany’s potential ambition to annex Alsace-Lorraine. In the final analysis, all agreed, as Brasillach wrote in Notre avant-guerre, that Germany ‘ce pays, si voisin de nous […] est d’abord au sens plein du mot […], un pays étrange’ (p. 286).28 ‘Notre fascisme à nous’, he emphasised, ‘[…] n’était pas à l’imitation de l’étranger, et nos confrontations avec les fascismes étrangers ne faisaient que mieux nous convaincre des originalités nationales, donc de la nôtre’ (p. 290, p. 291). French intellectuals of all persuasions were struck especially by National Socialism’s quasi-religious aspects. Recognition of its potential as a new religion had been noted in France in July 1933, at the time of the Concordat between the Vatican and the German Reich, when Le Temps had argued that ‘loin de pouvoir influencer le régime hitlérien, la religion catholique va devoir combattre celui-ci, qui est une nouvelle religion’.29 France’s young fascist explorers subsequently widely reported National Socialism as a new religion, Germany as a pagan ‘cathedral’, and Nazi Party rallies as ‘ceremonies’, and suggested that – in Brasillach’s words – ‘qui ne voit pas dans la consécration des drapeaux l’analogue de la consécration du pain, une sorte de sacrement allemand, risque fort de ne rien comprendre à l’hitlérisme’ 27 28 29

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Robert Soucy, Fascist Intellectual: Drieu la Rochelle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), p. 75, p. 77, p. 76. The emphasis is Brasillach’s. Personally, Brasillach seems to have been more attracted by Degrelle’s Belgium and Franco’s Spain than Hitler’s Germany (See Notre avant-guerre, pp. 247–72). Christian Ponson, ‘L’Information sur le nazisme dans la presse catholique française entre 1933 et 1938’, in Églises et chrétiens dans la Deuxième guerre mondiale: La France, ed. by Xavier de Montclos (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1982), pp. 17–32 (p. 20).

(NAG, p. 285).30 Definition of National Socialism as a false religion was a major feature of Catholic responses at this time. In December 1933, for example, Esprit published a special issue which denounced ‘les pseudo-valeurs spirituelles fascistes’, while, in its November 1933 ‘Lettre à Hitler’, L’Ordre nouveau attacked National Socialism’s false reference to the primacy of the spiritual.31 Three years later, the Rightwing Catholic Robert d’Harcourt wrote in the preface to his L’Évangile de la force: le visage de la jeunesse du Troisième Reich (1936) that ‘the youth of Germany have been given a “false God”’.32 In Humanisme intégral, published the same year, Jacques Maritain expressed concern over the persecution of the Church in Germany, attacking ‘les formes de totalitarisme qui prétend protéger Dieu’ and warning that they heralded ‘un retour offensif de l’antichristianisme et de l’athéisme ouverts’ (pp. 288–89). And Emmanuel Mounier wrote in his Manifeste au service du personnalisme (1936) that Fascism limited the spiritual to what he called ‘une ivresse permanente des ardeurs vitales’, and so implicitly eliminated ‘les valeurs supérieures pour les “spiritualités” les plus lourdes et les “mystiques” les plus ambigües’ (p. 502). The response of some Catholics to National Socialism was dictated by their attitude towards Bolshevism, which they widely identified as the absolute evil. Catholic anti-Bolshevism had already received recent papal confirmation in Quadragesimo anno (1931), in which Pius XI had written of the impious and unjust nature of Communism, and of its savage and inhuman practices in power (pp. 30 31

32

For further examples, see Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat, Je suis partout 1930–1944: les Maurrassiens devant la tentation fasciste (La Table ronde, 1973). Winock, Histoire politique de la revue ‘Esprit’, p. 82; Loubet del Bayle, Les Nonconformistes des années 30, p. 309. During the later 1930s, similar interventions featured in Catholic publications such as Le Voltigeur français, Études and La Vie intellectuelle (Paul Christophe, 1939–1940. Les Catholiques devant la guerre (Les Éditions ouvrières, 1989), pp. 53–57). Cited in Daniel Lindenberg, ‘French Intellectuals and a German Europe: an Aspect of Collaboration’, in Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century France: Mandarins and Samurais, ed. by Jeremy Jennings (St. Martin’s Press, 1993), p. 155.

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88–89). This attitude was then reinforced in the encyclical Divini redemptoris, published on 19 March 1937, just five days after the Pope’s encyclical on the German situation, Mit brennender Sorge. The publication of these two documents naturally prompted front-page comment in the French press, both Catholic and non-confessional. But, while a handful of Catholic publications accorded equal coverage to both encyclicals (for example, Esprit), or chose to extend their reportage of the Pope’s condemnation of Germany’s violation of the Concordat into a debate on the doctrine of National Socialism itself, most others elected to emphasise the Communist threat, no doubt because of Catholic opposition to the Popular Front which was currently in power in France.33 And a minority of Catholics even openly preferred Hitler to Communism: for example, Jean Guirard, joint editor of La Croix, proclaimed ‘tout plutôt que le communisme, tout, même l’hitlérisme’, while Louis Bertrand, author of Hitler (1936), is credited with the pronouncement that ‘Hitler est notre seule planche de salut contre les bolchevistes et le communisme’.34 It would be simplistic to root Châteaubriant’s commitment to National Socialism purely in his deeply entrenched anti-Bolshevism, although, given the general Catholic definition of Bolshevism as a force for dechristianisation, this did play an important role in the formulation of his ideas. Nor is it satisfactory to conclude that Châteaubriant saw National Socialism as a new religion, as we shall discover. For Châteaubriant, such a judgement was superficial, since it failed to grasp the essence of National Socialism as the revelation of eternal spiritual truths, and, in that sense, as his desired New Christendom.

33 34

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For further details on the treatment of these encyclicals in the French press, see Ponson, ‘L’Information sur le nazisme’. Cited in Christophe, Les Catholiques devant la guerre, p. 44, p. 50.

La Gerbe des forces: Châteaubriant’s lens on Germany Châteaubriant travelled extensively throughout Germany during the second half of 1936, and La Gerbe des forces is littered with references to the numerous cities and towns he visited, including Frankfurt, Cologne, Nuremberg, Heidelberg, Fribourg, Stuttgart, Bayreuth, Bamberg, and, of course, Berlin. His travels lead him to conclude that France neither knows nor truly understands modern-day Germany (GF, p. 342). France’s impression of Germany, he argues, is based on years of entrenched distrust and bitterness, but modern Germany is not the Germany of the Empire, and ‘il est de toute nécessité que les immenses changements survenus en Allemagne et dans l’esprit allemand arrivent à sa [France’s] connaissance’ (p. 343). La Gerbe des forces is Châteaubriant’s reading of those changes. As ‘l’homme que les circonstances ont placé aux avant-postes’, it is his duty to ‘recueillir tous les signes qui se peuvent interpréter et qui présentent un sens utilisable’ (p. 333). Evidently aware of Châteaubriant’s value to them as a French supporter of National Socialism, the Germans treated him as an important visitor, organising a timetable of stage-managed visits to German factories, churches, youth camps, rallies, concerts and sports events, including the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, where he first set eyes on Hitler in person. Châteaubriant pleads impartiality as a witness, insisting that he went to Germany: […] vide de toute convoitise, de tout intérêt, de tout préjugé, de toute parole donnée, de toute compromission acceptée, de tout plan concerté, de toute malice inavouable, de toute réserve mentale, comme de toute insincérité professionnelle. (p. 342)

But, despite these claims, Châteaubriant was only interested in a particular reading of Germany, as shown by his enthusiastic endorsement of those aspects which he believed corresponded to his own previously defined ideas, by his ‘reasoned’ dismissal of objections and concerns, and by his omission of other extremely sensitive aspects. 123

His conclusions are therefore based on a skewed reading of his experiences which was moulded by what he wanted to see. In La Gerbe des forces, Châteaubriant raises many of the charges levelled at National-Socialist Germany, thereby creating a semblance of objectivity and debate. But his strategy is simply and swiftly to dismiss these concerns with the argument that France has misunderstood Germany’s intentions and activity. He insists not only that ‘l’Allemagne actuelle n’a aucun projet contre la France’ (p. 53), but also that ‘l’Allemagne désire une entente avec la France’ (p. 338), a goal close to Châteaubriant’s heart since at least 1918. Those who interpret National-Socialist rallies as ‘une danse de guerre déguisée’ (p. 34) or Hitler’s speeches as ‘des menaces de guerre’ (p. 339) have misread the Führer’s intentions, for Germany does not seek to go to war with France since Hitler believes that war would solve nothing (pp. 45–46). On the basis of these conclusions, Châteaubriant counters French disquiet over the anti-French sections of Mein Kampf (1923), and willingly accepts Hitler’s explanation in his 1933 interview with Fernand de Brinon that these sections were written in 1923 while he was in prison and at a time when French troops were occupying the Ruhr, and that he did not have the right to change what was essentially an historical document (p. 46).35 In conversation with an ardent supporter of Hitler, Châteaubriant easily embraces the view that within Germany the idea of revenge for past losses has no part to play, and that any threat of war targets only ‘les États qui se sont faits les champions des théories subversives du marxisme’ (p. 339). After all, he writes, Hitler is neither a warmonger nor a dictator, but rather ‘un édificateur d’esprits, un constructeur de volontés’ (p. 345). And concerns over Germany’s rearmament are similarly voiced and rejected, if somewhat feebly, for, Châteaubriant asks, ‘quel est le peuple, la nation d’Europe qui depuis vingt ans a vécu dans un rêve de 35

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It has since been proven that Hitler actually wrote the anti-French sections of Mein Kampf in 1925, a year after his release from prison. See Eberhard Jäckel, La France dans l’Europe de Hitler, trans. by Denise Meunier (Fayard, 1968), p. 27.

tranquillité suffisament assis pour négliger de se forger des armes?’ (pp. 334–35). Rearmament, he is told, is not a threat directed at France, but – given the current European situation – just ‘le reflexe normal d’une collectivité qui veut vivre’; while the army is above all simply an instrument of discipline and a means of generating in German men ‘le maximum de force physique et de santé’ (p. 340). In 1930s France, many feared that Germany’s policy of Lebensraum (living space) would result in the annexation of land, and, more precisely, that she had her sights set once more on AlsaceLorraine. Châteaubriant again dismisses French concerns, exploiting as justification Hitler’s comment to De Brinon that ‘j’ai répété maintes fois que le sort de l’Alsace-Lorraine était réglé’ (p. 46). Hitler’s policy, he writes, is ‘avec les nations et non contre les nations’ (p. 97), while the Germans are alleged to have declared that ‘nous voulons que notre pays vive, mais nous ne voulons pas que ce soit aux dépens des autres’ (p. 290). For Châteaubriant, the National-Socialist revolution is much less important in terms of its German specificity than in terms of what he sees as its potential universal impact as a salutary force in the European context. Long opposed to extreme nationalism, but equally long committed to his ideal of Germany, he chooses to sidestep the issue of her nationalism and to maintain his identification of the nation as a key player in his proposed Europe. He therefore concludes, in language reminiscent of his First-World-War letters, that co-operation between European nations inspired by Germany will ensure that ‘la guerre des peuples sera évitée’ (p. 344). The subjugation of the working class and the suppression of trade unions in Hitler’s Germany were additional concerns for those wary of National Socialism, although Châteaubriant is scornful that ‘on fait croire en France que l’ouvrier allemand gémit sous le joug de la contrainte’ (p. 210). He contends instead that Hitler’s suppression of the unions and his creation of the single Arbeitsfront (labour front) system is based on the principle that, within National Socialism, ‘l’intérêt de tous passe avant l’intérêt de l’individu’ (p. 195). He argues that Hitler has thereby restored both the workers’ dignity and the idea 125

of a community founded on solidarity, responsibility and devotion (p. 196). Furthermore, he interprets the Kraft durch Freude (strength through joy) project as an illustration of state philanthropy in the creation and management of obligatory leisure activities and holidays for workers (pp. 200–04). For Châteaubriant, both the Arbeitsfront and Kraft durch Freude schemes incarnate his theory of a community based on collective activity, mutual duty and respect, as depicted in Monsieur des Lourdines published some twenty-five years previously. The most sensitive charge against which Châteaubriant vigourously defends National Socialism in La Gerbe des forces is that of dechristianisation and anti-Rome activity. He opposes what he sees as French religious sterility (one of his long-standing complaints) with Germany’s religious vitality, arguing that: Les leaders catholiques auront beau dénoncer et accuser l’antichristianisme hitlérien, ce qui fait la force de l’Allemagne hitlérienne, c’est son âme religieuse, et ce qui produit le marasme de la France, c’est le dessèchement religieux qui sévit dans son peuple et chez les dirigeants de France. (p. 122)

He develops this interpretation through his presentation of current Church–State relations in Germany, creating an appearance of debate by recording a supposed conversation between two confident and voluble National Socialists, and three rather hesitant Roman Catholic priests. He reports the formers’ denial that Germany is attempting to ‘édifier […] des cultes […] destinés à remplacer les enseignements de la vieille chrétienté’, alongside their argument that ‘Dieu et le Christ, on ne peut les enlever de l’âme allemande’ (p. 216). Moreover, they credit Hitler with the statement that: Je n’ai jamais combattu et ne combattrai jamais Rome… Nous exigeons la liberté de toutes les opinions religieuses dans l’État, pour autant qu’elles ne mettent pas l’existence de celui-ci en danger ou qu’elles n’offensent pas le sentiment moral et les mœurs de la race germanique. (p. 217)

This declaration manifestly subordinates universal religion to a ‘religion’ of the State, and the priests note their concern at the 126

apparent priority given by German officials to ‘un soi-disant élément religieux germanique sur l’enseignement de l’Église’ (ibid.), as well as their fear that Germany intends to free herself from the influence of the universal Catholic Church. They further charge that Germany rejects the notion of Christianity as a doctrine based on suffering and humility (p. 219), thereby repudiating the crucifixion, and argue that Hitler has not respected the terms of the 1933 Concordat since ‘en forçant la jeunesse catholique à faire corps avec la jeunesse hitlérienne, il a violé l’engagement pris par l’État de respecter l’existence des institutions catholiques’ (p. 222). Such accusations are plainly directed at the activity of Alfred Rosenberg, appointed in January 1934 to direct the spiritual and philosophical education of the Nazi Party.36 Robert Cecil has described Rosenberg as one of a ‘core of anti-Christians around Hitler […] [who] all believed that the Christian ethic was fundamentally opposed to Nazi ideology’, and summarised Rosenberg’s book Der Mythus des 20 Jahrhunderts (1930) as ‘at least as much an attack on Christian churches as […] upon Jewry’.37 But Châteaubriant evidently did not interpret National Socialism as an attack upon Christianity. Rather, he accepts the explanation that ‘Rosenberg n’a nullement reçu du Chancelier mission d’imposer un dogme à l’Allemagne religieuse’, and that ‘c’est en réalité d’une immense crise religieuse que souffre le monde… Et c’est ce que Rosenberg et les siens pressentent’ (GF, p. 218). This apparent diagnosis of a world religious crisis could not fail to win Châteaubriant’s approval, since it so clearly echoes his own ideas. And agreement on the diagnosis was accompanied by a wholehearted acceptance of the prescribed ‘cure’. Rosenberg ascribed the 36

37

Maugendre, Alphonse de Châteaubriant, p. 195, writes that Châteaubriant met both Goebbels and Rosenberg in Berlin in November 1936. It is unlikely that Châteaubriant could have failed to record such a meeting, given his enthusiasm for all things National-Socialist. However, nothing exists in his writings to confirm Maugendre’s claim. Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (Batsford, 1972), p. 84, p. 82.

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decline of Christianity to its absorption of Jewish elements, and believed that the Christian message had been distorted by Saint Paul (himself a Jew), who had over-emphasised the importance of the crucifixion to the detriment of Jesus as ‘the hero, not the bruised one…’ and undermined the importance of aristocracy and race.38 Such themes corresponded to Châteaubriant’s heroic and aristocratic nouvelle chrétienté. He not insignificantly records the National Socialists’ claim to herald ‘une chrétienté nouvelle… nouvelle!…’ which emphasises both Christ as hero (p. 219) and the notion that ‘la Crucifixion et la Résurrection sont un seul et même acte que nous n’avons pas le droit de diviser’ (p. 220) – a reading which acknowledges suffering and death but simultaneously and ultimately lauds heroism and promises regeneration. The National Socialists conclude the conversation with the priests by attaching religious credentials to their regime, claiming not only that ‘l’État N.-S. se fonde sur les Églises, la catholique et la protestante’ (p. 221), but also that ‘aucun jeune homme ne serait admis dans la Hitlerjugend s’il ne croyait pas en Dieu’ (p. 223). Châteaubriant swallows such claims unquestioningly, indicating that he has fallen for the German Christus line as presented via the offices of Rosenberg, and, as we will see shortly, that his understanding of the true nature of both Christianity and National Socialism is defective. It is noticeable that the charges against National Socialism which Châteaubriant chooses specifically to refute also challenge the main aspects of his own previously defined programme for regeneration, namely Franco-German co-operation, Europeanism, the organic community and a heroic Christianity. Given this correspondence of theme, his claim to view National Socialism without prejudice and to write of his encounter lucidly and objectively is unconvincing. That claim is rendered even more implausible if, in addition to his dismissal of charges levelled at National Socialism, we consider his omission of other aspects. In particular, he makes no reference to any ‘destructive’ 38

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Ibid., p. 85.

aspects of National Socialism, such as the May 1933 burning of books written by well-known German and foreign authors who were condemned by the Third Reich, and their subsequent ban, and the June 1934 blood purge of Hitler’s potential rivals and enemies. The two most remarkable omissions, however, given their significance, concern the Jewish Question and reference to documented and published Catholic opposition to National Socialism within Germany, remembering that the meeting of German and Catholic representatives examined earlier is simply Châteaubriant’s subjective and perhaps even invented record of that occurrence. Anti-Jewish activity intensified in Germany from 1933, with Jews discriminated against in economic, educational, professional and social terms. Many Jewish authors were among those whose works were banned in 1933,39 while the 1935 Nuremberg Laws criminalised marriages between Jews and non-Jews in the name of the preservation of German blood and German honour. La Gerbe des forces, however, makes no mention of such events. It is conceivable that Châteaubriant saw no evidence of anti-Jewish activities while on his tour of Germany, since his hosts would have restricted his freedom to travel unguided and so limited the things he saw and the people to whom he spoke. He was, therefore, highly unlikely to come into contact with any staunch opponents of National Socialism during his travels. And yet he was aware of opposition to National Socialism from ordinary German people, for he notes a National Socialist’s reference to the creation of concentration camps, set up to ‘ménager autant qu’il était possible le sang allemand qui s’opposait à ce que nous voulions instituer’ (p. 295). The reference is sinister, but, remarkably, Châteaubriant fails to pursue either the question of the function and operation of the camps to which people disappeared never to return, or the nature of such German opposition to National Socialism, no 39

Joll, Europe since 1870, p. 343 notes, for example, that ‘some of the most famous lyric poems in the language by the Jewish radical Heinrich Heine were now described as being by an anonymous author’.

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doubt on the basis of its lack of importance for his reading of Germany. Equally worryingly, given Châteaubriant’s Catholic origins, there is a striking absence of reference to documented and published Catholic opposition to National-Socialist Germany before June 1937, when La Gerbe des forces was completed (p. 353). No mention is made, for example, of the cautionary sermons of Munich’s Cardinal Faulhaber, which dated from December 1933, or of the Vatican’s condemnation of Rosenberg’s Der Mythus des 20 Jahrhunderts in 1934, or of the German bishops’ proclamation in November 1936, or of Pius XI’s encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, published in March 1937. Châteaubriant was in Germany in November 1936 and in France in late March 1937, having just completed a lecture tour of France and Switzerland speaking on his impressions of Hitler’s Germany (UA, 1996, p. 387). He was therefore almost certainly aware of at least the two later events, given the widespread publicity each received, and his lack of reference again suggests his dismissal of opposition to his reading of National-Socialist Germany. Indeed, Châteaubriant uses La Gerbe des forces to challenge the Church’s interpretation of Germany, and thus to question its authority.

The Middle Ages meets the Third Reich If a first major function of La Gerbe des forces is to dismiss the charges aimed at National Socialism, then a second is to present Châteaubriant’s interpretation of its true nature and function. Châteaubriant’s Germany is a poetic nation based on culture, legend and fairy tales, nature and history, which together constitute an ‘immense romantisme allemand’ (GF, p. 172). Cultural references are many, and include such luminaries of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music and literature as Hoffmann, Schumann, Wagner, Goethe, Schiller and the Grimm 130

brothers. Through its revival of medieval legend and Germanic myth, Wagner’s music contributed in particular to a strong sense of German nationalism which was exploited by National Socialism. References to Wagner punctuate La Gerbe des forces, making him the most significant cultural presence in the text. Châteaubriant describes attending a performance of Lohengrin (1848) in Bayreuth, where Wagner spent his last years (p. 79); references to Parsifal evoke Wagner’s 1882 opera of the same title, and such descriptions of the National Socialists as ‘ces grands Siegfrieds aux yeux clairs’ (p. 399) bring to mind Wagner’s opera Siegfried (1876), from the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, in which the hero is presented as a new type of man. Natural images also feature strongly in La Gerbe des forces: ‘nourrie de nature’, the German soul ‘exprime la forêt [et] célèbre le Rhin’, and ‘tout homme allemand est par elle le poète de la fleur’ (p. 90, p. 91), with flowers much in evidence at National-Socialist gatherings (pp. 35–36). And, in historical terms, Châteaubriant sets new Germany in a framework which rejects the immediate past of the last German Empire (p. 29) and which emphasises instead what he calls her ‘prestigieux passé’ (p. 125), including in this the reign of Charlemagne (p. 11), the ‘Germanie’ of the Middle Ages (p. 125) and the kingdom of Prussia (p. 29). He is, he writes, convinced of ‘la forte survivance des choses de la Germanie dans le cœur et la vie de l’Allemand actuel’ (p. 164). The medieval references in La Gerbe des forces are not unexpected, given Châteaubriant’s earlier writings, but they are now substantially developed on a physical, an institutional and a spiritual level, together serving to present National-Socialist Germany as the incarnation of a new Middle Ages. Châteaubriant underlines Germany’s medieval physical appearance through repeated references to her ancient towns and castles. In La Gerbe des forces, the invented castles of Monsieur des Lourdines and La Réponse du Seigneur are superseded by Altenburg and its ‘vieux château féodal’ (p. 39) and by Bamberg’s fourteenth-century castle (p. 314). The Middle Ages initially meets the Third Reich in Châteaubriant’s description of the ‘esplanade de l’ancien château convertie en un lieu illustre par toute la pensée allemande’ and used 131

for National-Socialist rallies (pp. 28–29), and again when he writes that the training schools for Germany’s future leaders at Crössinsee, Vogelsang and Sonthofen are ‘de hautes constructions, tenant du château fort et du monastère médiéval’ (p. 273), thereby creating a link between National Socialism and medieval Christianity which we will examine shortly. On an institutional level, Châteaubriant considers that two National-Socialist social and political systems in particular echo medieval structures, namely the Führerprinzip (the leadership principle) and the Erbhof (land inheritance). Based on the Führerprinzip, he describes Germany’s power structure as a pyramid composed of separate ‘cells’, each with an individual leader, and all progressively grouped into larger, interdependent structures which together form the organism that is the nation. At its head stands the Führer. For the nation to survive, the cells must function harmoniously within the whole structure. Similarly, each cell’s survival is dependent on the whole organism, for ‘si de l’organisme s’enlève la cellule, la cellule meurt’ (p. 299), as we saw in the case of Anthime’s déracinement in Monsieur des Lourdines. The power pyramid illustrates instantly recognisable notions of mutual duty and appropriate leadership which Châteaubriant’s earlier writings rooted in the feudal period, and he writes in La Gerbe des forces that Hitler’s Germany is trying to recreate the ‘contrats de loyal service conclus entre le vassal et le suzerain’ in the time of the ‘vieux Germains’ (p. 192). In contrast, France’s democratic system is defined as ‘la dictature de la majorité’, since democratic elections mean that many French are unrepresented in the subsequent government if their chosen candidate fails to win the seat (p. 298). Châteaubriant manifestly holds an odd notion of democracy. Contrary to popular opinion, he believes that the National-Socialist regime is not a dictatorship, but a ‘true’ democracy, ‘contrôlée et dirigée par une aristocratie tirée de son sein et qui se renouvelle constamment’, and which is made up of ‘des responsables et des meilleurs’ (p. 267). In Hitler’s Germany, therefore, ‘l’autorité est en bas et la responsabilité en haut’ (p. 268), a situation which resembles that depicted in Monsieur des 132

Lourdines, and which stands as evidence of Châteaubriant’s ability to interpret National-Socialist Germany according to his previously defined ideas, rather than to see its reality. The Erbhof is presented in terms of the restoration of a medieval social custom designed to ensure that the distribution of inherited land protects the peasant community and guarantees the maintenance of the land. Reactivating a theme raised by Monsieur des Lourdines and La Brière, the Erbhof opposes modern economic principles by encouraging reversion to the land. Châteaubriant notes that its apparent emphasis on feudal models of mutual duty and community ‘a fait accuser [le national-socialisme] de vouloir ramener le moyen âge sur la terre’ (p. 193), and that the Germans are seen simply as ‘les revenants du moyen âge’ (p. 95). For Châteaubriant, comparison with his Middle Ages is no insult. Nor are the National Socialists shadowy, insubstantial ghosts reminding the modern world of the principles of an age long since dead and gone. Rather, they are concrete beings working for the reimplementation of an eternal spirit, a new Middle Ages and a new kingdom of God on earth, and therefore for a New Christendom. As one German is supposed to have explained to him: Nous ne sommes pas des revenants du moyen âge! La Foi […] vient nous aider, nous, à reconstruire, je ne dis pas seulement notre patrie, mais… oui… peutêtre… ai-je le droit de parler de la sorte… un nouveau royaume de Dieu? […] Beaucoup plus que l’esprit du moyen âge, c’est un nouvel esprit que nous exprimons… Ou, plutôt, c’est l’esprit de toujours, l’éternel esprit. (p. 95, p. 96, p. 97)

Châteaubriant evidently believes that he has not only the right, but also a bounden duty to proclaim this reading of Hitler’s Germany to the world. For Châteaubriant, politics pure and simple is merely ‘un enchaînement que l’homme ne conduit pas, mais dans lequel il est enchaîné’, and he is convinced that ‘l’homme a dans les mains des puissances plus hautes que celles de la politique’ (p. 285). This allusion to the primacy of the spiritual over the political is clearly centred on 133

National-Socialist Germany. Germany, he argues, is constructed on something other than purely political lines and operates on a higher, spiritual plane, for ‘la révolution national-socialiste n’est pas partie de la politique, elle est partie de l’homme’ (p. 248), while Germany’s future leaders are trained in ‘les principes essentiels, qui sont des principes de vie, beaucoup plus que des principes politiques’ (p. 281). The National-Socialist revolution, he writes, is a ‘révolution dans l’esprit de l’homme’ (p. 205), and Hitler, above all, ‘symbolise un esprit nouveau, celui d’une révolution – la révolution qui se dresse en face du bolchevisme’ (p. 140). With Bolshevism defined in true Catholic manner as a force for dechristianisation, and National Socialism characterised as antiBolshevist, Châteaubriant adopts a neat but highly questionable logic which goes one step further and interprets National Socialism as the counter-force of Bolshevism, and therefore as a force for rechristianisation. This logic permits him to present the National Socialists as ‘Chrétiens’ and the Bolshevists as ‘Athées’ (p. 290). He is critical of those French Catholics who voted for the Popular Front (that is, as he sees it, for the Communists) in 1936, believing they did so ‘poussés par la terreur qu’on leur avait faite d’Hitler, […] [et] sous les prétexte que là au moins, dans le communisme égalitaire et égalisateur, revivrait quelque chose de l’antique idée chrétienne’ (p. 224). And, in what is evidently a reference to the Catholics on the journal Terre nouvelle, he attacks those who: […] ont poussé l’illusion jusqu’à croire qu’ils pouvaient transposer les données du bolchevisme dans le plan de leur régime confessionnel, se les approprier, les diriger, les adapter, faire du bolchevisme […] un mouvement de communisme chrétien. (p. 260)

He further warns against Moscow’s attempt to win Catholics over to what he calls the new religion of ‘communisme évangélique’, disagreeing with Russia’s alleged claim that ‘les gouvernements, dits fascistes, d’Allemagne et d’Italie, sont des monuments de despotisme humain, les deux empires du “Prince de ce monde”’ (p. 141). In 134

Châteaubriant’s opinion, it is Bolshevism that is the work of the devil, and his great fear is that France will succumb to this false religion and kneel at the feet of its pseudo-spiritual leader ‘travesti en pape’ (ibid.). Of course, the Catholic world generally viewed Bolshevism with absolute horror, and, in that respect, Châteaubriant’s response is not unusual. But he openly sets himself apart since he then chooses to argue that if Bolshevism is the work of the devil, then the counterforce of National Socialism can only be the work of God. Châteaubriant fails to see National Socialism as a false religion. Rather, he elects to see it as gesta Dei per Germanos, and thereby attaches Christian values to one political ideology while rejecting their allocation to a second. He also fails to see National Socialism as a political dictatorship, while his reference to ‘gouvernements, dits fascistes’ (ibid.) indicates that he rejects such a classification of the regime. Indeed, Fascism was evidently not one of his terms of reference, since this statement represents the sole usage of the term in La Gerbe des forces. In Châteaubriant’s eyes, National Socialism is Christian rather than fascist. In a development on the physical and institutional references to the Middle Ages noted above, Châteaubriant locates Germany in the religious framework of the Middle Ages. He writes that he has travelled to Germany to ‘vivre le retour des siècles’ (p. 149), and contends that humanity is faced with a simple choice, ‘périr ou revenir en arrière’ (p. 288), thereby reinforcing our earlier argument that his desired New Christendom requires a different Middle Ages than the adapted Middle Ages of mainstream nouvelle chrétienté thinkers. According to Châteaubriant, the importance of medieval society is that it was ‘fondée sur le Chrétien […] dont nous n’avons plus l’idée’ (p. 134), and which must be rediscovered. For the past seven or eight hundred years (so, since the thirteenth century), ‘toute la conscience humaine a cessé d’appeler le Christ à ses grandes fonctions salvatrices de réédificateur du monde intérieur de l’homme’ (p. 19). To counter this, he calls for a new emphasis on ‘les intérêts de Dieu sur la terre’ (p. 237), in other words, the primacy of the spiritual. He believes that this 135

is underway in National-Socialist Germany. Noting how Catholic tradition trembles in the hearts of those who argue that ‘les nationauxsocialistes pèchent en ne sachant pas voir tout ce que l’Église porte en elle’, Châteaubriant rejoins with alarming spiritual arrogance and deviancy that the Church should recognise – as he has done – the salutary Christian force of National Socialism (pp. 18–19). He therefore not only continues to bypass the Church as the engineer of spiritual renewal, but now openly indicates that, in his opinion, the Church is pursuing an inadequate pathway and should instead follow his lead. Châteaubriant believes that he knows better than the Church. In Châteaubriant’s opinion, the dechristianisation of the modern world demands action and France must choose either Berlin or Moscow as her saviour (p. 336). His own choice of Berlin rests on his conviction that Germany is carrying out a crusade for spiritual regeneration through the recreation of a heroic Christianity based on resurrection. Germany is in a period of new Christian construction to rival that of the Middle Ages, noted for its building of great cathedrals (pp. 95–96), and he writes of Hitler that ‘c’est à l’intérieur des âmes que son national-socialisme semble avoir construit sa cathédrale germanique’ (p. 345). Hitler has realised, he proclaims, that ‘il fallait tout reconstruire, tout recommencer; détruire l’intellectualisme, le libéralisme, l’individualisme’ (p. 80). Châteaubriant views NationalSocialist Germany as ‘un renouveau, un printemps […] un recommencement de tout… un nouveau Jour!’ (p. 162). The country is in the process of purification (p. 236), undergoing a new baptism spearheaded by Hitler (p. 137), who is even portrayed as the contemporary incarnation of John the Baptist, cleansing his people in National-Socialist Germany, the modern-day equivalent of the River Jordan (pp. 76–77). Hitler’s goal, writes Châteaubriant, is to: Édifier un homme nouveau, lavé de toutes les souillures qu’ont en lui déposées les contaminations et les préjugés de la soi-disant civilisation, guéri de toutes les déformations, et rendu à la pureté des sources. (p. 76)

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As an SS representative is reported to have explained, ‘être NationalSocialiste, c’est devenir un homme nouveau… c’est, d’abord, tuer en soi le “Schwein”’ (p. 64) – a theme dear to Châteaubriant since ‘l’homme animal’ of La Meute. On this evidence, the National Socialists easily correspond to Châteaubriant’s required new human as advocated in the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante. Once reconstructed and baptised, the National Socialist appears ‘sous son uniforme brun ou noir, comme l’ancien guerrier, l’ancien moine’ (p. 160), thereby corresponding to the new crusaders whose imminent arrival he had predicted at the end of La Réponse du Seigneur. In La Gerbe des forces, the National Socialists are described as ‘les suprêmes chevaliers d’un suprême ordre teutonique’, while the Nazi Party represents ‘tout ce qui fut l’ordre des chevaleries d’Europe’ (p. 305). Germany’s future leaders are ‘disciples’, an elite group of ‘mille hommes privilégiés’ (p. 281), chosen annually to train in institutions which Châteaubriant interprets as ‘monastère[s] de guerriers’ (p. 296) and which are ‘aussi religieuse que guerrière’ (p. 276). And, since the Germans are his new crusaders, Châteaubriant is able to reason that ‘les nationaux-socialistes allemands sont l’apparition humaine d’un recommencement de l’œuvre de Dieu’ (p. 161). Châteaubriant evidently saw Hitler’s Germany as the incarnation of his nouvelle chrétienté rather than as the Germanic pagan movement of ‘God-believers’ which the Nazi Party was seen to favour. As the orchestrator of Germany’s nouvelle chrétienté, Hitler is both a temporal and a spiritual leader and embodies the fusion of both temporal and spiritual qualities, for ‘si Hitler a une main qui salue, qui s’étend vers les masses de la façon que l’on sait, son autre main, dans l’invisible, ne cesse d’étreindre fidèlement la main de Celui qui s’appelle Dieu’ (p. 136).40 In temporal terms, Hitler is a Roman emperor in the style of Caesar (p. 258), while, in spiritual terms, he is depicted as John the Baptist (p. 76), as we have seen, or else as the 40

A reading of reviews of La Gerbe des forces indicates that this is the most infamous and often-cited quotation.

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prophet Jeremiah (p. 109). The Christian allusions multiply, for Hitler is said to represent ‘une certaine lumière véritable et véridique [qui] se créait un chemin’ (p. 20), a paraphrase of Christ’s ‘je suis la voie, la vérité et la vie’ in John 14.6, or else he is credited with a phraseology normally associated with Christ, such as ‘je suis en vous et vous êtes en moi’ (p. 66), a paraphrase of John 17.21. Such references imbue Hitler and National Socialism with not simply a religious but a Christian character, and suggest that, for Châteaubriant, Hitler represents a spiritual authority to rival that of the Pope. In La Gerbe des forces, temporal power ultimately kneels before spiritual power. The duty of the temporal leader, according to Châteaubriant, is to protect the country’s spiritual institutions ‘audessus de toutes atteintes, sans quoi il cesse d’être un politicien’ (p. 217). On this basis, the spiritual becomes a prerequisite for political activity. This point is further underlined when Châteaubriant records how, in the Middle Ages, the coronation of kings and emperors was incomplete without a spiritual blessing, with temporal power therefore seen to be dependent on the spiritual for approval, inspiration and guidance. Medieval bishops are defined as: […] immenses évêques […] qui, mitre en tête, et chasublés de pierreries, appuient chacune de leurs mains colossales et consécratrices, symbole de la priorité spirituelle, sur une tête d’empereur ou de roi, tout petits hommes grands, grands comme des nains, à genoux à leurs côtés. (p. 241)

In Châteaubriant’s opinion, Hitler fulfils his duty with regard to Germany’s spiritual institutions, despite the very real protests otherwise of the Christian Churches. He also believes that NationalSocialist Germany has the approval of God and takes its inspiration from Christian values and principles. The elaboration of Châteaubriant’s reading of medieval thought in La Gerbe des forces confirms our earlier conclusion that he was an essentialist who preferred a Christianity of revelation, and a selfdefined visionary who believed that he had a special insight into Christian truth. In the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, Châteaubriant 138

indicated that ‘vision’ permitted knowledge and intelligence of God, while La Réponse du Seigneur underlined that don de soi was an integral part of the contemplation process. La Gerbe des forces sees both these qualities in National-Socialist Germany. Hitler, for example, is a man of vision who personifies Châteaubriant’s contemplation theory. In much the same way as Châteaubriant earlier emphasised Timothée des Lourdines and Aoustin’s fusion with their soil, Hitler’s eyes suggest his unity with his ‘soil’, for ‘ses yeux sont du bleu profond des eaux de son lac de Königsee’ (p. 68). Hitler is ‘l’homme qui voit’ (p. 75), who ‘avec son œil clair et profond […] a plongé son regard dans le processus des lois fatales’ (p. 255), in contrast to the ‘intellectual’ French who reason but do not ‘see’ (p. 119). The National Socialists generally are able to ‘see’, for Châteaubriant writes of a clearly symbolic ‘ardent jeune Siegfried’ who ‘l’œil fixé sur le lointain horizon, scandait ces mots: “Oh! la richesse du don de soi!”’ (p. 63). His definition of ‘l’oubli de soi-même, le sacrifice de soi-même’ as ‘tout l’essentiel du christianisme’ (p. 245) is based on the message of John 17.20–23. And since the fundamental principle on which the new Germany rests is that ‘l’intérêt de tous passe avant l’intérêt de l’individu’ (p. 195), then Châteaubriant can argue that National Socialism is the incarnation of eternal Christian principles, for Hitler’s thought ‘plonge ses racines organiques dans l’eau généreuse du profond lac chrétien’ (p. 250). Châteaubriant identifies a correspondance between NationalSocialist Germany’s promotion of the collective over the individual and the debate in the Middle Ages between the nominalists and the realists (p. 129). He then presents this correspondance as further ‘proof’ that National Socialism is Christian. The nominalist–realist debate, of great importance in the Middle Ages, centred on the question of universals and the relation of genera and species to individuals.41 Nominalists held that general terms (universals) such as 41

The summary of the nominalist–realist debate given here follows Gordon Leff, Medieval Thought: Saint Augustine to Ockham (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958), pp. 104–05.

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‘animal’ and ‘man’ were merely words, that only individuals existed, and that the genus or species corresponded to nothing in the real world. Realists, however, recognised the existence of genera and species and their correspondence to reality, while extreme realists held that all reality inhered in universals, and that form or essence came before the individual. As we have already discovered in our reading of the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, Châteaubriant subordinates existence to essence, and therefore particulars to universals. The same process occurs in La Gerbe des forces, where it takes the form of the subordination of the individual (the particular) to the collective essence, which Châteaubriant sees as the ‘reality’ of the national organism. He interprets the nominalist–realist debate as the source of individualism, arguing that it was ‘livré en vue de la […] victoire dans l’homme de l’infini sur le fini et de l’absolu sur le visible’ (p. 128). In his representation of that debate, Châteaubriant opposes his reading of the Franciscan friar, philosopher and scientist Roger Bacon (c.1214– 92/4) to his understanding of the Franciscan Saint Bonaventure and the leader of the Cistercian mystics, Saint Bernard. Bacon, he argues, held that ‘le monde […] a été fait pour des individus et non pour l’homme universel, ce sont des personnes et non des universaux qui ont été rachetés par Dieu’ (p. 130). In contrast: Les Jean de Fidanza [Saint Bonaventure], les Saint Bernard ne raisonnaient pas au nom de l’individuel, simple catégorie humaine, mais au nom de l’infini; ils ne procédaient pas par l’abstraction, comme on le prétendait, mais selon une méthode intérieure prenant son soutien dans la Réalité divine même. (ibid.)

Châteaubriant argues that ‘c’est l’universel seul qui est le réel. C’est dans cet universel que l’homme trouve son individu’, and thus contends that the medieval debate on universals was – and remains – far more than a quarrel between monks since ‘il s’agit de la direction que va prendre l’esprit humain’ (p. 131). In his opinion, modern-day scepticism, materialist individualism and the objective method he so deplores are all rooted in nominalism. He favours a medieval society ‘fondée sur le Chrétien, un Chrétien à l’avènement duquel travaillaient 140

les Jean de Fidanza’, and despairs at the influence of nominalism, since ‘à mesure que le Chrétien évolua, sous l’influence des Roger Bacon, passa de l’âme à l’esprit et à la chair, la société évolua tout entière’ (p. 134). For Châteaubriant, this evolution from a society based on faith and essence to one based on reason and existence resulted in a completely different form of society, one founded on ‘l’homme de la Renaissance’ who ‘chercha toute sa force en l’homme’, in contrast to ‘le Chrétien [qui] prenait toute sa force en Dieu’ (ibid.). Four centuries on from the Renaissance, its human product is nothing more than ‘une cendre, impersonnelle, sans identité et sans substance’ (p. 135). Based on his reading of the nominalist–realist debate, Châteaubriant concludes that: Hitler est une incarnation de l’âme ‘réaliste’ allemande, laquelle veut réagir contre le nominalisme et la décadence cartésienne, dont le dernier terme est le marxisme. […] C’est le mariage de l’esprit humain avec la raison basée sur l’objectif considéré comme une réalité, qui a amené la débâcle des sociétés humaines. Nous vivons la décadence aristotélicienne. (pp. 136–37)42

Châteaubriant’s presentation of the nominalist–realist debate in La Gerbe des forces represents a further manifestation of his personal interpretation of the Middle Ages. Interestingly, no explanation is given for his choice of Bacon and Bonaventure to illustrate this debate, although it would seem to be due at least partly to Bacon’s promotion of scientific and rational thought, which Châteaubriant would reject. And he makes scant or no reference to others more immediately associated with the debate, such as Peter Abelard (1079– 1142) and William of Ockham (c.1285–1347?). Châteaubriant’s exploitation of the nominalist–realist debate in his presentation of Hitler’s Germany stands as weighty evidence of his allocation of Christian values and principles to National Socialism. It therefore also reveals a highly questionable logic and thought process in terms of his understanding of the true nature of Christian thought, showing that 42

The emphasis is Châteaubriant’s.

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his grounding in Catholic doctrine did not enable him to see through the bogus religiosity of National Socialism. Furthermore, his reading of his medieval sources is inadequate. Men such as Aquinas and Bacon emerge as flat, one-sided thinkers – the intellectual and the scientist, respectively – men whose rich, multi-faceted thought is barely referenced, so keen is Châteaubriant to attack in them what he personally cannot accept. His treatment of these thinkers reveals much about his own character. Châteaubriant had his own specific fixed agenda based on a dislike of change and evolution, which he rooted in the thirteenth century, widely regarded as the ‘age of syntheses’.43 He was not a man who engaged and debated, but rather one who declaimed, preached, lectured and harangued. His supreme confidence in his own intellectual and spiritual ‘superiority’, sometimes thinly veiled by a false modesty, betray an arrogance beyond measure. Such characteristics are amply demonstrated in La Gerbe des forces and would shortly emerge once more in the pages of Châteaubriant’s wartime, collaborationist newspaper, La Gerbe. Châteaubriant’s treatment of the question of race in La Gerbe des forces further calls into question the nature of his understanding of Christian thought, for he constructs a fraudulent religious justification for racism. Basing his argument on his interpretation of Matthew 18.20, which notes that ‘en quelque lieu que se trouvent deux ou trois personnes assemblées en mon nom, je m’y trouve au milieu d’elles’, Châteaubriant holds that a racially pure community represents the best methodology for the attainment of Christ, this because monasteries were traditionally communities of similar persons: Si le groupement est pur, si les hommes sont semblables, l’esprit sera identique et l’association pour Dieu puissamment unanime. La race deviendra ainsi, par son homogénéité même, le plus haut marchepied de la prière. (p. 232)

However, as he continues:

43

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Leff, Medieval Thought, p. 168.

Si le groupement n’est pas pur, par conséquent, si les individus sont dissemblables par la nature de leur esprit, l’intérêt de leur cœur, la forme de leur croyance, chaque homme deviendra individuel et la grande force de la prière sera perdue. (ibid.)

He supports this theory with reference to the stained-glass windows in Chartres cathedral which depict apostles of different skin colour, representative of the principal races which share the world (p. 233), each located in a different section of the windows. Châteaubriant’s reading of the windows is distinctly racial. Based on their ‘example’, he argues that: Aujourd’hui comme hier, les races juxtaposées, serties les unes près des autres dans leur cadre immuable, ne se mélangent pas, ne doivent pas se mélanger. Par la leçon de la verrière, c’est le non-mélange qui est fondamental. (ibid.)44

These windows, he suggests, are a medieval version of Gobineau’s modern-day theories, his earlier approval of which we have already noted. And he then deliberately twists the words of Matthew 19.6, writing that the ‘question racique, telle qu’elle est formulée à Berlin’ – and which he heartily endorses – is that ‘ce que Dieu a désuni ne doit pas être réuni’ (ibid.), the complete opposite of the original text, undoubtedly known to him as a Catholic born and bred. Châteaubriant no longer simply paraphrases the Bible, but now corrupts its words to suit his purpose, in this instance to construct a religious vindication for his ideas on race.

44

In describing the stained-glass windows in Chartres cathedral, Châteaubriant writes that ‘dans une suite de hautes verrières éclatantes sont alignées des figures d’apôtres, portant tous sur leurs épaules un des prophètes de l’Ancien Testament’ (p. 233). This is incorrect, since the windows actually depict four Old Testament prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel) carrying the four evangelists of the New Testament. Whether Châteaubriant’s mistake is unintentional or deliberate, it can clearly also be read as further evidence of his preference for the Christianity of the Old Testament.

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Châteaubriant interprets racism in defensive rather than aggressive terms, and justifies his demonisation of the Other with the argument that race is not ‘un principe élevé contre l’étranger’, but rather ‘une volonté d’enracinement dans le sang et le sol, source de la plus grande communauté solidaire, et par là le gage de la prospérité future de chacun’ (p. 148). His long-held views on sang et sol and nationalism, illustrated in both Monsieur des Lourdines and La Brière, determine his response to National-Socialist Germany in the mid1930s, and he willingly embraces a German’s claim that ‘Vaterland […] n’est pas le vrai mot. Le vrai mot est Heimat, c’est-à-dire tout le sol, tout le sang, tout l’air où l’on est né […]. Heimat: sang et sol’ (pp. 301– 02). Châteaubriant does not accept that sang et sol represented Germany’s religion, and that, as George Mosse has written, ‘the Nazis substituted racism for religion’.45 Rather, his religious justification of his own racism operates to allocate Germany’s racism the same ‘Christian’ roots. His theory that ‘l’arbre est un concept, le chêne est une race; ce qui est, c’est le chêne’ (p. 148) indicates that race is of ultimate importance to him, more so even than the concept of humanity. And he not only holds that races should not mix, as illustrated by La Brière and restated in La Gerbe des forces through the image of the stained-glass windows, but also that some races are more ‘suitable’ and ‘dignes de constituer des nations’ (p. 231) than others. During the Occupation, Châteaubriant’s racism would mature as an integral element of his collaboration with National-Socialist Germany. Châteaubriant’s interpretation of Hitler’s Germany in La Gerbe des forces astounded his contemporary critics. His preference for feudal times earned him classification as a historical misfit by Emmanuel Mounier and André Thérive,46 while his simple opposition of Berlin and Moscow garnered a charge of ‘naïveté incommensurable’ from

45 46

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George Mosse, ‘The Genesis of Fascism’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1 (1966), 14–26 (p. 19). Mounier, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, p. 687; Thérive, ‘La Gerbe des forces’, p. 3.

Robert Brasillach.47 Here was a writer bewitched by ‘l’éternelle Lorelei’ (ibid.), whose text provided a poetic rather than a political interpretation of National-Socialist Germany and which brimmed over with ‘lyrisme, souvenirs, évocations poétiques, langage de vieilles légendes et des lieds berceurs’.48 The readings of his treatment of the theme of religion in La Gerbe des forces were especially critical. Châteaubriant, most agreed, saw Hitler’s Germany in religious terms, although the type of religion identified varied. Brasillach, for instance, attacked what he saw as Châteaubriant’s naïve reception of a pagan, mythical Germany, writing that in the text ‘il ne s’agit pas d’un raisonnement, il s’agit d’une religion, c’est Jocrisse au Walhalla’, while Thérive argued more perceptively that Châteaubriant saw National Socialism as ‘une sorte de christianisme renouvelé et purifié’.49 The reviews generally cast doubt on Châteaubriant’s understanding of Christian values. Thérive wrote that his fusion of National Socialism and Christianity within his theory of oubli de soi illustrated a ‘curieux christianisme’.50 In Études, Du Passage focused his concerns on Chapter Fifteen of La Gerbe des forces, entitled ‘L’Allemagne et le crucifix’, in which Châteaubriant extols the notion of a heroic Christianity and rejects that of the crucifixion; and in Esprit Mounier condemned those sections where Châteaubriant finds religious justification for racism. Both men also criticised as naïve his exploitation of the nominalist–realist debate.51 For these critics, Châteaubriant had misunderstood the meaning of events across the Rhine, as Du Passage summarised: N’a-t-il pas compris qu’ils [the National Socialists] allaient, comme tous les dires de la philosophie naziste, à établir la suprématie d’une religion d’État, dont les

47 48 49 50 51

Brasillach, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, p. 3. Du Passage, ‘La Gerbe des forces’, p. 565. Brasillach, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, p. 3; Thérive, ‘Un héraut du Troisième Reich’, p. 6. Thérive, ‘La Gerbe des forces’, p. 3. Du Passage, ‘La Gerbe des forces’, p. 565; Mounier, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, p. 688.

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idoles sont la terre et le sang, et, sous couleur d’exalter ‘le Christ héroïque’, à répudier le Christ historique tenu pour représentant d’une race étrangère inférieure, à récuser aussi toutes les vertus du sacrifice, de l’humilité, de la souffrance dont le christianisme authentique ne saurait être dépouillé?52

La Gerbe des forces unmasks Châteaubriant as a diehard racist disguised as a patriot and a Christian. Moreover, his reading of National-Socialist Germany as the incarnation of his desired New Christendom confirms that he has a deficient understanding of the true nature of both National Socialism and Christianity. Châteaubriant had long sailed close to the orthodox–heterodox divide, as we have seen, but in La Gerbe des forces his personal view of Christianity borders on the heretical, on the grounds of his rejection of the crucifixion as a separate event. No longer content to bypass the Catholic Church, he openly challenges its response to National Socialism, asserts that he is right and that the Church is wrong, manipulates religion to justify his ideas, and finally substitutes National Socialism for institutional religion as the engineer of spiritual renewal. Châteaubriant himself would have strongly disputed a charge of heresy, so convinced was he of the accuracy of his thought and actions. But such sincerity in fact made him all the more dangerous, since his commitment to Hitler’s Germany as the required salutary force stemmed not from opportunism but from pure conviction. As the Right-wing Catholic Henri de Kérillis commented in 1940, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant [est] d’autant plus dangereux qu’il n’est ni vénal ni corrompu’.53 During the Occupation, Châteaubriant would put his theory of collaboration into practice. In the same way, his actual collaboration can only be described as one of conviction.

52 53

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Du Passage, ‘La Gerbe des forces’, p. 565. Cited in Christophe, Les Catholiques devant la guerre, p. 52.

5 La France devant la collaboration1

France declared war on Germany on 2 September 1939, thereby sparking the third major conflict between the two nations in the space of just seventy years. For Alphonse de Châteaubriant, France’s Premier, ‘le déplorable ministre Daladier’ (3 September 1942), had made a grave mistake, catapulting the nation headlong down the pathway which would lead to her inevitable defeat in June 1940. Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938 and the Kristallnacht of 9–10 November 1938 had represented worrying signs of Nazi attitudes and ambitions, and it had soon became apparent that efforts to pursue reconciliation and co-operation (such as the Munich agreement of 30 September 1938, or the 6 December 1938 meeting between Bonnet and Ribbentrop, the French and German Foreign Office ministers) were based on empty German promises. But Châteaubriant did not share such views. Clearly bitter that the recommendations contained in La Gerbe des forces had not been heeded, and that the text had been ‘réprouvé et maudit’ in 1937 by an uncomprehending France (9 October 1941), his memories of the prewar period are those of ‘un homme que l’égarement de la majorité de ses compatriotes, égarement obtenu à force d’infâmes mensonges politiciens, mettait à la torture’ (3 September 1942). The defeat of France confirmed his viewpoint and provided the opportunity to berate and denounce those he held responsible for her decline. Throughout the Occupation he would trumpet collaboration as the cure, either in the columns of the weekly collaborationist newspaper La Gerbe, which he directed, or as a frequent orator at collaborationist 1

This is the title of an article written by Châteaubriant in La Gerbe, 19 December 1940, p. 7. Dates given henceforward in references in this chapter refer to Châteaubriant’s articles in La Gerbe.

gatherings, most notably those organised under the aegis of the Groupe Collaboration (created in September 1940), of which he was president. His message never varied: France, he proclaimed, should seize the moment, for collaboration was her only prospect of salvation. The defeat of France in June 1940 was marked by the exode, as many French in the north fled from the advancing Germans. Châteaubriant was one of their number, travelling south and then west from Paris, reaching Couffé (some thirty kilometres up the Loire from Nantes) on 16 June, where the Germans would arrive three days later. The French government had left Paris on 10 June, journeying first to Tours, then to Bordeaux (where the decision to seek terms with the Germans was taken) and Clermont-Ferrand, before arriving in Vichy on 1 July, the apparent intention being that – following a short war – it would return to Paris as soon as practical.2 Meanwhile the Germans entered Paris on 14 June and communicated their terms to the French exactly one week later: France was to be divided into a northern occupied zone (to include the Atlantic coast) and a southern unoccupied zone where the French government would establish its headquarters in apparent independence. At Hitler’s insistence the Armistice was signed on 22 June at Compiègne, in the same railway carriage in which Marshal Foch had accepted the German surrender at the end of the First World War. France’s defeat and humiliation were total, and barely lessened by Pétain’s justificatory and rallying speeches to the French on 23 and 25 June 1940.3 At the time, Châteaubriant was in Mayenne at the offices of the printer Jean Floch, who had produced La Gerbe des forces for Grasset in 1937,4 but he decided to return to 2 3 4

148

Amouroux, La Grande Histoire des Français sous l’occupation, II, 56. Le Maréchal Pétain: paroles aux Français, messages et écrits 1934–1941, ed. by Gabriel Jaray (Lyon: Lardanchet, 1941), pp. 41–51. Floch and Grasset had also combined forces to produce Fernand de Brinon’s France–Allemagne 1918–1934 (1934), as well as the French translation of Friedrich Sieburg’s Gott in Frankreich? ein Versuch (Frankfurt: Frankfurter Societäts–Druckerei, 1929), first published in France in 1930 under the title Dieu est-il français?.

Paris shortly after the Armistice. Here, on 11 July 1940 – the day following the attribution of full powers to Pétain in Vichy and marked by his assumption of the title chef de l’État français – the first of 214 numbers of La Gerbe was published. Châteaubriant’s leader article, an open letter to Pétain in which he called for ‘de grands Français’ to steer France’s course alongside Germany, firmly nailed his colours to the collaborationist mast. The opportunity he had been waiting for had finally arrived.

La Gerbe and the Groupe Collaboration During the Occupation, La Gerbe and the Groupe Collaboration represented the main territory for the development and propagation of Châteaubriant’s collaborationist theories, and the means by which he would promote their implementation. His prominence in both organisations is undisputed, since the title page of each issue of La Gerbe designates him as director, while each final page of Collaboration (the bi-monthly bulletin of the Groupe Collaboration, published between October 1942 and June 1944) names him as president of its comité directeur. These roles serve both to identify Châteaubriant as the main public representative of each group and directly to implicate him as a willing participant in their activity. This conclusion is of significance for any evaluation of his involvement in the events of the day. Châteaubriant is widely held to have been personally responsible for the foundation of La Gerbe.5 However, although he was openly involved from an early stage, it would seem that the newspaper was in reality the creation of the German Embassy in Paris, and that 5

See, for example, Jean Quéval, Première page, cinquième colonne (Fayard, 1945), p. 268, and Richard Golsan, ‘Ideology, cultural politics and literary collaboration at La Gerbe’, Journal of European Studies, 23 (1993), 27–47 (p. 27).

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Châteaubriant’s participation was solicited by high-ranking Germans who saw him as a sympathetic individual of status and influence who could be of great use to their cause (a conclusion no doubt based on a reading of La Gerbe des forces). Marc Augier, La Gerbe’s manager until he joined the Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchevisme (LVF) in October 1941, writes in his post-war memoirs that ‘en ce qui concerne Châteaubriant, les Allemands se présentèrent en solliciteurs, avec la plus grande politesse’, and that, through Otto Abetz (by then German Ambassador to France), both Ribbentrop and Goebbels had expressed a wish that Châteaubriant publish a newspaper.6 This is no French invention, for Rudolph Rahn, a minister under Abetz at the Paris Embassy, admitted at his trial in February 1947 that ‘la seule création de l’Ambassade, datant de ce premier temps, fut la revue Gerbe’, while Abetz himself announced at his trial on 7 October 1947 that he had facilitated the creation of La Gerbe.7 And German Embassy agents would even write for La Gerbe, such as one Eitel Moellhausen, who published therein until June 1941 using the pseudonym Aimé Cassar, and whose memoirs confirm Augier’s claims.8 Evidence of German influence in the creation of La Gerbe is matched by evidence of German financial involvement in its operation. La Gerbe was widely regarded as Châteaubriant’s personal property, a point reinforced by the fact that his was the sole name on the newspaper’s bank account.9 But he did not finance its operation purely from his own funds. In fact, La Gerbe received considerable material support from the German authorities in the form of a substantial paper allocation, disproportionate to that received by other

6 7 8 9

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Marc Augier, Les Survivants de l’aventure hitlérienne (Geneva: Payot, 1975), p. 138. Interrogatoire de Botschafter Rahn, 28 February 1947; Dossier Châteaubriant. Eitel Moellhausen, Il giuoco è fatto! (Rome: Sansoni, 1950), pp. 19–23. Dossier Châteaubriant. The account (number 6739) was held at the Comptoir National d’Escompte de Paris, 44, rue Lafayette, 75010 Paris. The address for the account was 3, rue des Pyramides, 75001 Paris, namely the headquarters of La Gerbe.

collaborationist publications in terms of the audience reached.10 Moreover, actual German funding for La Gerbe can be traced to the Groupe Hibbelen: linked to the Propaganda-Stäffel, this office brought together the main financial companies interested in backing newspaper production and identified La Gerbe as one of its main recipients, although no precise figures are given.11 It is impossible to reconstruct a fully accurate picture of the financial transactions of La Gerbe, since the available records referenced in the post-Liberation report carried out by one Georges Neff, an independent Parisian auditor, are incomplete.12 The report lists the individual credits and debits on the newspaper’s bank account from 1943 until August 1944, when it ceased to exist, while a more broad-based picture of expenditure and profit is provided for the period 1940 to 1942. The figures given indicate that La Gerbe was a thriving financial operation, and that its contributors (including some famous names) were generally well paid. For example, the accounts show that Marcel Aymé received 60,000 francs for his short story La Vouivre, which was serialised in La Gerbe during 1943; in the same year, Robert Brasillach was paid 12,800 francs for his contributions, while Henri de Montherlant earned 6,000 francs for his work. And, in an age of rationing and austerity, the newspaper could evidently afford the luxuries of life: champagne was a regular purchase (as many as one hundred bottles at a time); fruit and flowers costing over 7,000 francs were sent to the German Embassy in Paris in January 1944; while 6,525 francs was spent on 18 July 1944 on a reception and a wreath in 10 11

12

Hebdomadaires et mensuels parisiens: avril 1941–avril 1943. Dommages subis par la France et l’Union française du fait de la guerre et de l’occupation ennemie (1939–1945): part imputable à l’Allemagne, 8 vols (Imprimerie nationale, 1947), VIII, p. xix. Following the total occupation of France from 11 November 1942, La Gerbe also received a monthly subsidy of 20,000 francs from Vichy’s Ministry of Information between December 1942 and July 1944 (Subventions à des organismes de presse, 1941–1944). Neff’s report on La Gerbe, published in July 1945, forms part of the Dossier Châteaubriant. The details which follow are taken from this report.

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honour of Philippe Henriot, Vichy’s recently assassinated Minister for Information and Propaganda. Throughout the Occupation, sales of the newspaper and of advertising space therein represented the greater portion of income, bringing in 1.36 million francs in 1940; 6.23 million in 1941; 8.42 million in 1942; 8.48 million in 1943; and 7.64 million between January and July 1944.13 And the newspaper’s profits grew as the Occupation progressed, from 7,974 francs in 1940 to 187,186 francs in 1941; 610,630 francs in 1942; 1.58 million francs in 1943; with a final staggering profit recorded of 1.02 million francs over the first six months of 1944. Châteaubriant personally benefited substantially from the newspaper’s wealth: for instance, between January and July 1944, he was paid sums totalling 1.18 million francs, more than the actual profit for the period. For Châteaubriant, collaboration was financially rewarding. As with La Gerbe, the creation of the Groupe Collaboration should not be credited to Châteaubriant. Jean Weiland (one the group’s vicepresidents and its director-general) records that the impetus for its creation came from certain ‘Français compréhensifs’ who wished to ‘voir revivre le Comité France–Allemagne’,14 which, given Châteaubriant’s interests, explains why the group thought it appropriate to offer him the presidency. This he accepted willingly, as Ernest Fornairon (its general secretary) notes (BC, October 1942). Initially the group was interested purely in the moral support of the German and Vichy authorities, as a letter from Weiland to Fernand de Brinon (Vichy’s ambassador to the occupier in Paris) confirms,15 and De Brinon would indeed serve as a member of the group’s comité d’honneur. But this 13

14 15

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Archival sources give the following average monthly publication figures for La Gerbe. 1940: 70,000 copies; 1941: 125,000 copies; 1942: 140,000 copies; 1943: 143,000 per month; 1944: 163,000 copies. The highest figure given is 170,000 copies in January 1944. In the final eighteen months of publication, 23%–27% of weekly sales were in Germany. Up to a third of copies sometimes remained unsold (Rapports mensuels sur le tirage des publications éditées à Paris 1940–1944). Documents du cabinet de l’Ambassadeur: groupement ‘Collaboration’. Ibid. The letter is dated 13 November 1940.

attitude would change as the war progressed and the group became more actively engaged in the events of the day, and it solicited and received both German and Vichy money at least in 1943 and 1944.16 Châteaubriant may not have been directly and principally involved in the creation of either La Gerbe or the Groupe Collaboration, but his subsequent role and activity within both organisations should not be underestimated. He opted largely to leave their day-to-day management to others, choosing instead to devote his energies to more high-profile activities, in particular as a leading contributor to La Gerbe. Indeed, between July 1940 and July 1944, he wrote eighty-six articles for the newspaper, of which seventy-six were front-page articles, and he gave at least twenty-two lectures in his capacity as director and president of the two organisations.17 Beyond this concrete involvement, Châteaubriant’s influence on their ideology must be properly acknowledged. As will emerge, the principal themes and tone of La Gerbe can easily be sourced in La Gerbe des forces (indicated most obviously by the similarity of title). Moreover, the Groupe Collaboration’s second vice-president, René Pichard du Page, directly links the group’s position to Châteaubriant’s ideas, describing him as an ‘homme de grand cœur et de haute pensée’, as ‘le vivant conciliateur de la mystique et de la politique’ (BC, October 1942), and therefore – in their eyes – as the right man for the job. Châteaubriant represented an important central force for both La Gerbe and the Groupe Collaboration, and his role at their head led to a degree of interdependence and an overlap of activity. La Gerbe not only published the annual reports for the group, but also announced its lectures; and men such as Marc Augier and Jacques de Lesdain were active on behalf of both organisations, while Georges Claude, Abel Bonnard, Abel Hermant and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle both contributed articles to La Gerbe and could also be found on the comité d’honneur of the Groupe Collaboration (BC, October 1942). 16 17

Ibid. A complete list of Châteaubriant’s articles and lectures is given in the bibliography.

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Choosing bedfellows: degrees of collaboration For many in France, the summer of 1940 brought difficult choices as they struggled to come to terms with the fate of their country. Inevitably, the major issue of the day was the nature of France’s relationship with the Germans. The very fact of occupation meant that a degree of collaboration with the victor was unavoidable, although marked differences of approach and attitude between the Vichy conservatives and the extreme Right quickly became apparent, a division characterised by historians in terms of collaboration d’État pursued by Vichy and collaborationnisme promoted from Paris. While collaboration d’État is defined as ‘collaboration with Germany for reasons of state, that is, to safeguard French interests in interstate relations between the beaten power and the victor’, and is deemed to be ‘to a large extent the necessary if unintended by-product of the existence of a French state in Vichy’, collaborationnisme is defined as ‘an openly desired co-operation with and imitation of the German regime’.18 From its very beginning, then, the collaboration was divided in itself. The collaborationist camp called for the government to return to Paris – thereby to embark on a pathway of committed collaboration with the Germans – and demanded the institution of a national parti unique similar to the totalitarian German model, as proposed by Marcel Déat in July 1940. But the more robust collaborationist ambitions of men such as Déat were to be frustrated. Pétain and his entourage entrenched themselves in Vichy, the parti unique project was rejected out of hand, and pétainiste energies were directed instead into the creation and implementation of the reactionary programme of révolution nationale. Châteaubriant shared the frustration and disappointment of his fellow collaborationists. In his eyes, the immediate post-Armistice 18

154

Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism in France during World War II’, Journal of Modern History, 40 (1968), 375–95 (p. 376).

period represented a missed opportunity for France, a moment when the nation failed to ‘entrer dans les grandes vues […] de la loi d’évolution inévitable de la Nécessité’ in which she would have been guided by the Germans, ‘les soldats de la Nécessité’ (26 September 1940). The modern world he sees around him is ‘usé dans ses substances, dans ses ressorts profonds’ (C, p. 186) and dominated by ‘l’affreux drame du capital et du travail’ (25 July 1940), while France in particular is nothing more than ‘un corps sans tête, trébuchant et butant aux abîmes, les mains tâtonnantes dans une affreuse obscurité’ (12 September 1940). This assessment of his country prompts him to declare that ‘un travail de recommencement et de refonte est nécessaire’ (C, p. 186) and to argue that the current conflict will operate as the necessary catalyst for change, just as the First World War should have done (26 September 1940). Above all, he calls for a human-centred renewal, focused on ‘l’homme nouveau’ (5 September 1940) and rooted in a standard Catholic rejection of l’homme du contrat social (to use Rousseau’s term). Unfortunately, for Châteaubriant, ‘cet homme nouveau […] n’existe pas encore en France’, although the appropriate model can be found across the Rhine, for the Germans are a rejuvenated people and Germany is a new leaf on the old tree of Europe (15 August 1940). European unity behind Germany is, he proclaims, the key to salvation, and the theme of co-operation with Germany as detailed in La Gerbe des forces is now restructured to indicate that collaboration with Germany is the only way forward. In similar fashion to his 1937 option of Berlin or Moscow (GF, p. 336), Châteaubriant now presents France with a correspondingly simple choice: either to be Germany’s ‘alliée dans la force’ or else to be ‘sa satellite dans la défaite’ (18 July 1940), for, as he argues, ‘si donc nous ne sommes pas avec ces soldats de la Nécessité, nous sommes contre eux’, and a refusal to collaborate will leave France facing the full might of German rigueur (26 September 1940).

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Collaboration: the organic ideal matures At the beginning of the Occupation, Châteaubriant moved swiftly to attack modern politics in the light of his particular ideal of collaboration. Writing on behalf of La Gerbe, he proclaims in July 1940 that ‘nous n’appartenons à aucun parti pour la bonne raison que le “parti politique” est chose en train de disparaître’ (18 July 1940). As we have seen, Châteaubriant’s quarrel with the sterile nature of modern political parties and politics is to be dated at least back to 1911, and its form was subsequently developed in La Gerbe des forces. In his opinion, modern politics creates division and is overly concerned with temporal issues, and he opposes this with the notion of l’organique (also a typical intransigent Catholic theme), calling for ‘une collaboration qui soit organique au lieu d’être politique, […] engageant les éléments vivants, économiques et culturels’ (28 November 1940). The organic ideal emphasises the concept of the community as the desired form of unity, and as an eternal force and source of energy for the common good. Within this organic structure (a version of which we identified in Monsieur des Lourdines), collaborative cultural and economic ideas represent a force for human regeneration and social progress. For Châteaubriant, collaboration demands total commitment to the organic ideal: Collaborer, ce ne sera plus seulement accomplir un geste ou prendre une position de principe, c’est donner son adhésion, et comme on le voit, son adhésion totale, nous dirions organique, à l’acte constitutif de la nouvelle Europe et consentir à faire partie intégrante et solidairement du grand fonctionnement de son activité unifiée. (19 December 1940)

He is convinced that collaboration with Germany is the means to a revolutionary and regenerative end which will re-impose order in France and across Europe, and he openly signposts the ‘right’ pathway to follow: ‘ou la collaboration et l’ordre, ou le désordre et le sang’ (ibid.). 156

As is to be expected given Châteaubriant’s role as its president, the Groupe Collaboration shares his horror of modern political parties and politics. At its second anniversary meeting on 24 September 1942, Ernest Fornairon classifies the group as ‘au-dessus des partis, des clans, des étiquettes’, and explains that: Il tient avant tout à son indépendance à laquelle il doit sa force, de même qu’il s’est interdit toute affiliation à tel parti, à telle côterie, à telle association et qu’il a écarté systématiquement de son action toute arrière-pensée de politique dans le mauvais sens de ce mot, tel qu’on l’entendait naguère. (BC, October 1942)

The group similarly shares Châteaubriant’s definition of ‘good’ politics and ‘appropriate’ action, for, at a meeting held in Paris on 27 December 1940, Weiland criticises previous political models and advocates instead a new and preferred method for change, announcing that ‘il n’y a pas, pour la France, d’autre politique que celle de la collaboration loyale avec le vainqueur’.19 It, too, promotes cultural collaboration, for joint cultural activity represents ‘la meilleure manière de collaborer à l’œuvre de redressement et de travailler en vue d’une paix que nous désirons tous juste et durable’. This, it is hoped, will enable France and Germany together to identify new points of view likely to solve the political problems which have thus far divided them. Collaboration, then, must be organic, since ‘il faut que notre peuple retrouve le goût collectif de l’existence et cet esprit de solidarité que lui ont enlevé l’exaltation de ses appétits égoïstes et l’appel à un matérialisme sordide’. The cultural accent of both La Gerbe and Collaboration is immediately apparent on a sample reading. On average, La Gerbe devotes around a third of each edition to literary and art criticism, theatre and cinema reviews and the serialisation of novels and plays. But the newspaper’s cultural concerns are subordinated to ideology, and its attitude towards individual writers is openly dictated by its collab 19

Jean Weiland, Pourquoi nous croyons en la collaboration (Les Conférences du Groupe Collaboration, 1940). Subsequent immediate references are to this document.

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orationist ideals. Virulent attacks on such Left-wing writers as Roger Martin du Gard (20 March 1941) and Jules Romains (10 April 1941) feature regularly, while respected authors include Louis-Ferdinand Céline (20 March 1941), Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (6 May 1941) and Charles Péguy (29 May 1941). Not surprisingly, given its promotion of a new European culture, the newspaper also profiles major German cultural figures - both past and present - such as the fifteenth-century artist Albrecht Dürer (7 May 1942) and the contemporary Paris-based sculptor Arno Breker (21 May 1942), while more general pieces spotlight such topics as the architecture of the Third Reich (4 February 1943) or the Institut allemand’s journal Deutschland–Frankreich (8 April 1943). The Groupe Collaboration’s interests were similarly cultural: held to have represented ‘a polite collaborationism, centred largely in the salons and parlors [sic] of the affluent’,20 the activity of its different sections consisted mainly of lectures, discussions and films. And cultural items litter the pages of its bulletin: the May–June 1943 edition, for instance, underlines the group’s cultural emphasis in the columns of such articles as ‘Vues sur la collaboration culturelle’ (BC, pp. 3–6), ‘Littérature européenne’ (pp. 7–8), ‘Le rôle de la musique dans le nouvel ordre européen’ (p. 9 & p. 12), and ‘L’Europe et les artistes’ (pp. 13–14). For both Châteaubriant’s newspaper and group, then, ‘bad’ politics is to be defined as France’s modern-day, divisive, multi-party democracy, while ‘good’ politics rests on organic principles and offers cultural and economic collaboration as the solution to political problems. It is apparent that neither La Gerbe nor the Groupe Collaboration intended to be considered in party political terms. Indeed, the group defines itself instead as a political movement - and was recognised as such by the occupier21 - creating a distinction which 20 21

158

Bertram Gordon, Collaborationism in France during the Second World War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 235. ‘Die Groupe Collaboration, die zwar eine politische Vereinigung ist, aber nicht als politische “Partei” betrachtet sein will’ (Dossier RW 35/339, Militarchiv, Freiburg).

suggests a greater emphasis on the ideology rather than the action of collaboration, and which was underlined by the group’s own pronouncement that ‘notre élite est faite d’hommes qui pensent’ (BC, October 1942). Moreover, it has been argued that the group was allowed to pursue its activities in both zones of France precisely because it was not considered to be a political party.22 But this is not to say that either La Gerbe or the Groupe Collaboration (and therefore Châteaubriant also, by implication) was apolitical, even at the start of the Occupation. Indeed, their promotion of Franco-German collaboration and their rejection of old-style politics together represent a concrete political stance.23 And, as will emerge, both Châteaubriant and his two principal mouthpieces would act increasingly in a political sense as the Occupation progressed.

Montoire and the révolution nationale On 24 October 1940, Pétain met Hitler at Montoire, where the handshake between the two men became the visual symbol par excellence of Franco-German collaboration, reinforced by Pétain’s statement of 30 October that ‘j’entre aujourd’hui dans la voie de la collaboration’.24 Châteaubriant was delighted, evidently believing that events had taken a turn for the better. Historians agree on Vichy’s motivating role in the Montoire process, that, in Robert Paxton’s words, ‘collaboration was 22 23

24

Ibid., p. 230. Writing of the Gerbes françaises group created in October 1941, and of which he was president, Châteaubriant similarly noted that ‘nous ne constituons pas un parti, nous représentons un esprit et une âme’ (9 October 1941). Published in booklet form in 1943, the group’s Principes were constituted almost entirely from extracts of La Gerbe des forces or La Gerbe. It seems to have had little impact on the collaborationist scene. Jaray, Le Maréchal Pétain: paroles aux Français, p. 90.

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not a German demand to which some Frenchmen acceded, through sympathy or guile. Collaboration was a French proposal that Hitler ultimately rejected’.25 For Châteaubriant, however, ‘la collaboration avec la France était une idée hitlérienne’ and Otto Abetz was its prime motivator (28 November 1940). He genuinely believed that Germany valued France and that a mutually accepted Franco-German collaboration would be a partnership of equals, defined as ‘une collaboration qui sera comme une soudure’ (ibid.) and endorsed as such by the Groupe Collaboration, which held that Germany was a ‘vainqueur qui a su dominer sa victoire’.26 Throughout the Occupation, this belief would both colour their interpretation of Franco-German relations and drive their activity, and their subsequent disappointment with Vichy’s attentisme was accompanied not only by increasingly desperate appeals to implement the policy of Montoire, but also by warnings of France’s fate as a satellite nation should she reject full collaboration with Germany. The collaborationists generally applauded Montoire, welcoming it as the dawn of a new era and - to begin with - rallying to Pétain as its personification. In La Gerbe on 10 October 1940, Drieu defined collaboration as ‘une garantie de vie’ and later welcomed Montoire for its federalist and regenerative potential. For Déat, writing in L’Œuvre on 2 November 1940, Montoire was a ‘grand tournant’, while Doriot declared himself ‘un homme du Maréchal’,27 writing of Pétain in Le Cri du peuple on 29 October 1940 that ‘en acceptant le principe de la collaboration avec l’Allemagne, il a ouvert une voie nouvelle, la seule qui, à notre sens, se présente aujourd’hui’. Châteaubriant reacted in similar fashion. Pétain, as a protagonist at Montoire and hence the very symbol of collaboration in France, is described in admiring terms. He is deemed lucid, sensitive, honest, prudent and representative of ‘l’âme 25 26 27

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Robert Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 (Barrie & Jenkins, 1972), p. 51. Weiland, Pourquoi nous croyons en la collaboration, p. 9. Jacques Doriot, Je suis un homme du Maréchal (Grasset, 1941).

ancienne, l’âme vierge de la France’ (28 November 1940). Given Châteaubriant’s tendency to spiritualise his favoured political regimes and leaders, which we noted earlier, it comes as no surprise that he credits Pétain with Christian features, praising the man who has adopted a policy of collaboration with the ‘Christian’ regenerative force of National Socialism. After Montoire, Pétain becomes ‘l’homme qui a sauvé la France’; ‘il est le chemin’, a man who embodies don de soi and purification - the essential components of Châteaubriant’s Christianity in La Gerbe des forces; he is committed to collaboration since this alone can save France, and his programme for France requires nothing less than the ‘conversion’ of the people (ibid.). At the time, Pétain was widely regarded as France’s ‘homme providentiel’.28 Indeed, the events at Montoire found favour with many of those who were keen to establish a working relationship with the occupier, while Pétain’s programme of révolution nationale came to represent a focal point for those who despaired at the nature of modern France, encapsulated for many in the reviled Popular Front. Under the slogan Travail, Famille, Patrie, the révolution nationale aimed to combat decadence and disorder. In particular, it promoted discipline and moral order through its family and youth policies, proclaimed la France aux Français through its anti-Semitic activity, and advocated a return to the land and a corporatist economy, all under the aegis of an authoritarian state. Its appeal was immense, for, as Robert Paxton writes, ‘never had so many Frenchmen been ready to accept discipline and authority’.29 Pétain’s popular image as the ‘saviour’ of France was sustained by the French Catholic Church. This not only adopted the slogan of the révolution nationale as its own, but also participated in the maintenance of what was known as the ‘cult of Pétain’, by, for 28 29

The first use of this term to describe Pétain is credited to Monseigneur Caillot of Grenoble and dated 23 June 1940 (Jacques Duquesne, Les Catholiques français sous l’occupation, 2nd edn (Grasset, 1986 [1966]), p. 45). For details of the révolution nationale, see Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 136–233. Its aims were announced by Pétain in a speech on 11 October 1940, reproduced in Jaray, Le Maréchal Pétain, pp. 78–88.

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instance, holding religious services to celebrate Pétain’s visits to towns in the southern zone. Mindful of its supposedly apolitical nature, in July 1941 the Church proclaimed its stance as one of ‘loyalisme sans inféodation au pouvoir établi’, and the mass of Catholics adopted their Church’s attitude, remaining hopeful that the révolution nationale would also effect a spiritual regeneration.30 Not surprisingly, many collaborationists were also attracted by the révolution nationale, at least to begin with, firstly because they largely shared Vichy’s enemies and approved of her anti-decadence and pro-order stance, and secondly because of the promise of change, believing that successful Franco-German collaboration rested on extensive internal restructuring. Châteaubriant himself strongly approved of the regenerative theory of the révolution nationale and described Pétain’s explanatory speech of 11 October 1940 as an ‘admirable message’ (28 November 1940). But disillusion with Vichy quickly set in following Pierre Laval’s dismissal as Premier on 13 December 1940, deemed ‘guilty of having pursued a policy of voluntary collaboration with excessive zeal and dangerous concessions’.31 Most collaborationists interpreted this event as evidence of Vichy’s reserve towards Germany and hence as a setback for collaboration proper. In words which could have flowed from the pen of any collaborationist, Châteaubriant describes Laval’s dismissal as ‘l’acte néfaste du 13 décembre’ (6 February 1941), and criticises Vichy for its narrow nationalist outlook which led it to compromise both the collaboration and France’s future in the new Europe, arguing that ‘l’esprit de Vichy […] n’est pas un esprit de collaboration, mais un esprit de résistance à la collaboration’ (9 January 1941). Collaborationist disillusion with Vichy over the Laval affair was matched by a general loss of enthusiasm for the révolution nationale, 30 31

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Duquesne, Les Catholiques français sous l’occupation, pp. 48–68. For an explanation of Catholic attraction to the révolution nationale, see Michel Winock, Édouard Drumont et cie: antisémitisme et fascisme en France (Seuil, 1982), pp. 141–50. Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism in France’, p. 379.

which deepened during the first six months of 1941 as the regime failed to fulfil their expectations.32 For Châteaubriant, this was a time of lost opportunities, a time when ‘la France eut de grandes possibilités, mais, rongée de résistances internes et aveuglée dans son esprit public, elle ne sut pas profiter de ce qui lui était offert’ (27 November 1941). His disillusion with Vichy is well advanced by the summer of 1941, when he despairs that the Government has no precise objective or ideals (10 July 1941), and he concludes a few months later that ‘la révolution nationale n’est pas plus la révolution que le café national n’est le café’ (9 October 1941). There is, he bemoans, no evidence in France of any sustained attempt to ‘tuer le Schwein’, as he had recommended in La Gerbe des forces (ibid.). And Vichy is deemed incapable of effecting his desired spiritual revolution, influenced as it is by ‘éléments décidés à défendre jusqu’à la mort leurs positions de repli’ (6 November 1941).

The war against Russia and the spectre of Bolshevism Although disappointed with Vichy, Châteaubriant’s war received new impetus with the German invasion of Russia on 22 June 1941, which he describes as a ‘date mémorable, date cruciale’ (ibid.). In the pre-war period, as we have seen, the positive response of some Catholics to National Socialism was dictated by their anti-Communism. During the Second World War, the campaign against Russia represented a similar focus for such Catholic anxieties and propelled a minority of Church representatives to favour actual collaboration with Germany. Some would even interpret the war as a crusade, offering their support to the Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchevisme, created on 7 July 1941, 32

The team at Je suis partout is a case in point. See Dioudonnat, Je suis partout 1930– 1944, p. 358.

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whose troops fought in Russia for the German cause. In the higher ranks of the Church, men such as Monseigneur Dutoit of Arras argued in favour of collaboration throughout the war, on the basis that this was an expression of loyal support for Pétain who had adopted a policy of collaboration at Montoire. A more flamboyant example is the case of Monseigneur Mayol de Lupé, who became chaplain to the LVF, fought alongside its soldiers in the field, and chose to wear both the crucifix and the swastika as symbols of his allegiance.33 But by far the most striking and the most senior member of the Church to favour collaboration was the aged Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Institut catholique in Paris, whose pro-collaboration declaration, ‘Choisir, vouloir, obéir’, was published in La Gerbe on 21 November 1940. Baudrillart was a man driven by many phobias. Prior to the Second World War he was strongly anti-German, virulently antiCommunist and steadfastly Anglophobic. From May 1939, however, he came to favour National Socialism principally as a result of his deep fear and hatred of Communism, and it is evident that Châteaubriant played an influential role in the formulation of his ideas. Back in 1933, Baudrillart had welcomed La Réponse du Seigneur as an enlightened and positive text. He then read La Gerbe des forces in July 1940, commenting that ‘ce livre pourrait avoir une grande influence sur l’avenir’, and subsequently became a regular and admiring reader of La Gerbe, meeting with Châteaubriant on 5 September 1940.34 He also accepted a place on the comité d’honneur of the Groupe Collaboration and welcomed Montoire as the concrete representation of Châteaubriant’s recommended policy. Motivated by his anti-Communism, Baudrillart saw the war against Russia as a new crusade and described the LVF as ‘l’illustration agissante de la France du Moyen Age’, concluding that

33 34

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For further details on these and other Catholics who favoured collaboration, see William Halls, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France (Oxford: Berg, 1995), pp. 341–59. Christophe, Les Catholiques devant la guerre, p. 75, pp. 71–72.

‘ces légionnaires sont les croisés du XXème siècle; que leurs armes soient bénies! Le tombeau du Christ sera délivré’.35 The war against Russia also provided the collaborationists with the opportunity for an explosion of their anti-Communist ideology and for a similar representation of the conflict as a crusade for Europe. Their anti-Communist argumentation comprised three points, as Pascal Ory explains: ‘Immédiate: le communisme international, c’est la barbarie; seconde: Staline est le véritable chef de la coalition antiallemande; finale: le marxisme est une doctrine juive’.36 Furthermore, Russia is deemed to illustrate racial confusion on the basis that the nation is a melting pot of different tribes, while Communism is attacked for its evil materialism and atheism. Not unexpectedly, then, the collaborationists viewed Germany’s attack on Russia as, in Doriot’s words, ‘[l’]événement le plus important depuis l’armistice’,37 and subsequently also joined the ranks of those in support of the LVF. Châteaubriant’s definition of the war against Russia is broadly comparable, since he describes the conflict as a ‘croisade de salut’ (29 January 1942), using an extract from La Chanson de Roland as a call to arms (10 July 1941).38 The LVF legionaries are similarly seen as crusaders, the sacrifice of whose blood is deemed necessary for the salvation of France (6 November 1941, 29 January 1942). Like the other collaborationists, Châteaubriant denounces Marxism’s emphasis 35 36 37 38

Duquesne, Les Catholiques français sous l’occupation, pp. 167–68. Ory, Les Collaborateurs, p. 152. In Le Cri du peuple, 8 July 1941. The Je suis partout team was equally supportive of the LVF. The extract used is lai CCXVI, and is published in modern French as follows: ‘Par tout le champ ceux de France mettent pied à terre: plus de cent mille s’adoubent à la fois. Ils ont des équipements à leur gré, des chevaux vifs, et leurs armes sont belles. Puis, ils se mettent en selle… Si l’heure en vient, ils comptent accepter la bataille. Leurs gonfanons pendent jusqu’à toucher les heaumes. Quand Charles voit leur contenance si belle, il appelle Jozeran de Provence et Naimes, le duc: “Sur de tels vaillants, dit-il, on doit se reposer”. Et le duc Naimes répond: “Que Dieu nous l’accorde!”’ (10 July 1941).

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on materialism which devalues humanity to the extent that ‘l’homme n’est que matière’ (18 November 1943). Atheistic Communism offers nothing more than ‘l’espèce de nudité obscène dans laquelle se trouve une collectivité après avoir rompu ses liens spirituels’ (4 February 1943), while Stalin is the very incarnation of contemporary evil (10 February 1944). Racial confusion is a result of Russia’s composition of ‘masses étrangères’ (6 January 1944), and Châteaubriant’s first explicit anti-Semitic comment is recorded when he presents the conflict as a ‘guerre judéo-bolchevique’ (3 July 1941). In Châteaubriant’s eyes, then, as for others, the war against the Russian nation was really a war against the ideology of Bolshevism, although, in his particular case, his presentation of National Socialism serves to distinguish his interpretation of the ultimate meaning of the war from that of his like-minded contemporaries. For Châteaubriant, the declaration of hostilities against Russia revealed that the war had finally taken on its true meaning as a battle between two ideologically opposed camps, one of which ‘combat au nom de l’affranchissement et donne l’esclavage’, while ‘l’autre combat au nom de l’ordre et donne la vraie liberté’ (10 July 1941). His interest in this conflict lies in his reading of its universal and ideological meaning, and he concludes that it represents ‘le drame des défenses vitales de l’homme d’Occident contre ses propres déchéances’ (ibid.). Many shared this view, but most Catholics opposed Bolshevism with Catholicism, whereas Châteaubriant opposes Bolshevism with a ‘Christian’ National Socialism. Details of the day-to-day events of the Germany versus Russia campaign are submerged by his theories on Bolshevism, for Châteaubriant’s concern is rather to resurrect the opposition of National Socialism and Bolshevism catalogued in La Gerbe des forces, which led him to interpret National Socialism as a New Christendom located in a centuries-long Christian framework. In its wartime version, this opposition creates an opportunity for the spiritualisation not only of National Socialism but also of the Second World War in general. Châteaubriant sees the war against Russia as the translation of his theories into practice, with the result not only that his war becomes 166

what he believes to be the actual incarnation of the ideological battle between Christian National Socialism and atheistic Bolshevism, first introduced in La Gerbe des forces, but also that the Second World War is regarded not so much as a war in itself, but rather as one battle in the long-standing war for Christian strength and unity, and hence against the despiritualisation caused by individualism and materialism. For Châteaubriant, then, Russian Communism is merely the contemporary incarnation of the universal Bolshevist threat. Bolshevism is neither simply ‘un transitoire accident historique de la pensée moderne’, nor ‘une maladie passagère de l’âme’ (ibid.), but rather ‘l’enfer caché dans le subconscient des collectivités de toutes les époques’ (3 July 1941), or ‘l’aboutissement de la décadence d’une société qui s’est enfoncée dans une conception de plus en plus matérialiste de la vie’ (5 February 1942). It is, he concludes starkly, ‘une crise humaine, […] un mal que les siècles nous ont apporté […], un mal qui est universel autant que fatidique’ (10 February 1944). The spread of Bolshevism has occurred, then: […] non du fait des conquêtes de la volonté soviétique, conséquence et non cause elle-même, mais de par cette extension et ce grandissement fatidiques du monstre infus dans la conscience héritée des générations. (ibid.)

Such universalisation of Bolshevism was, of course, a feature of La Gerbe des forces, but Châteaubriant’s treatment of the theme is noticeably developed during the Occupation period, no doubt because the current crisis leads him to believe his earlier reasoning fully justified. This war, he argues in apocalyptic terms, was written in the book of destiny from the moment time began, ‘comme un destin auquel […] promettaient les grandes erreurs de pensée commises par l’esprit humain’ (ibid.). His anti-nominalism resurges with his declaration that these errors of thought are to be found particularly in ‘les premiers fondements des méthodes analytiques, dissociatrices de la grande unité spirituelle de la chrétienté’, a methodology he describes as a ‘ver en train d’apparaître’ (ibid.). Over the last eight centuries, this worm has grown into the monster of intellectualism, individualism and 167

materialism, illustrative of a world cut off from its moral values and its hierarchical and spiritual infrastructure (ibid.). The resultant ‘esprit sans âme’ (ibid.) bears the name of Bolshevism. Châteaubriant may argue that Bolshevism reigns worldwide, but his real target is the West. In a departure from the content of La Gerbe des forces evidently prompted by the nature of the participants in the current war, his definition of Bolshevism enables him to argue that the Anglo-American world is Bolshevist, and that, as regards the English in particular, ‘le poison bolchevique a fait de merveilleux progrès dans leur conscience étroite et large’ (10 September 1942). In line with the other collaborationists, he maintains a bitter attack on England throughout the Occupation, sharing a common ideology which views England as France’s hereditary enemy (notably as the killers of Joan of Arc, Châteaubriant’s beloved patron of La Gerbe (14 May 1942), a model for the French, and a defence resorted to in the face of the dechristianisation which results from Bolshevism), as the seat of reviled parliamentary democracy and plutocracy, and, in the current war, responsible for the massive French losses at Dunkirk and Mers el-Kébir.39 His denunciation is vitriolic. England is driven by ‘immoralisme, cynisme, politique improductive, égoïste cruauté’ (10 September 1942). He deplores her bombing of German towns in 1942, arguing that her intention was not to destroy war factories but rather to sow fear and panic in the population, and he labels the raids on Mainz and Rouen as anti-Christian, given the destruction of cathedrals that these entailed (ibid.). England, he proclaims, has committed an irreparable crime in betraying her European mission (18 February 1943). Her mercantile nature has led her to break faith with her European colleagues and to ‘trade’ with Russia (6 January 1944), 39

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Joan of Arc was exploited throughout the Occupation as the archetypal French heroine by both the collaboration and the resistance, with the collaboration using Joan to justify its Anglophobia, as in Edmond Pillon’s article ‘L’Or contre notre sang, comme au siècle de Jeanne’, published in La Gerbe on 22 June 1944. See Gerd Krumeich, ‘The Cult of Joan of Arc under the Vichy Regime’, in Collaboration in France, ed. by Hirschfeld and Marsh, pp. 92–102.

and she desires a weak Europe as a means of maintaining her own status (12 November 1942). The ideological link between Russia and England is evident: illustrating the commonplace Catholic view that capitalism produces Bolshevism, Châteaubriant holds that Russian Bolshevism, rooted in materialism, is simply the extreme product of capitalism. This theory leads him to conclude that ‘Staline est la logique de Churchill, Churchill a produit Staline, Staline complète et efface Churchill’ (4 February 1943). America’s entry into the war in December 1941 provided Châteaubriant with a new enemy against whom he would consistently employ his pen. For most collaborationists, America took second place to England in the enemy stakes. But Châteaubriant, in common with the Groupe Collaboration, considered America an equally dangerous opponent, especially following the November 1942 Allied landings in North Africa, which he interpreted as a direct threat not only to France and the integrity of her Empire but also to Europe as a whole. The ‘invasion’ of Africa, he argues, has more to do with AngloAmerican expansionist intentions than with the war against Germany (29 November 1942). America is as ambitious as Russia in her desire to overrun Europe (30 September 1943) and England is to blame for unleashing the American and Russian threat on Europe, for she brought these nations into the war (18 February 1943). The struggle against these Bolshevist nations is nothing less than spiritual. On that basis, Châteaubriant deems the Second World War ‘une œuvre de la Rédemption mondiale’ (19 February 1942).

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Collaboration: the means to redemption Throughout the Occupation, Châteaubriant indulged in a spiritualisation of National Socialism to match that recorded in the pages of La Gerbe des forces. He believed, quite simply, that National Socialism was redemptive, that it represented a New Christendom to replace ‘la vieille chrétienté déchristianisée’ (3 July 1941). National Socialism is ‘le remède au mal’ that is Bolshevism (12 March 1942); Hitler is a new Noah, salvaging the ark of Europe from the Bolshevist ‘fleuve de flammes’ (3 July 1941); and the German ‘purifié par le grand baptême de la douleur, est entré tout naturellement dans cette initiation du “recommencement”’ (12 March 1942). National-Socialist Germany therefore promises universal salvation, since at one and the same time she destroys Bolshevism and constructs Europe (6 November 1941). In complete contrast to Russia – where Stalin has declared war on religion – Hitler’s Germany is founded on the values of family, marriage and devotion to the community. These values are defined by Châteaubriant as ‘tout le fondamental de la vie chrétienne’ (8 October 1942) and interpreted as confirmation that the nation incarnates the Christian principle of oubli de soi-même, as he had first suggested in La Gerbe des forces. Equally, he maintains his presentation of National Socialism as the alternative to individualism and intellectualism on the basis that it promotes ‘un total rétablissement du monde dans “l’organique”’: National Socialism is ‘cosmique’, for it offers universal order in the face of individual chaos, while the National Socialists are the strongest of peoples (23 March 1944), the very incarnation of Nietzsche’s superhuman ‘homme cosmique’ (12 March 1942). And he concludes that National Socialism’s cosmic nature stands as evidence of its Christian nature, arguing that ‘nous ne nous éloignons nullement ici du christianisme, du vrai christianisme, attendu que le vrai christianisme est cosmique’ (ibid.). Châteaubriant remains convinced that there is both a ‘true’ and a ‘false’ Christianity at work in the world. His association of National Socialism with ‘true’ Christianity not only 170

confirms his inability to see through its actual bogus religiosity, but also reinforces the view that he considered mainstream traditional Christianity to be ‘false’ and desperately in need of reconstitution and redirection. Châteaubriant’s idiosyncratic reading of both National Socialism and Christianity finally led him during the Occupation openly to root his belief in National Socialism in his Christian faith. In November 1942, as Germany moved to occupy the whole of France, he wrote in his diary that: C’est parce que je suis chrétien, qu’ayant vu le péril qui menaçait l’humanité dans ses valeurs les plus essentielles, […] valeurs que, dans l’état actuel du monde, aucune présente autorité morale ou religieuse ne pouvait plus soustraire aux décisions de la mort, je suis allé au national-socialisme, parce que le national-socialisme reconstituait l’homme. (C, pp. 212–13)

With modern-day Christianity unable to satisfy his regenerative aspirations, Châteaubriant’s quest for a New Christendom finds its outlet in National Socialism. Although blinded by National Socialism, he nonetheless proclaims himself to be a ‘chrétien qui a refait son propre christianisme et parle les yeux ouverts’ (8 October 1942). His mission is to enlighten others, such as the French Catholic Church, which he believes persists in seeing Germany as the incarnation of the Antichrist while at the same time accepting Bolshevism, Freemasons and Jews, these last specifically targeted as ‘un des facteurs les plus essentiels de notre effroyable décadence’ (ibid.). France, he argues, should follow Germany’s example and adopt a spiritually guided political system before it is too late: ‘On s’est assez moqué chez nous de la foi hitlérienne, de cette passion hitlérienne qui était une religion! La France est perdue, si on ne lui crée pas sans tarder une foi politique qui soit une religion’ (10 July 1941). Such emphasis on the primacy of the spiritual over the political, coupled with his continuing spiritualisation of politics, confirm that, for Châteaubriant, National Socialism is in essence Christian: Hitler not only desires a long-term Church–

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State concordat, but there is also simply no evidence of anti-Christian activity in Germany (8 October 1942). Châteaubriant is aware that people collaborate for different reasons, but indicates that he personally views collaboration in spiritual terms: Les collaborateurs dont je parle ne sont pas […] ceux qui supputent les chances de la victoire et dont l’adhésion à la coopération européenne représente seulement la croyance que les armes allemandes l’emporteront; ceux que nous appelons sont ceux qui, attachés de toutes les forces de leur être au salut de leur pays, ne voient ce salut possible que par les armes de l’Allemagne. (18 February 1943)

In a development on the content of La Gerbe des forces, this definition of collaboration enables Châteaubriant also to spiritualise those French who are perceived to embody the essence of collaboration with Germany and resistance to Bolshevism. Such French include Pierre Laval, whose return to power on 18 April 1942 is welcomed with the announcement that the cathedrals of Christian France can ring out in celebration of his commitment to Germany’s victory in the face of the Bolshevist threat (23 April 1942). Monseigneur Baudrillart is similarly eulogised, for he is described as ‘ce vrai grand esprit religieux’ on the basis of his promotion of collaboration and his belief that the French and the Germans are ‘les mêmes enfants de Dieu’ (4 June 1942). But it is the LVF who benefit most from such spiritualisation. In La Gerbe des forces, Châteaubriant’s notion of a heroic Christianity was seen to be embodied in the National Socialists. During the war he remains convinced that ‘la France ne sera sauvée que divinement, par un élan d’héroïsme’ (10 July 1941), but he now sees such heroism not only in the Germans but also in the French LVF, whom he depicts as a ‘phalange sacrée’ (18 March 1943). Like other collaborationists, Châteaubriant favours Franco-German co-belligerence as proof of France’s sincere attitude towards collaboration, and sees the LVF as

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representative of a partnership of equals with Germany.40 In line with his view of the war against Russia generally, his interest in the LVF lies in the principles they represent rather than in their concrete activity. He believes, for example, that ‘il était si important, si essentiel que la France fût engagée par son sang dans cette croisade de salut’ (29 January 1942), for ‘seuls, le sacrifice et le sang ouvriront sa place à la France dans la Nouvelle Europe’ (6 November 1941). In terms reminiscent of his 1915 declaration that the spilling of blood is the ‘rosée nécessaire aux renaissances de l’âme’ (LAG, p. 102), the blood sacrifice of the LVF is deemed to represent not only France’s honour but also her redemption and resurrection, since her status in the new Europe will be gauged in direct proportion to her sacrifice during the war (5 February 1942).

Collaboration: a partnership of equals Châteaubriant’s conviction that France’s future status depends upon her wartime activity lies behind his repeated calls to collaborate before time runs out, and represents a theme reproduced by both La Gerbe and the Groupe Collaboration. In an attempt to persuade the French of Germany’s sincerity, Châteaubriant writes that her respect for France is a worthy starting-point for an agreement which will achieve ‘le grand œuvre franco-allemand’ (19 September 1941), that Germany has only ever thought of France in terms of friendship (3 September 1942), and that, overall, ‘l’Allemagne […] sait ce que vaut la France. Elle le sait quelquefois mieux que la France elle-même’ (BC, November–

40

Ory, Les Collaborateurs, p. 160.

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December 1942).41 He holds that France can prove her value to Germany through collaboration, thereby ensuring that she enjoys the status of privileged partner rather than vassal state both now and in the new post-war Europe. But a continuing refusal to collaborate fully diminishes France’s value to the occupier and so obstructs Châteaubriant’s European ideal, for it will provoke Germany to condemn France to servitude (9 April 1942) and to absorb the nation for her own benefit (18 February 1943). Châteaubriant’s belief in collaboration as a partnership of equals colours his attitude towards the Occupation, for in no way does he consider that France is already to some extent Germany’s vassal state. Motivated by the prospect of Franco-German co-belligerence in the war against Russia, he fails to see that Hitler actually thereby lost interest in France and that Germany did not greet the creation of the LVF with his own enthusiasm. Furthermore, he does not consider Germany’s increasing economic demands on France to be exploitative. And yet, as Eberhard Jäckel has shown, Hitler viewed France more as a useful source of human and material resources than as an economic partner, and her economy was increasingly drained as the Occupation progressed.42 Montoire evidently meant nothing to Hitler, but Châteaubriant, admittedly like many others, failed to appreciate that parity was not Hitler’s concern. The theme of partnership dominates Châteaubriant’s vision of the new Europe. In one of his many calls to collaboration, he explains to his compatriots that ‘[l’Europe] serait déjà partie du bloc France– Allemagne si la France avait compris le mot “collaboration”’ (6 November 1941). The Europe of the future will be neither ‘cosaque’ nor ‘confédérée sous le signe borné et amoindrissant du mercantilisme anglo-saxon ou yankee’ (30 September 1943), for ‘l’Allemagne est 41 42

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This quotation is used as the epigraph to Chapter 8 of Ory’s Les Collaborateurs (p. 146), but Ory writes ‘veut’ instead of ‘vaut’, clearly and incorrectly changing the sense of the original. Jäckel, La France dans l’Europe de Hitler, pp. 319–21.

l’avenir’ (10 September 1942). Collaboration with Germany represents ‘la promesse pour la France de devenir grande’, the chance for her to become ‘une des portes du monde’ (30 September 1943), whereas victory for the Anglo-American and Soviet block will reduce her to the status of ‘un chef-lieu de canton’ (1 April 1943). Such reasoning justifies his conclusion that: L’Europe aujourd’hui, c’est l’Allemagne; en même temps que l’Europe c’est l’Allemagne, l’Allemagne c’est la France. La France et l’Allemagne, aujourd’hui, devant l’avenir, c’est même chose. (11 February 1943)

The recognition of German superiority within Europe suggested here was common to the collaborationists, for all recognised her incomparable status based on her geographical location, her demographic situation, her cultural nature, and her technological and industrial supremacy. None thought to question her right to expand eastwards or feared a threat to France, for there was general agreement that the two nations had the same interests. For example, some considered that a re-emphasis on France’s rural nature would render her the agricultural counterpart of industrial Germany, thereby establishing the complementarity rather than the competition of the two nations.43 Furthermore, while collaborationist Anglophobia prompted calls for the construction of a Europe without England, all agreed that there could be no Europe without Germany. Châteaubriant broadly shares this ideology, consistently believing post-Stalingrad German propaganda that the nation represents ‘la seule grande force par laquelle l’Europe puisse se défendre’ (4 February 1943). Germany, he argues, is young, strong and healthy (22 June 1944). She is the life force of the body of Europe, symbolically located at its heart, and pumps appropriate blood around the organism (11 February 1943). Whereas the new Europe can be built without England, Germany is a vital component, for ‘les peuples d’Europe ne peuvent pas s’unir sans un puissant noyau de condensation et ce noyau 43

Ory, Les Collaborateurs, p. 163.

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de condensation, c’est l’Allemagne’ (BC, November–December 1942). Alongside this recognition of Germany’s prime importance, Châteaubriant is keen to retain France’s identity and status in the new Europe. He is convinced that Germany regards France as a central nation in the new Europe, based on his perception of the value of what he calls ‘l’espace français dans le drame mondial’.44 As part of this espace, and in response to the Allied landings in North Africa on 8 November 1942, he promotes France’s African Empire as the new Europe’s ‘continent d’appointement, de complément et de production’. France’s future role will be that of a ‘puissant organe de transit entre l’Europe et l’immense Afrique’ and he triumphantly concludes that ‘on voit l’essor que, par là, prendraient dans cette nouvelle civilisation européenne la valeur française, la culture française’. Using Drieu la Rochelle by way of example, Pascal Ory has argued that the more lucid collaborationists were aware that ‘l’Europe de demain sera hégémonique, et l’hégémonie, allemande’ while others anticipated Europe as a ‘vaste fédération d’égaux’.45 Châteaubriant’s theory of l’espace français, as well as his conviction that ‘l’Europe ne sera faite que si l’Allemagne et la France marchent la main dans la main’ (BC, November–December 1942), serve to locate him in the second category. For Châteaubriant, Germany is federalist in nature, which explains her respect for other nations, because: […] son esprit fédéraliste lui rend facile et naturelle cette conception d’une union européenne dans la vie de laquelle chaque pays réaliserait, en raison de sa collaboration avec tous, le maximum de son être propre. (ibid.)

France, he suggests, has already had positive experience of federalism, defined as ‘ces moments où sa parfaite unité résultait de la vie portée à meilleure expression dans ses trente-deux provinces’ (ibid.). Echoes of 44 45

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This is the title of a lecture given by Châteaubriant to the Groupe Collaboration on 14 November 1942 (BC, November–December 1942, pp. 1–13). Subsequent immediate quotations are taken from this lecture. Ory, Les Collaborateurs, p. 162.

La Brière sound here in Châteaubriant’s preference for a unified structure of interdependent ‘provinces’, or ‘nation-states’, which he wishes to see in operation in the new Europe. Collaboration does not therefore mean the imposition of Germany’s will. National Socialism is not ‘un article d’exportation’ but rather a principle from which France can learn in order to effect French regeneration (12 March 1942). Châteaubriant’s theory of l’espace français can be seen to have influenced his attitude towards the physical occupation of France during the war. Persuaded that Germany valued France’s space on an equal footing with her own, he no doubt thought that Germany’s territorial behaviour would change in the post-war period. This explains why he makes no complaint over the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in August 1940 (which he had also refused to see as an issue of concern in 1937) and the subsequent germanisation of the population.46 Moreover, there is no evidence that either Châteaubriant or his newspaper viewed the total occupation of France from 11 November 1942 as anything other than a temporary means of defence in the face of a possible Anglo-American invasion from North Africa. Indeed, he welcomes Hitler’s letter to Pétain on the subject, in which he sees ‘volontairement abolie la distinction entre le vainqueur et le vaincu’ (BC, November–December 1942), while La Gerbe accepts that ‘l’armée allemande ne vient pas en ennemie du peuple français’ (12 November 1942).47

46 47

For details of Germany’s annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, see Azéma, De Munich à la Libération, pp. 174–76. The full text of Hitler’s letter to Pétain is published in La Gerbe, 12 November 1942, p. 3.

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Building the new Europe: forward to the past Châteaubriant’s definition of collaboration as a partnership of equals, coupled with his interpretation of Germany in federalist terms, indicate that his version of the new Europe is constructed in terms of a balanced Gallo-Germanic direction. Previous chapters have detailed his interest in the medieval age and particularly in the reactivation of essential medieval values, and this interest strongly influences his view of post-war Europe. Châteaubriant’s model for this is the early GalloGermanic Empire (or Empire of the Franks) developed by Pépin le Bref (714–68) and subsequently consolidated and expanded by Charlemagne (742–814), a ‘divine right’ ruler who represented the fusion of spiritual and temporal power and whose grand plan was to gather Catholic Europe into one strong and extensive empire. Châteaubriant was not alone in his exploitation of the period, for many writers and journalists of the day lauded the ‘glorious’ past of the Middle Ages, incarnated by the Crusades and the magnificent cathedrals which sprang up across Europe. Charlemagne found particular favour, for, considered to be ‘parfait biculturel’, he was the very symbol of a unified Europe.48 Châteaubriant held that Charlemagne was ‘le grand unificateur de l’Occident’, while his Empire represented: […] une fondation franco-germanique originale; une magnifique puissance qui, sous le nom de GRAND ROYAUME DES FRANCS, rassembla dans ses frontières l’essentiel de ce qui constituait déjà l’unité européenne occidentale. (26 August 1943)49

Charlemagne’s rule was a golden age, a time when all the peoples of the Empire were united under Frankish rule, when the separate categories of ‘French’ and ‘German’ did not exist, for neither was born 48 49

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Ory, Les Collaborateurs, p. 159. The emphasis is Châteaubriant’s.

as a nation until the Treaty of Verdun in 843. And within this Empire, Châteaubriant argues that the superiority of the Frankish racial group was indisputable, much as he had claimed for the Briérons vieux sang he had depicted in La Brière. Of the Franks, he writes: Dans ces temps, qui furent uniques, de la suprématie franque indivise, régnait un équilibre parfaitement stable entre les éléments unifiés du peuple. Dans les deux grandes régions séparées par le Rhin, la couche supérieure était la même: elle était constituée par les Francs; la base seule différait: à droite du Rhin, les Germains; à gauche, les Romains et les Celtes. (26 August 1943)

In 843, the Treaty of Verdun split the Empire in three, apportioning a part to each of Charlemagne’s three grandsons, and thereby creating what Châteaubriant deems the unnatural division of a natural community, a version of which we saw in the destruction of the community at Petit-Fougeray in Monsieur des Lourdines. In his opinion, the treaty ‘a différencié, et, en différenciant, a individualisé’, dividing the strong and unified Christian Empire into separate, weaker areas, and so rendering Christianity as a whole susceptible to attack from pagan elements (ibid.). Since Verdun, there have been few ‘heroes’ who have embodied authority and unity in a world otherwise in decline. Those he names include, not surprisingly, such heroic medieval leaders as Philippe Auguste (1165–1223) and Louis IX (1215–70). But he also adds a more recent character in the form of Emperor Napoleon (1769–1821), a man exploited generally by the collaborationists on the grounds that he was ‘centraliste, autoritaire, “européen” à sa manière’,50 given his calls for Europe to unite against Russia. A similar reasoning prompts the Groupe Collaboration to identify Hitler as a modern-day hero in the same vein, for ‘la France de Napoléon et l’Allemagne d’Adolf Hitler sont au fond obligées par le destin à une politique européenne commune’ (BC, March–April 1944). Hitler is therefore no maverick dictator, but a ‘hero’ validated by his

50

Ory, Les Collaborateurs, p. 159.

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inclusion in a line of heroes with a shared mission, and playing out his destiny on the twentieth-century stage.

The new Europeans: racial identity and racism The Second World War and the Occupation represented fertile ground for an explosion and an outpouring of Châteaubriant’s racism, in particular his hatred of Jews, but also of other ‘inferior’ and ‘undesirable’ peoples. In his opinion, modern Europe as created by the Treaty of Verdun is in a weakened state. Materialism, individualism, democracy and the movement of peoples have all proved harmful, for Europe is now a place: […] où les anciennes hiérarchies usées par leur propre exercice ont disparu, où les mélanges raciaux inconsidérés ont créé un chaos ethnique qui a produit la confusion de toutes les grandes lignes directrices; où les principes chrétiens, de moins en moins compris en profondeur, sont de plus en plus abolis. (26 August 1943)

Without change, Europe remains vulnerable to ‘de nouvelles invasions de peuples barbares ou barbarisés’ (ibid.), much as happened in the post-843 period, although, in the modern context, this threat is embodied by Châteaubriant’s personal enemies, namely the Jews and the Anglo-American-Soviet block. Châteaubriant’s solution is to abolish the Treaty of Verdun and to recreate a unified European empire dominated by a hierarchical group similar to Charlemagne’s Christian Gallo-Germanic Franks, and led by a spiritual and temporal leader in his mould. He holds that ‘l’effacement de nos hiérarchies’ represents one aspect of ‘la déchristianisation de nos races’ (18 November 1943), a logic which enables him to promote the restoration of a hierarchical system as a form of rechristianisation. Add this to his representation of 180

Charlemagne’s hierarchy as racially pure Franks and it transpires that the form of rechristianisation advocated is not only hierarchical but also demands racial purity. Thus, Châteaubriant sees the French and Germans as the modern-day incarnation of Charlemagne’s GalloGermanic Franks, and so identifies them as the racially superior group within his desired new Europe. Moreover, remembering that in 1937 Châteaubriant viewed Germany as the country of Charlemagne (GF, p. 11), it is but a short step to his definition of Hitler as the new Charlemagne, the heroic defender of European civilisation and culture, ‘le représentant de la lumière’ (3 July 1941), ‘une autorité acceptée, acclamée même’ (23 September 1940), ‘le bienfaiteur, le sauveur’ (20 April 1944) and hence ‘le plus grand Européen des temps modernes’ (23 March 1944). Just as Charlemagne and the Franks heroically resisted barbaric attacks on the Empire, so Châteaubriant believes that the current barbaric threat of Bolshevism can be successfully resisted through Franco-German unity. Collaboration consequently becomes the means to prevent invasion by other races and thereby to re-establish racial purity and Christianity in Europe (6 November 1941). The only response deemed capable of saving the West from Bolshevism is ‘une réaction suprême de nos races’ (5 February 1942). He defines the racial community as ‘un principe solide, nouveau, une réalité concrète nouvelle, une plate-forme sur laquelle on pouvait reconstruire’ (BC, November–December 1942), and therefore calls for ‘une France rendue à sa race et non détruite et perdue sous une domination yankee relié à Washington ou dans une république soviétique reliée à Moscou’ (18 March 1943). He argues that the true nature of the Second World War is racial rather than national, for: […] dans le cataclysme qui s’est ouvert sur le monde, il ne s’agit plus de luttes particulières entre des États européens […] mais d’un affrontement cosmique entre les masses raciales et continentales respectivement rassemblées pour une refonte de la distribution humaine sur le globe. (4 March 1943)

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In its supra-national definition of the conflict, such a comment harks back to Châteaubriant’s writings on the First World War. Then, in La Brière, we saw the development of his views on racial identity and racial purity. In La Gerbe des forces, he introduced the idea of racism as a means of national defence and emphasised the concept of groups deemed ‘dignes de constituer des nations’ (GF, p. 230). The Second World War represents the moment of maturation for Châteaubriant’s ideas on race, for, emboldened by the naked anti-Bolshevism and antiSemitism prevalent during the Occupation, he now openly discriminates against specifically targeted ‘inferior’ and ‘unworthy’ peoples whom he identifies as the agents of dechristianisation. The struggle against these peoples is carried out in the belief that the restoration of racial purity will effect rechristianisation, and so Châteaubriant promotes racism in the name of Christianity. Given Châteaubriant’s earlier writings, especially La Gerbe des forces, his attack on the ‘masses étrangères’ he associates with dechristianised Bolshevist Russia comes as no surprise. But his racism now also widens to display an open and trenchant anti-Semitism, this broadly in line with the collaboration in general. Historians agree on the indigenous nature of French anti-Semitism but distinguish between Vichy’s initial anti-Semitism – considered ‘more cultural and national than racial, in a French assimilationist tradition’ – and the ‘originality’ of collaborationist anti-Semitism, ‘celle d’être purement “français”, celle d’être scientifique, “racique”’.51 For the collaborationists, a Jew was always a Jew, and hence a foreigner, from whom the true French must be protected at all costs.52 Both La Gerbe and the Groupe Collaboration shared Châteaubriant’s anti-Semitism. Although not anti-Semitic in the style of Au Pilori,

51 52

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Paxton, Vichy France, p. 175; Ory, Les Collaborateurs, p. 153. See, for example, Robert Brasillach in Je suis partout, 2 June 1941: ‘Il faut régler le problème juif, parce que le Juif est l’étranger, qu’il est l’ennemi. Oui, nous voulons sauvegarder la race française, la protéger des ferments nocifs qui l’encombrent et l’avilissent, nous voulons qu’il y ait en France des Français.’

regarded as the newspaper of ‘ceux qui haïssent’,53 La Gerbe nonetheless nailed its colours to that mast. It regularly featured articles by such notorious anti-Semites as Georges Montandon, a professor at the École d’anthropologie in Paris and a proponent of ‘scientific’ racism, and Serpeille de Gobineau, grandson of the Gobineau read by Châteaubriant as early as the First World War.54 And the Groupe Collaboration was equally anti-Semitic, since its membership was open to all ‘sauf des Juifs et des franc-maçons’ and it promoted the necessity of spiritual regeneration ‘après des lustres de plouto-démocratie juive’ (BC, October 1942). Châteaubriant is not guilty of anti-Semitism purely on the grounds of association, for his own words and deeds serve amply to condemn him. As with other issues, his personal emphasis lay heavily on an exploration of principle and ideology rather than on concrete detail, and there is, for instance, no reference to actual anti-Jewish legislation, such as Vichy’s two statuts des Juifs and the mandatory wearing of the yellow star,55 or the round-up and subsequent deportation of French Jews from July 1942.56 This is not to say that Châteaubriant was unaware of such events, which would have been impossible given the circumstances, but rather that he accepted the 53 54

55

56

Amouroux, La Grande Histoire des Français sous l’occupation, III, 473. Montandon’s articles in La Gerbe include: ‘L’Établissement des Sémites en France’ (24 October 1940), ‘Comment s’est formé le type racial juif’ (31 October 1940) and ‘Les Traits du type judaïque’ (17 April 1941); Gobineau’s articles include: ‘Les Coupables’ (14 November 1940) and ‘Les Briseurs de révolution’ (2 January 1941). For details of Vichy’s anti-Semitic legislation, see Paxton, Vichy France, pp. 173– 85. Jews in the northern zone were required to wear the yellow star from 28 May 1942 at Germany’s instigation; the same obligation concerned Jews in the southern zone after the total occupation of France from November 1942. On 16–17 July 1942, for example, 12,884 French Jews were arrested in Paris and held at the Vélodrome d’Hiver prior to deportation. French police cooperated extensively in this operation. Based on German sources, it is estimated that, in total, 76,000 Jews were deported from France, of whom just 2,500 (or 3.3%) survived the experience (Azéma, De Munich à la Libération, pp. 183–84).

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practical implementation of anti-Semitism de facto once the principle had been established and so felt no need to discuss it. But Châteaubriant was also an active anti-Semite. He supported and facilitated the diffusion of anti-Semitic propaganda during the Occupation. He was a member of the Institut d’études des questions juives, which was responsible for the exhibition Le Juif et la France held at the Palais Berlitz in Paris in September 1941.57 And he willingly condoned the activity of the antiSemitic Comité pour l’épuration de la race française (CERF), whose aim was to ‘refaire la France en l’épurant de tous les germes mauvais’, since its members were principally recruited from Châteaubriant’s entourage and its tracts were distributed at his lectures.58 Châteaubriant’s anti-Semitism forms part of his theory on the required ‘purification’ of the nation which states that ‘la France doit vouloir posséder son sol […], doit vouloir se purifier’, and that, to this end, ‘il lui faut extirper tout ce qui s’oppose à cet esprit’ (6 November 1941). Jews, he writes, are associated with racial confusion (11 June 1942). Jews are the agents of dechristianisation, for they represent ‘l’expression commençante du désordre et de la mort dans la pure cathédrale chrétienne’, and he therefore simply cannot understand what he sees as the Catholic Church’s sympathy towards Jews (8 October 1942). Such statements indicate that he viewed the removal of Jews from France (and from Europe) in terms of both racial purification and rechristianisation. Châteaubriant was just as guilty of anti-Semitism as if he had rounded up the Jews himself.

57 58

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Dossier Châteaubriant. Renseignements en provenance du Conseil national d’information (1942–1944): groupements collaborationnistes. The manifesto of the CERF clearly identifies the group as antiSemitic and National-Socialist in inspiration.

Collaboration in action: from theory to practice Ideological concerns have thus far dominated our discussion of Châteaubriant’s reading of the Second World War and his commitment to collaboration. But that commitment did not remain on a theoretical level, for it was repeatedly and increasingly translated into action as the Occupation progressed. For instance, in the early stages of the war against Russia, Châteaubriant’s support for the LVF went far beyond the literary comparison and eulogy he expressed in La Gerbe. Indeed, concrete action soon followed in the shape of his membership of the LVF’s comité d’honneur from July 1941, and he further marked his commitment in the post-Stalingrad period by joining its comité central in March 1943, thereby endorsing the legion’s military collaboration (or cobelligerance) with Germany.59 His belief in economic collaboration (or cotravail) prompted him to support the relève, in which his elder son Guy participated (7 January 1943), as well as the service du travail obligatoire (STO), which – following a visit to an STO centre in Germany – he defined as ‘l’équivalent d’un service militaire’ (3 February 1944). In addition to his work as president of the Groupe Collaboration, for which he gave numerous lectures, he also lectured for the Cercle européen (subtitled the Cercle de collaboration économique européenne), on whose comité d’honneur he served.60 He spoke on Radio-Paris, a pro-collaboration propaganda machine,61 and he even operated officially for the Germans, working on the translation committee based at the Institut allemand.62 Châteaubriant’s other wartime activities prove further that he evolved into an individual who advocated active political and military collaboration, an evolution matched by both La Gerbe and the Groupe 59 60 61 62

Dossier Châteaubriant. Ibid. See the bibliography for details of Châteaubriant’s wartime radio broadcasts. Dossier Châteaubriant.

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Collaboration. His theory of a federal Europe led him to associate with and to support the Front révolutionnaire national (FRN), founded by Marcel Déat on 16 September 1942. Bertram Gordon has argued that Déat’s intention was thereby ‘to unify the collaborationist camp and entrap Doriot’, whose Parti populaire français (PPF) seemed at the time to be close to seizing power.63 Doriot’s refusal to integrate the PPF into the ranks of the FRN on the grounds that his group would lose its identity within the FRN meant that the latter failed to have any significant impact. Despite this failure, the FRN is important for an assessment of Châteaubriant because, in broad terms, it represented the political incarnation of his organic ideal. Châteaubriant believed that the synthesis of several groups in one movement represented strength through unity, and was therefore disappointed with Doriot’s reaction. Like many other collaborationists, Châteaubriant was attracted by the idea of a parti unique, as had first been proposed by Déat in the summer of 1940. He was convinced that ‘le Parti unique sera celui de la France nouvelle’, and that this party should liaise with ‘le grand Parti européen’ alongside other national groups for ‘c’est par le lien de ces partis nationaux avec la force centrale que se formera l’Europe’ (12 November 1942). For Châteaubriant, the FRN was not an old-style political animal but rather a ‘centre de force morale et idéale, source d’énergie intellectuelle et sentimentale’ (ibid.), which represented the internal regeneration he sought and a step on the pathway to European political unity (4 March 1943). His commitment to the FRN was such that he joined its comité directeur,64 attending and speaking at its meetings on behalf of both La Gerbe and the Groupe Collaboration, and in the name of French and German regeneration and unity (4 March 1943). Such action represents indisputable evidence of Châteaubriant’s evolution towards a commitment to political collaboration with Germany, for Germany was without doubt the force centrale of the new, united Europe he advocated. 63 64

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Gordon, Collaborationism in France, p. 210. Coston, Partis, journaux et hommes politiques d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, p. 148.

Châteaubriant, La Gerbe and the Groupe Collaboration also sympathised with the Milice française, ‘a combination totalitarian political party and private police force’ created by Pierre Laval on 30 January 1943 and led by Joseph Darnand.65 In an interview with Darnand on 1 April 1943, La Gerbe writes positively of ‘l’heure de la Milice’, while the Groupe Collaboration simultaneously identifies three ways to serve France well: Collaboration, qui groupe les élites grâce auxquelles, en Europe, la France conservera son rang; la Milice, garante de l’ordre intérieur; la Légion des volontaires contre le bolchevisme, porte-drapeau héroïque de la France dans l’Est. (BC, March– April 1943)

The evolution from cultural collaboration to active political and military collaboration is evident. Later in 1943, the Groupe Collaboration went beyond its cultural and economic brief with its request for weapons from the Germans (with which it intended to defend itself in the southern zone) and its sponsorship of a militant youth section, the Jeunes de l’Europe nouvelle (JEN).66 Moreover, the political nature of its membership can be easily identified, for many of its number were also directly associated with such collaborationist political parties as Doriot’s PPF, Déat’s Rassemblement national populaire (RNP) and Deloncle’s Mouvement social révolutionnaire.67 Both Châteaubriant and his two principal mouthpieces openly acted in a political sense during the Occupation, condoning the activities of the FRN and the Milice and extending their own political action. This is not to argue, however, that they abandoned their principles. The importance of an assessment of the Groupe Collaboration, for instance, is not to prove that the group acted politically ‘despite its 65 66 67

Gordon, Collaborationism in France, p. 167. Ibid., p. 230. For details of the parties supported by members of the Groupe Collaboration, see Catherine Brice, ‘Le Groupe Collaboration: 1940–1944’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Paris, 1978).

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pretensions to non-political status’,68 since it (and Châteaubriant) actually only ever claimed to be opposed to what they considered to be ‘bad’ politics. And, indeed, neither saw any contradiction between their support for the FRN and their claim to be ‘extra-politique’ (BC, March–April 1943). What matters is an analysis of their definition of appropriate political involvement, and ‘good’ politics is to be defined as ‘spiritualised’ politics, as collaboration in the pursuit of the organic or community ideal. This, Châteaubriant holds, demands one’s complete support (19 December 1940). Both Châteaubriant and his organisations were willing to champion and engage actively in groups they considered to incarnate their principles. In their eyes, adhesion to the FRN represented neither abdication of principle nor subjugation a party, for, as Châteaubriant notes, it was ‘formé au-dessus des partis et dans l’union des partis’ (4 March 1943). So, while Châteaubriant’s ‘spiritualisation’ of politics manifestly remained a constant during the Occupation, he also became increasingly politically active, ready and willing to play a full part in the promotion of collaboration. His direct involvement in a whole range of organisations, coupled with the nature of his acquaintances (Abetz, Bonnard, Brasillach, Darquier de Pellepoix, Déat, De Brinon, Doriot, Drieu, Henriot, to name but the most (in)famous), indicate that he moved in the most high-ranking and influential collaborationist circles. Châteaubriant was a collaborationist to the core. In the ideologies he supported and the principles he held, he also displayed the prejudices of the worst collaborationists.

68

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Gordon, Collaborationism in France, p. 242.

Writing the Second World War: one battle in a wider conflict It would be misleading to suggest that Châteaubriant’s writing of the Second World War tells us nothing of the concrete events of the war, for his articles in La Gerbe do enable the reader to track the broad evolution of the conflict from the Armistice, through Montoire, Laval’s dismissal, the war against Russia and America’s involvement, to the return of Laval, the total occupation of France, and the increasing Allied raids on France and Germany which culminated in the Normandy landings of June 1944. However, despite the series topically entitled Tableau de l’heure and Ordres de l’heure, details of specific campaigns, of events in Paris or Vichy, or of life under the Occupation are limited, while those topical events which are referenced are generally interpreted for comment on what is considered to be their universal significance. In this sense, the problems of the day stand as the incarnation of the problems of all time. Châteaubriant’s exploitation of the Second World War is therefore comparable to his treatment of the First World War, which he described in 1917 as: […] le spectacle extérieur d’un drame plus profond, du drame de la consomption que nourrit dans la conscience de l’homme la décadence des essences et l’abaissement incalculable de toutes les valeurs de l’esprit. (LAG, p. 166)

Where the First World War illustrated humanity’s decadence and decline, the Second World War represents the battle for human regeneration. In Châteaubriant’s eyes, this universal theme far outweighs the tragedy of the topical situation. This interpretation of the Second World War is nowhere more evident than in the months prior to the Allied landings and the end of the Occupation. Unlike men such as Drieu, whose idealisation of Germany and her ‘warriors’ turned to disillusion from 1942,69 69

Soucy, Fascist Intellectual, p. 85.

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Châteaubriant never lost his faith in Germany as the means to European salvation and rechristianisation, and he maintains his spiritualisation of the conflict in the pages of La Gerbe until his final article of 29 June 1944. The intensification of Allied activity against Germany from January 1944 activates Châteaubriant’s tendency to Apocalypticism. The Allied aeroplanes are described as ‘ces effroyables engins de fin de monde’, the noise of which is compared to ‘ce bruit que Saint Jean dans l’Apocalypse compare à une voix de foule nombreuse, à un bruit de grosses eaux, à un bruit de fort tonnerre’ (6 January 1944). And the war overall is presented as a ‘combat sans merci et dont dépend le sort de la planète, entre les légions de la noble volonté d’“être” et celles de la furieuse mort du monde!’ (3 February 1944). This opposition of ‘being’ and ‘death’ is restated in his presentation of the war (or ‘Apocalypse’) as the incarnation of divine retribution, as the last day of the ‘old’ world and the first day of a ‘new’ world created by and for those with appropriate spiritual armoury (6 January 1944). The Christian Easter message of death or resurrection and the story of Lazarus offer hope for salvation, but Châteaubriant forewarns that the war will mercilessly eliminate those damned by their unpardonable behaviour, much as the first-born of those condemned in Egypt were killed in Exodus 12 (13 April 1944). The English, Americans and Russians lack divine guidance: in particular, the AngloAmerican raids illustrate that the English-speaking world wreaks physical and spiritual havoc with equal abandon, and he proclaims that their inhuman excesses will condemn them to eternal damnation (27 April 1944). Châteaubriant believes that France needs salvation, not liberation (5 August 1943), and he argues that true freedom cannot be achieved through military action (1 June 1944). The English are godless ‘fossoyeurs de la vieille chrétienté’: even her bishops fail to condemn the Allied bombings of France as Châteaubriant sees fit, for they regard these as the price to pay for liberation. And their attack on ‘le “paganisme” hitlérien’ leads him to retort that ‘il y faut même, pour cette libération, d’autres gaillards et bougres spirituels que ceux que vous semblez être’ (ibid.). 190

Châteaubriant always considered National Socialism as Christian, never pagan, and he calls down the judgement of God on Germany’s enemies during the liberation struggle (22 June 1944). He does not see (or refuses to acknowledge) that by this stage Germany is losing the war, and instead presents Hitler and the National Socialists as Gideon and his three hundred men, the ‘valeureux champions’ and ‘hommes nécessaires’ of Judges 7 and 8 (10 February 1944), the elite force which can put a halt to Russia’s advances at any moment it chooses (13 April 1944). He describes the Allied landings of 6 June 1944 as ‘l’apocalyptique conjoncture’ which has brought the destruction of ‘les dynamismes spirituels’ (8 June 1944). Fortunately for the French, ‘il reste à cette heure du décisif péril pour l’humanité, un grand peuple qui honore l’espèce en luttant pour elles avec toutes ses forces et tout son sang’ (15 June 1944). To the end, Châteaubriant proclaims to the French that the Germans are ‘héros magnifiques, héros magnanimes […], vos propres défenseurs sur votre propre sol!’ (29 June 1944). As this chapter has shown, Châteaubriant’s ideology of collaboration is broadly comparable to that other collaborationists in its antiBolshevism, Anglophobia, anti-Semitism and promotion of a new European order. Where Châteaubriant differs from others, however, is in his reading of National Socialism. Others admittedly exploit religious imagery, promote spiritual regeneration, view the war as a crusade, call on Joan of Arc as a desired role model and look to Charlemagne’s medieval empire for the new European ideal. But only Châteaubriant roots his collaboration in his Christianity and openly identifies National Socialism as a New Christendom constructed on the model of his preferred form of medieval Christianity. For Châteaubriant, collaboration with Germany therefore represents the means to his desired goal of the rechristianisation and regeneration of the modern world. This is to be achieved through the establishment of what he sees as a strong, heroic, militant Christianity, but which, under examination is also revealed to be elitist and racist in inspiration and activity.

191

Châteaubriant was not an opportunistic collaborator, but rather a sincerely committed individual who did not stray from his chosen pathway throughout the war. In early 1943, as Vichy continued to disappoint and the war began to turn against the Germans, he continued to call on his fellow French to take an active stand in the current crisis: Aujourd’hui, nous prenons position plus que jamais. A cette heure où nous voyons notre sol se crevasser de toutes parts, des choses inouïes s’accomplir et d’autres plus inouïes encore se préparer, l’heure est venue de trouver la formule d’un groupement actif et résolu des Français de l’action franco-allemande, des Français qui ne sont pas des attentistes, mais ont un idéal clair et précis. (18 March 1943)

His calls to action become increasingly desperate in the final months of the Occupation, when the prospect of liberation prompts him to write that: […] l’heure ne laisse plus aucune place à ce qui n’est pas l’attaque ou la défense, elle ne permet plus, Hommes de France, une neutralité politique, qui est en ellemême abîme de trahison à l’égard de tous et de mort pour tous! (15 June 1944)

Three weeks later, Châteaubriant made his last overt political gestures of the Occupation by signing the Déclaration commune sur la situation politique of 5 July 1944, a document which deplored the recent assassination by the Resistance of Philippe Henriot – Vichy’s Minister for Propaganda and Information – and attacked what was seen as the continued procrastination of the French Government.70 Then, on 7 July 1944, he rendered personal hommage to Henriot in a speech at the Club de la Presse.71 70

71

192

Henry Rousso, Un château en Allemagne: la France de Pétain en exil, Sigmaringen 1944–1945 (Éditions Ramsay, 1980), p. 76. The full text of the declaration and a list of its signatories can be found in William Stucki, La Fin du régime de Vichy (Geneva: Éditions La Bacconnière, 1947), pp. 241–45. Dossier Châteaubriant.

Châteaubriant regularly visited Germany both prior to and during the Occupation, enjoying an annual month-long cure at Baden-Baden every summer. He left France as usual around 14 July 1944, but, on this occasion, failed to return. His departure bears all the hallmarks of a well-organised contingency plan. Throughout 1944, he amassed a considerable amount of money for his personal use, an astute move made most probably in anticipation of potential exile. Statements for La Gerbe’s bank account reveal that between 1 January 1944 and 17 August 1944, Châteaubriant personally received monies totalling 1.25 million francs, of which 400,000 francs was cashed via a single cheque on 6 June 1944, the day of the Allied landings in Normandy. Then on 18 August 1944 he arranged for a further sum of 175,000 francs to be forwarded to him in Germany.72 From Baden-Baden, Châteaubriant moved to Sigmaringen before arriving in Untergrainau in late October 1944. With the war still raging in Europe, he remained convinced that Germany could yet emerge victorious, and it was only as the conflict eventually came to an end in the spring of 1945 that his vision of National Socialism finally disintegrated.

72

Ibid.

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6 Liberation and the New Europe The last days of collaboration: Sigmaringen On 31 August 1944, some six weeks after Châteaubriant had fled to Germany and just one week after the liberation of Paris, France saw the creation of a provisional Republican government headed by the Free French leader, Charles de Gaulle. The Vichy government had already collapsed, for both Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval had effectively become the prisoners of the Reich on 20 August 1944, and were held initially at Belfort in eastern France.1 Both men had ceased to exercise their powers of their own volition, although at the same time they had refused to resign from office. With the Germans keen to maintain at least the semblance of a French government, Ribbentrop began negotiations with collaborationist personalities on the structure of a new French regime with the intention of convincing Pétain to delegate his powers to Fernand de Brinon, Vichy’s ambassador to Germany and seen by many at the time as ‘le nouvel homme fort de la collaboration’ (p. 80). On 6 September 1944, following petitions to Pétain, De Brinon finally succeeded in establishing what was known as the Délégation gouvernementale française pour la défense des intérêts français en Allemagne, headed by himself and serviced by Déat, Darnand and Bridoux (p. 112). Contrary to their wishes, Pétain, Laval and their entourage were subsequently moved across the Rhine to Sigmaringen, where De Brinon’s delegation was officially installed on 1 October 1944 as the French government in exile. Sigmaringen was henceforward regarded by the collaboration as the new capital of France, and therefore as ‘terre française’ (p. 117). 1

Rousso, Un château en Allemagne, p. 78. Subsequent immediate references to this book are given in the text.

Collaborationists such as Brasillach and Drieu chose to stay in France and face retribution rather than seek refuge in Germany.2 Many others, however, followed in the wake of the retreating Germans, and a disparate group of around two thousand collaborationist activists (including Milice, RNP and LVF members), intellectuals and petits collabos settled at Sigmaringen during September 1944.3 Châteaubriant was temporarily one of their number, for his diaries indicate that he was in Sigmaringen on 3 October 1944 before moving on to Untergrainau later that month (C, p. 229). Familiar faces were common in Sigmaringen, since, for example, the Groupe Collaboration was represented by Jean Weiland, its former director-general and vicepresident.4 He called its troops to muster through the pages of La France, a daily newspaper created by Jean Luchaire – formerly editor of the collaborationist Les Nouveaux Temps – and published in Sigmaringen between 26 October 1944 and 29 March 1945.5 And Jacques de Lesdain, a regular speaker at Groupe Collaboration meetings during the Occupation, also settled in Sigmaringen where he became political director of Radio-Sigmaringen.6 2

3 4 5

6

196

Brasillach surrendered to the French police on 14 September 1944 and was condemned to death at his trial before the Cour de Justice de la Seine on 19 January 1945. He was executed on 6 February 1945. Drieu la Rochelle committed suicide on 15 March 1945 after reading in Le Figaro that his arrest had been ordered by the Liberation authorities (Soucy, Fascist Intellectual, p. 94). Henry Rousso, ‘Sigmaringen: le dernier carré de la Collaboration’, L’Histoire, 44 (1982), 6–19 (pp. 8–12). For a satirical description of life at Sigmaringen, see Louis-Ferdinand Céline, D’un château l’autre (Gallimard, 1957). Jean Hérold-Paquis, Des illusions, désillusions (Bourgoin, 1948), p. 54. In its first edition, Luchaire described La France as ‘un acte d’espoir […] qui s’adresse essentiellement à ces un million cinq cent mille Français vivant en Allemagne […] en passe de devenir la suprême réserve humaine de la France, de cette France que la Libération a couverte de ruines et que les libérateurs abandonnent à la plus sinistre et à la plus sanglante des guerres civiles’ (Luchaire, cited in Rousso, ‘Sigmaringen’, p. 14). Luchaire provides no substantiation for his figure of 1.5 million French in Germany. Rousso, Un château en Allemagne, p. 66.

Events back in France between August and December 1944 meant that there was little likelihood of Châteaubriant returning to France if he wanted to avoid pursuit by the authorities. On 20 August 1944, an independent Parisian auditor, Georges Neff, was appointed temporary administrator of La Gerbe, with the brief to report on its holdings and its financial status. Neff’s inventory of the newspaper, drafted following a visit to its offices on 5 September, lists an impressive collection of furniture and office equipment but, as regards finance, he concludes that its bank account had been emptied and that nothing was found in the safe.7 On 14 September, the premises were searched by the police and various documents relating to the newspaper’s operation were seized. By this date, La Gerbe’s offices had been taken over by the newspaper Action, which had been accorded a bon de réquisition by the Mouvement de libération nationale. Given that the collaborationist press had folded with the departure of the Germans, no-one from La Gerbe would have been likely to object or to come forward to reclaim its offices, especially as the épuration of the press and journalists was then decreed by edict dated 30 September 1944.8 Action against Châteaubriant himself quickly followed, such as his inclusion on the definitive list of ‘écrivains indésirables’ published by the Comité National des Écrivains on 21 October 1944.9 More serious, however, and indicative of the importance of his case, was the warrant for his arrest issued in Paris on 23 October 1944, followed by a police investigation into his wartime activities in March 1945.10 Furthermore, 7 8

9 10

Dossier Châteaubriant. The events subsequently detailed are also recorded in this dossier. Pierre-Henri Doublet, La Collaboration: l’épuration, la confiscation, les réparations aux victimes de l’occupation (Pichon et Durand–Auzias, 1945), pp. 122–25. See also Ordonnance sur le séquestrement des journaux: liste des journaux poursuivis (Palais de Justice, n.d.). Pierre Assouline, L’Épuration des intellectuels (Brussels: Éditions Complexe, 1985), pp. 161–62. 148 writers are named on the list. The warrant for Châteaubriant’s arrest (number J44/17165-6) was issued at the Palais de Justice in Paris by Georges Berry, juge d’instruction for the Seine district.

197

an edict dated 26 December 1944 deemed those who had been members of specified groups since January 1941 (including the Groupe Collaboration and the LVF) to be automatically guilty of indignité nationale, which could carry the penalty of exclusion from France.11 Evidently it was not in Châteaubriant’s interests to return to France, and he also decided to leave Sigmaringen after only a brief stay. But this action should not be read as a desire on his part to retreat at this point from the contemporary stage, since both his articles in La France and his recorded correspondence with De Brinon indicate that he remained in contact with both people and events at Sigmaringen throughout the early months of 1945. These letters confirm that Châteaubriant was considered sufficiently important and useful by other collaborationists for his support to be canvassed on certain issues, and they offer an informative insight into his response to the different French factions at Sigmaringen. In German eyes, De Brinon’s delegation at Sigmaringen was a temporary measure prior to the installation of a permanent committee under Doriot, De Brinon’s rival for power, who had set up his headquarters at Lake Constance in southern Germany and had long been preparing to become the leader of the French in exile. To this end, Doriot announced the foundation of his Comité de libération française on 6 January 1945, and, much to the displeasure of both Déat and Darnand, De Brinon backed his initiative, as did the Groupe Collaboration.12 Doriot argued that French unity could be achieved through his committee and, in an attempt to win over others in the delegation, he arranged to meet with Déat and Darnand. But the meeting never took place, for Doriot was killed by aircraft fire on the journey to Sigmaringen on 22 February 1945. As Henry Rousso has written, ‘la fin d’un des chefs les plus prestigieux de la collaboration

11 12

198

The police investigation was carried out by René Riquet, a commissaire de police judiciaire in Paris (Dossier Châteaubriant). The edict is published in Collaboration: codification des textes législatifs relatifs à sa répression et à l’indignité nationale (Haute Cour de Justice, 1945). Rousso, Un château en Allemagne, p. 280.

signifie pour beaucoup la fin des espérances’, although Déat, Darnand, Luchaire and Bucard took the opportunity to combine forces against De Brinon (who aspired to be Doriot’s replacement), with the intention of claiming political control via the creation of a ‘front commun’.13 In the power struggle which ensued, both De Brinon and Déat canvassed support from Châteaubriant, who records that Déat in particular wrote to him several times on the subject in a most insistent fashion.14 In March 1945, Châteaubriant pledged his support for and to De Brinon ‘par loyalisme personnel autant que par la plus élémentaire politique de prudence, en raison des fragilités inouïes de notre position’, before suggesting that the Groupe Collaboration could and should act as ‘un organe modérateur exerçant son influence au-dessus des partis et entre les partis’ (ibid.) – thereby allocating a specific political role to the group. So keen was Châteaubriant to play a role in the political games of the day that he put the same proposal to Déat, but without making it clear that he had already committed to De Brinon as a future leader. Unfortunately, Déat read this proposal as an indication of support for himself, and Châteaubriant was forced to clarify his position to Déat in April 1945, at least partly to placate an aggrieved De Brinon who had written to him on the matter in somewhat severe terms (ibid.). A more skilful political manoeuvrer would undoubtedly have managed the situation much better, but ultimately the power struggle between the two French camps came to nothing, partly because the Germans did not bother to take sides, having more pressing issues to consider, and partly because the situation was overtaken by events in late April 1945 as the war in Europe came to an end. In January 1945, Châteaubriant was still publicly predicting a victory for Germany, writing in the pages of La France:

13 14

Ibid., p. 157. Alphonse de Châteaubriant: copies dactylographiées de lui à Brinon.

199

Quand un pays doit être vaincu, cela se voit à l’homme de ce pays, au visage de cet homme, usé avant le combat. Or il n’y a qu’à le regarder, l’homme allemand, il n’a jamais été aussi simple dans son stoïcisme inentamé et dans sa force tranquille. Vous pourrez l’écraser peut-être, vous ne pourrez pas le vaincre. Parce qu’il n’est pas l’homme vaincu de ce temps. Il est visible qu’il est tout le contraire.15

Whether this is evidence of a stubborn public refusal to accept the inevitable or of a wildly misplaced optimism on Châteaubriant’s part cannot be known with any certainty. What is clear, however, is that, within a month, we begin to hear the voice which would articulate his post-war re-assessment both of his earlier support for Germany and of his own wartime activities. National Socialism, he writes on 12 February 1945, has failed to live up to his expectations: Le national-socialisme eut, un instant, une vision des nécessités morales que réclamait l’époque. […] L’Allemagne, capable de grandes actions militaires, était incapable de jouer le rôle politique que l’Europe attendait d’elle. Il y a dix ans, j’ai parlé de l’esprit du national-socialisme. Mais le national-socialisme qui fut appliqué a été la négation de celui que j’exposai dans mon livre [La Gerbe des forces]. (C, p. 230)

This is an unexpected condemnation of astounding proportion, given the level of commitment to National Socialism which Châteaubriant had previously expressed and practised, and through which he quite deliberately distances himself from Nazi policies and activity and retreats into the realm of the theoretical. There is not even the barest suggestion of an admission that he has made a personal error of judgement, but simply a pronouncement that Germany has failed to deliver. Châteaubriant’s belief in his own view of the world remains total. By March 1945, the progress of the war was such that Châteaubriant was forced to acknowledge Germany’s impending defeat, 15

200

Châteaubriant, ‘De Breughel à Beethoven’, La France, 15 January 1945, p. 1 & p. 2 (p. 2).

writing to De Brinon that ‘les nouvelles militaires sont telles que seul un miracle peut encore sauver l’Allemagne’.16 No such miracle materialised, and, no doubt aware of the likely consequences of a German defeat for men such as himself, Châteaubriant took no chances with his own safety. His timely departure from France in July 1944 was matched by his equally judicious move from Germany to Austria, where he arrived in Kitzbühel on 23 April 1945 (C, p. 228). Four days later, on 27 April, Pétain surrendered himself to the Swiss authorities; Mussolini was captured and shot by the Resistance in northern Italy on 28 April; and, with his forces collapsing around him, Hitler committed suicide in Berlin on 30 April 1945. The defeat of Germany and the end of the Second World War mark the end of the penultimate phase of Châteaubriant’s life, but they by no means mark the end of his career. From 1945 until his death on 2 May 1951, and from the relative safety of exile in Austria under an assumed name, he continued to interpret and to comment on the contemporary situation, indulging in a process of political selfreassessment which provides convincing evidence of an attempt at self-justification. This reassessment process operates in two principal ways. Firstly, Châteaubriant distances himself from the short-term, concrete practice of National Socialism as applied during the Occupation, a process which includes a reconstruction of his political self through a reinterpretation of aspects of his wartime attitudes and activity. Secondly, he vindicates his political self on the grounds of the ‘validity’ of the long-term views which he maintained prior to and during the Occupation – especially in respect of his Europeanism and anti-Communism, both of which emerge as key issues in the post-war period. As we shall discover, the importance of these themes in the post-war context enables Châteaubriant to attack contemporary French and European political activity for short-term vision, for overemphasis on temporal events and for disregarding the importance of wider, universal concerns. 16

Copies dactylographiées à Brinon.

201

The traitor judged On 3 November 1951, the newspaper France-Dimanche announced Châteaubriant’s death and cited what it categorised as his 1945 ‘testament’ in which he publicly asks the pardon of his family: […] de toute la peine que je leur ai causée, ou que j’ai pu leur causer pendant ma vie, et pour la dure tribulation qui a résulté pour eux tous des événements de mon action politique et publique.17

In specific reference to his public and political persona, Châteaubriant goes on to declare: Devant le Juge qu’on ne trompe pas et qui réside au plus profond de ma conscience, que j’ai agi avec la plus totale sincérité, en vue de ce que j’estimais être les intérêts de mon pays et conformément aux puissantes convictions qui régnaient en moi depuis ce que m’avait dévoilé et appris sur les destins de l’Europe la guerre de 1914–1918. (ibid.)

The self-portrait painted in this statement is striking. Here stands a man who has done nothing to trouble his conscience, who acted sincerely and in the interests of his country, and who possesses the wisdom to learn from and to apply the lessons of an earlier time. Among those who were called to account for their wartime activities in the post-war period were many who claimed sincerity as their justification, or who retreated behind their superiors with the argument that they had acted on orders, conceivably hoping thereby to excuse 17

202

France-Dimanche, 3 November 1951, p. 11. Reports of his death also appeared in Le Franc-Tireur, 29 October 1951, p. 4; Le Monde, 30 October 1951, p. 7; Rivarol, 8 November 1951, p. 1; Ici-Paris, 12 November 1951, p. 4. The ‘testament’ does not appear in any of Châteaubriant’s published writings. The delay between Châteaubriant’s death and its reporting in France may have resulted from the fact that he was buried under an assumed name. The Châteaubriant family also withheld the announcement for several months, although their reasons are not clear.

their actions and to lessen the severity of any judgement. Châteaubriant similarly invoked a sincerity which is not in any doubt, and he would surely claim to have been carrying out the will of God – a superior of unquestionable status. But neither claim lessens his guilt and neither should be permitted to divert or subvert justice. The sense of self-importance and superiority evident in Châteaubriant’s 1945 ‘testament’ is nothing new, complemented as it is by his suggestion that none but God has the right to judge him. The French authorities took a different view, however, and the decision to send Châteaubriant for trial was announced on 27 February 1947. The actual summons to appear at the Cour de Justice in Paris was drafted on 16 June 1948 and published in L’Aurore on 4 and 5 July 1948.18 Charged with treason on the basis of his wartime intelligence with Germany, Châteaubriant’s trial took place in his absence on the afternoon of 25 October 1948.19 The verdict of guilty on all counts was delivered before the end of the day, and Châteaubriant was sentenced to death and dégradation nationale, as follows: Par arrêt de la Cour de Justice de Paris, sixième sous-section, en date du 25 octobre 1948, le nommé, de Brédenbec Châteaubriant, Alphonse René Marie, âgé de 71 ans, né à Rennes le 25 mars 1877 (Ile-et-Vilaine), fils d’Alphonse et de Marie-Louise Arnaud, en fuite, profession d’écrivain, déclaré coupable de trahison commise de 1940 à 1944, a été condamné à mort et à la dégradation

18 19

Dossier Châteaubriant. Châteaubriant was tried on the following two questions: 1. ‘De Brédenbec Châteaubriant accusé défaillant est-il coupable d’avoir sur le territoire national, de 1940 à 1944, en tout cas entre le 16 juin 1940 et la date de la Libération, en temps de guerre, étant Français, entretenu des intelligences avec l’Allemagne ou avec ses agents, en vue de favoriser les entreprises de cette puissance étrangère contre la France ou l’une quelconque des nations alliées en guerre contre les puissances de l’axe?’ 2. ‘L’action spécifiée sous la première question a-t-elle été commise avec l’intention de favoriser les entreprises de toute nature de l’Allemagne, puissance ennemie de la France ou de l’une quelconque des nations alliées en guerre contre les puissances de l’axe?’ (Dossier Châteaubriant).

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nationale en vertu de l’article 75.5 du Code pénal, ordonnance du 28 novembre 1944.20

Châteaubriant learnt of his sentence in the pages of L’Époque on 7 November 1948.21 He subsequently wrote in his diaries that: Autour d’un jugement comme celui-ci […] on peut tout dire. Je dirai seulement ceci, qui me paraît se rapporter à cet ‘essentiel’ que chacun doit avant tout rechercher dans sa propre histoire: cette date du 7 novembre me paraît fermer dans mon cœur une période et en ouvrir une autre. Très irrité jusqu’ici et sans cesse me livrant à des critiques amères contre l’esprit des hommes qui furent à la tête de l’effroyable réaction ayant suivi la défaite de notre politique, j’ai senti, à cette nouvelle, que mon reproche s’apaisait, que mon indignation s’adoucissait en une indulgence générale qui, désormais, voyait les choses de plus haut et déjà à travers une espèce d’oubli. (C, p. 321)

And yet, far from closing the door on his recent past, Châteaubriant continued to comment on that past as well as on contemporary events, indicating that it is impossible to separate the periods prior to and after his sentence in such a clear-cut fashion. Indeed, on the contrary, he is manifestly anxious to provide his own version of his earlier political self, for, as he writes in December 1948, ‘il est parfois nécessaire d’élucider pourtant ce qui reste obscur, de purifier ce que des mains adverses, maladroites ou mal intentionnées ont pu rendre trouble’.22 This is plainly ironic, for Châteaubriant sets out to counter 20 21 22

204

Document F.375.920, extrait des minutes du greffe de la Cour de Justice de Paris (Dossier Châteaubriant). See the Introduction, note 1, for Article 75.5 of the French Penal Code. The sentence had already been reported in several newspapers on 26 October 1948, including Le Figaro, p. 5; L’Aurore, p. 5; L’Aube, p. 3; Le Franc-Tireur, p. 4; and Le Parisien libéré, p. 3. Alphonse de Châteaubriant, Procès posthume d’un visionnaire, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1987). Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of La Gerbe des forces, the text is constructed of extracts from Châteaubriant’s post-1914 writings, as well as previously unpublished notes from 1948 and 1949.

any ‘inaccurate’ judgement of himself which may be made with his own reading of his life, itself revised to suit the occasion.

Revisioning the self: judging National Socialism We have already seen that, even before the war was truly over, Châteaubriant claimed to have identified a disappointing discrepancy between his vision of National Socialism and its practical implementation during the war. He nowhere admits to an error of political judgement on his part, or even a simple change of opinion and direction – indeed, quite the opposite – but rather emphasises his disillusion with practical politics as a means of distancing himself from National Socialism. This tactic is evident as early as January 1945, when he writes: Maintenant que j’ai l’expérience du passé, je sais que je ne ferais rien de ce que j’ai entrepris en 1940. Non parce que je n’ai plus les mêmes convictions politiques, ou que j’aurais adopté celles des Gaullistes, mais uniquement parce que j’ai acquis la connaissance de l’inanité des unes et des autres. (PPV, p. 22)

Where National Socialism had previously been lauded by Châteaubriant as the required form of salvation in the face of Bolshevism, it is now attacked for the weaknesses inherent in its ideology. It is even equated with Bolshevism, for he writes in November 1948 that ‘il y avait un danger dans l’hitlérisme, par suite du lien organique que l’hitlérisme avait involontairement et inconsciemment avec le bolchevisme’ (C, p. 322). This link is rooted in what he now sees as the extreme nationalism at the heart of National Socialism. No longer would he support the LVF, not because of the ideas it represented, but because its members were required to wear German uniform and were therefore the puppets of German nationalism (PPV, p. 23). In what stands as a blatant piece of self-reconstruction, Châteaubriant claims 205

that he had raised such objections during the war, although this postwar assertion sits most uncomfortably with his wartime eulogies of the LVF and his commitment to military collaboration. Interestingly, nationalism is now seen to have played a major role in Germany’s failure, and Châteaubriant criticises the National Socialists for their ultimate inability to appreciate their European role and to comprehend that ‘ils n’étaient pas seulement une force au service de l’Allemagne, mais la force allemande réformée par le destin pour le salut de l’Europe’. This prompts him to oppose ‘l’intelligence et la prudence d’une grande politique européenne qui, seule, eût été la vraie politique allemande’ to the reality of ‘[son] destin particulier, […] les volontés tragiques du destin allemand’ (p. 37). During the war Châteaubriant had wholly believed in and promoted collaboration as an equal partnership between France and Germany, and did not view the occupier’s actions as evidence of the exploitation of France’s resources. But, in the post-war period, he chooses to attack Germany precisely on these grounds, writing in disingenuous terms that: Pour nous, la collaboration tenait dans la compréhension réciproque des deux peuples, leur compénétration mutuelle, l’étude de leurs deux cultures, leur entente économique, et non le pillage dont la France était victime de la part de l’Allemagne. (p. 23)

And, where he had previously extolled Germany’s ‘understanding’ of France and had supported the Germans to the point of sycophancy, he now writes that ‘nous étions aussi mal compris des Allemands que des Français. Que de crapauds ai-je dû ainsi avaler à l’ambassade du Reich!’ (ibid.), thereby implying that his business and social contacts with the German Embassy had been an unpleasant burden to be tolerated. This is a misleading representation, for Châteaubriant had revelled in his contacts with the Germans since these bolstered his sense of self-importance. Where Châteaubriant had interpreted National Socialism as the engineer of spiritual renewal, he now condemns what he defines as its 206

lack of long-term vision, opposing practical National-Socialist politics – which he locates purely on the temporal plane – to his theory of a visionary National Socialism. And, in what represents a remarkable volte-face of attitude, he turns on Adolf Hitler: Les formations nationales-socialistes ont été constituées, avant tout, d’éléments populaires, qui ont manqué de vision. Elles ont été grisées par leurs victoires. Hitler tout le premier. (p. 37)

This dissociation of the self from the practical politics of the Occupation period is completed by his false denial of personal antiSemitism. In what stands as a blatant and outrageous reinterpretation of his wartime persona, he writes in January 1949: Je n’ai jamais dénoncé à qui que ce soit aucun Juif ni aucun franc-maçon, mais n’ai fait que passer mon temps à essayer de les sauver. D’ailleurs je n’ai jamais eu aucune animosité contre les Juifs parce que les Juifs ne comptent absolument pour rien dans ma conception des causes de la décadence de notre civilisation. (p. 24)

He even suggests that he actively welcomes the presence of Jews in France, where they have become an indispensable part of national life: La question juive est très simple pour moi: là où les Juifs se sont implantés dans notre patrimoine historique, ils sont chez eux. J’ajoute que l’activité juive a créé un tel mouvement de vie dans la plupart des parties du monde qu’on ne pourrait plus se passer d’eux. (ibid.)

This is a self-portrait far removed in accuracy from the truth, for Châteaubriant was a trenchant anti-Semite, as we have seen. Such distortion is intentionally deceitful and an insult to those who suffered anti-Semitism first-hand.

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Revisioning the self: Europe Châteaubriant’s manufactured distancing from National Socialism in the post-war period is paired by his exploitation of contemporary political attitudes and events which are employed in vindication of his political self. The question of the development of Europe played a particularly important role in that process.23 By early 1945, a degree of mutual suspicion existed between Russia and the Western Allies over the balance of power in Europe at the end of the war, and Russian leaders had made it clear that they would not tolerate interference by the Allies in those areas which they considered legitimately theirs. Russia was keen to impose her domination in eastern Europe, and Poland was her obvious target. Poland had been occupied by Russia in September 1939, and in November 1943 both Churchill and Roosevelt had accepted that Russia would retain eastern Poland after the war, while Poland herself would be compensated with the allocation of German land to the west. This issue was a major topic for discussion at the Anglo-American-Soviet summit conferences held at Yalta in February 1945 and at Potsdam in July 1945. By June 1945, however, several key political posts in Poland were already Communist-held. Within two years the Communists had a massive political majority and, by 1948, Poland was entirely a Communist state. By this date Russian influence in eastern Europe had further expanded and Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and eastern Germany were also all essentially Communist-controlled. Mutual suspicion between Russia and the West resulted in the Cold War, which dominated international political relations from 1948. The summit conference at Teheran in November 1943 had agreed the general principle that post-war Germany must not only be de-militarised, de-nazified and required to pay reparations, but should also be brought under the direct administrative control of the Allies. 23

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The details which follow are based on Joll, Europe since 1870, pp. 426–48.

The division of Germany was approved at the Yalta conference: Russia would take eastern Germany; Britain, France and America would take western Germany; and the city of Berlin would be occupied by the Allies together. This division was completed by the summer of 1948, and the separate states of West and East Germany were formalised by October 1949. At the time there were many in Europe who were, in Joll’s words, ‘impatient of national barriers and anxious to create a genuine new order in Europe in place of Hitler’s spurious one’ (p. 460), and so who promoted the potential benefits of Western European unity both in a practical sense (political, economic and technological unity) and in an ideological sense, emphasising Western Europe’s common history and culture. These theories received formal expression in 1949 in the creation of a Council of Europe, and later led to the proposals for the formation of the European Community. Such events are directly referenced in Châteaubriant’s writings, where they are mobilised to explain and even to ‘validate’ his earlier words and deeds. For instance, he evidently considers his own longstanding Europeanism to be justified by the establishment of the Council of Europe (PPV, p. 32). He credits himself with political vision, proclaiming that he called for the creation of Europe ‘trente ans avant l’heure’ (as we saw in the Lettres des années de guerre 1914– 1918), and defining himself as ‘l’homme qui voit les choses trop tôt et qui fonde sur cette vision d’avenir l’espoir que sa parole éclairera sa patrie’ (ibid.). But, as we shall discover, Châteaubriant ignores the discrepancy between the new Europe for which he longs and that envisaged by the post-war politicians, and conveniently disposes of Adolf Hitler’s ‘nationalist’ National Socialism as the means to his end in a calculated move which would have us believe that his only error was to be ahead of his time. Châteaubriant offers no apology for his advocacy of collaboration, and his general commitment to collaboration with Germany remains strong in the post-war period. But the Germany he now chooses to promote is what he terms an earlier ‘European’ Germany, 209

as opposed to the Germany of the later 1920s and 1930s which he attacks for having taken the wrong turning off the European pathway down the route labelled ‘nationalism’. At the end of the First World War, he writes, co-operation with Germany would have protected Europe from the growing Soviet threat: A l’heure où l’Europe et le monde étaient menacés par la puissance militaire de l’URSS […], ce qu’il fallait, en toute hâte, au lieu d’abattre l’Allemagne, c’était de travailler à fortifier en elle les principes qui s’opposaient au bolchevisme russe; c’était de consentir à instaurer une Europe où l’Allemagne aurait eu sa place. (p. 29)

For Châteaubriant, inter-war Germany’s vitality could have countered Europe’s general ‘fatigue’. National Socialism in its original form was ‘la seule réalisation sociale et politique qui put résister au bolchevisme envahisseur’ (p. 35), and so he concludes that ‘l’Europe ne pouvait pas se sauver sans la victoire d’une Allemagne sage et puissante’ (p. 37). Unfortunately, however, the time was dominated by ‘des hommes animés jusqu’aux dents des passions du siècle précédent’, men who rejoiced at Germany’s defeat and whose nationalism prevented the formulation and implementation of any forward-looking vision of Europe (p. 32). Operating, then, on the premise of ‘ou s’unir ou périr’, Châteaubriant justifies his wartime collaboration on the grounds of European salvation and reconstruction. His dream, and that of men like him, had been for France and Germany to work in partnership for the European good. And he defines himself as a builder of Europe, thereby implicitly associating himself with post-war political developments in a move which could help to divert potential criticism: Notre politique, qui prévoyait l’effondrement européen, et avec lui l’annulation politique de la France, rêvait une reconstruction du corps de l’Europe par une fusion organique avec les grandes nations germaniques. L’Allemagne victorieuse ne pouvait pas se passer de la France, et l’Europe alors survivrait. Nourrissant cette conception, nous ne léchions nullement les bottes des vainqueurs. Nous

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construisions l’Europe. Les tenants de la collaboration se recrutaient parmi les Français qui ne se sentaient pas vaincus. (p. 38)

France, he proclaims, was never subservient to Germany, and would have played a special role in the new Europe: Le redressement européen, en collaboration avec les États germaniques, centre et cœur de notre monde, eut ressoudé la colonne vertébrale de l’Europe. Et la France […] y eut acquis un prestige considérable. En peu de temps, elle en aurait pris la direction spirituelle. (pp. 41–42)

During the Second World War, faced with the threat of either Soviet or American domination, the European nations should have set aside national differences in the name of Europe – as they now appear to be doing in the post-war period. But, at the time, they subscribed instead to a short-term vision of politics founded on Franco-German antagonism, and European dynamism was effectively destroyed (p. 22). For Châteaubriant, then, extreme nationalism irreparably damaged the potential for appropriate European union before and during the war. Europe was the loser in this, since European unity could by now have been well under way. But, he intimates, Hitler’s Germany was by no means the only culpable party, a point which implicitly re-focuses responsibility for the conflict and diverts attention from the true causes of its outbreak. Winston Churchill’s post-war arguments in favour of FrancoGerman reconciliation and co-operation are noted by Châteaubriant with a certain self-satisfaction. He chooses to ignore the very different post-war context for these statements, arguing selectively that Churchill’s comments ‘validate’ his own long-term Europeanism and so implying that others have come into line with his wisdom and that he has been right all along: Il est singulier qu’on entende dire aujourd’hui, par Churchill, que l’Europe ne pourra s’en tirer que par une entente étroite de la France et de l’Allemagne. Étant donné que ce qui était vrai aujourd’hui, l’était tout aussi bien hier, et même encore plus vrai il y a dix ans! (p. 30)

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And yet the Europe that is under construction in 1949 is manifestly not the Europe Châteaubriant wants to see. The so-called liberation of Europe claimed by the Allies is, he writes, nothing short of a failure, while the division of Germany into East and West represents the worst possible outcome of the conflict, a ‘Europe tranchée en deux’ (p. 35). He again displays his discriminatory tendencies, arguing that Europe should instead have been restructured on a racially pure basis: ‘Il aurait fallu composer l’union des pays germaniques et de la France pour le départ d’une formule véritablement biologique des États-Unis d’Europe’ (p. 33). As he had predicted during the Occupation, Châteaubriant is convinced that a Europe without a strong Germany now risks oblivion in the struggle between the two giant nations of America and Russia (p. 38). A United States of Europe created at the right moment would have emerged strong and victorious, whereas: […] ceux qui naîtront, peut-être un jour, de l’affaiblissement de notre continent et sous la pression de l’hégémonie américaine, risquent de contenir en leur sein les germes de rancunes historiques mal éteintes, et tous les stigmates de compromis politiques aussi éloignés que possible, par leur nature, de la conception qui, jaillie de la vie, aurait dû être à la source même de leur existence. (p. 33)

Although he claims to have been disappointed by the practice of National Socialism, Châteaubriant still wholeheartedly believes in his theory of Franco-German collaboration. He doubts neither the accuracy of his long-standing ideas nor the wisdom of his judgement.

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Revisioning the self: Communism and the Cold War The post-war shift against Communism and the onset of the Cold War are both exploited by Châteaubriant to portray himself as a man of political foresight and thereby to benefit his self-reassessment. Like many Catholics, he was horrified by De Gaulle’s signature of a FrancoSoviet treaty of alliance in December 1944 and by the inclusion of the French Communists in government between 1944 and 1947, and he heartily welcomed their removal from government in May 1947. His diary entries robustly condemn those who deal with Communists, for, as he writes in November 1948: Qu’entre 1945 et 1947 les gouvernements d’Occident se soient sérieusement entretenus avec les hommes du mouvement communiste d’une organisation immédiate en vue d’un équilibre de paix sur la base politique créé par les situations réciproques du champ de bataille ne laisse aucun espoir que rien de grand puisse sortir de leurs mains. (C, p. 322)

From 1947, anti-Communism attracted a certain degree of support in the contemporary context of the Cold War, for, as Châteaubriant himself notes in January 1949, ‘la France se voit, aujourd’hui, obligée d’opérer un renversement de sa politique extérieure pour se garder du bolchevisme’ (PPV, p. 22). He goes on to exploit his own longstanding anti-Bolshevism to ‘validate’ his wartime collaboration, claiming that ‘nous n’étions pas des collaborateurs parce que les Allemands étaient chez nous, mais parce que nous avions essentiellement besoin d’eux contre la Russie bolchevique’ (p. 25). This, as we have seen, is an argument which found favour in certain Catholic circles both before and during the conflict. In the post-war period, Châteaubriant fraudulently remoulds his persona, for he openly maintains his earlier interpretation of Bolshevism as a force for despiritualisation but at the same time makes no direct reference to his previous definition of National Socialism as the Christian alternative to Bolshevism. The effect of this omission is to obscure the true nature of his wartime 213

words and deeds, and therefore to benefit his rehabilitation as simply a ‘good’ Catholic anti-Communist. And, although he now acknowledges that Hitler attacked Russia in 1941 for expansionist (and hence nationalist) reasons, he explains that action on the grounds that Hitler was convinced that the Bolshevist threat should be stifled at its source (p. 25). The collaboration as a whole is credited with vision and understanding in its wartime view of Bolshevism, but Châteaubriant is particularly keen to trumpet his own personal foresight of the Bolshevist threat. He roots this in what he defines as his innate spirituality ‘qui embrassait dans sa connaissance la connaissance des lois fondamentales de la vie’ (pp. 28–29). But, apart from himself and other collaborators: […] le bolchevisme n’était pas soupesé. Dans aucun regard comme dans aucun discours, ni aucun article, je ne voyais apparaître la lueur de la compréhension attendue. Tous les yeux demeuraient ternes comme des surfaces mortes. (p. 29)

He blames the narrow nationalism of European statesmen for their failure to see the universal threat of Bolshevism as the real enemy of Europe: Ce qui est absolument remarquable à travers les discours, toutes les paroles officielles, tous les rapports de chancellerie, tous les mémoires politiques qui se rapportent aux années 1930–1940, et qui furent si décisifs et si révélateurs, c’est l’aveuglement des hommes d’État sur la véritable portée de ce que contenait de dynamisme le message soviétique, et la façon désastreuse avec laquelle ils l’envisagèrent, de leur étroit point de vue national. Ce qui les faisait estimer l’hitlérisme et le fascisme italien comme les seuls adversaires à détruire. (p. 28)

The post-1945 division of Europe has facilitated Russia’s dominance in the east, creating a Europe ‘dont la moitié […] est bolchevisée à jamais’, and Châteaubriant fears for the future of the peoples henceforward abandoned to Russian influence:

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Que vont devenir dans leur humanité, sous l’effet du venin soviétique, les cent millions d’Européens remis par leurs ‘libérateurs’ aux mains des hommes du Kremlin? Que peut être l’avenir du tronçon de continent où personne n’a encore compris que la seule façon de servir sa patrie, maintenant plus que jamais, était de la servir comme européen? (p. 35)

Such statements identify Châteaubriant as a pro-European and antiCommunist Frenchman, while, at the same time, his critical references to National Socialism serve to divert attention from other aspects of his past.

Victors and vanquished: the épuration Châteaubriant’s despair at post-1945 politics in general finds a specific focus in his analysis of the contemporary Fourth Republic. Through an attack on the regime he rejects the temporal and practical political sphere for its failure to recognise and solve the universal and spiritual problems of the world, in much the same way as he turns against National Socialism in practice for failing to live up to his expectations. Writing to De Brinon in March 1945, Châteaubriant predicts the need for perceptive, far-sighted individuals (such as himself) to counter the impact of modern-day politicians of both Left and Right: Quant à la France, elle aura besoin, après une expérience communiste – De Gaulle ne pourra tenir longtemps – de l’influence de ses fils clairvoyants, et cela bien avant l’heure de notre retour, laquelle ne saurait être qu’éloignée.24 24

Copies dactylographiées à Brinon. Châteaubriant’s comments on the post-1945 French political scene fail to reference the Mouvement républicain populaire, which attracted a significant element of the Catholic vote before losing ground to Gaullism. It would be naïve to suggest that Châteaubriant was unaware of the existence of the MRP, and his lack of comment suggests, not surprisingly, that he dismissed its approach.

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As we have seen, Châteaubriant held that the Second World War was but one battle in a long-standing war for the salvation of humanity. Still faithful to this belief in the post-war period, he declares that modern-day politicians are so obsessed with temporal events that they have failed to recognise the universal character of the contemporary crisis. Their attitude, he argues, represents yet another example of the harmful effect of individualism which, as noted in earlier chapters, he roots in the Renaissance: Quand on regarde d’un peu près la marche actuelle des choses humaines, le caractère des péripéties politiques qui occupent et emportent les États, le désordre de plus en plus incohérent, de plus en plus dénué de sens et comme à jamais frappé d’impuissance à connaître les raisons et la portée des entreprises de cette Babel universelle, on comprend à quel point l’Europe et le monde sont victimes aujourd’hui du grand ratage qui se produisit au cours de la Renaissance, quand l’avènement de l’esprit d’orgueil et des égoïsmes nationaux fut le germe d’un obstacle qui allait devenir infranchissable pour l’établissement d’une union des monarchies d’Occident. (PPV, p. 37)

The current political climate was such that Châteaubriant’s comments on modern-day political attitudes inevitably targeted the épuration and, by association, the Resistance. The official post-war trials of former collaborators (which ended in 1951) sentenced 6,763 people to death – 3,910 of those in absentia, as in Châteaubriant’s case – although only 767 executions actually took place. In addition, 38,266 people were imprisoned (but the majority were released by late 1952) and 49,723 people were sentenced to dégradation nationale (although only a quarter still carried the penalty by 1952).25 Châteaubriant’s comments result not only from this general context but also, of course, from his own condemnation of October 1948, from which he was never pardoned. 25

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The figures are taken from Larkin, France since the Popular Front, 2nd edn, pp. 124–25. Larkin rightly notes that many resisters exacted their own justice, and he calculates that some 9,673 individuals were summarily executed both before and after the June 1944 Allied landings (p. 124).

Writing in January 1949, some three months after his own trial, Châteaubriant bitterly disputes the judgement that ‘nous étions des traîtres qui pactisons avec l’ennemi, comme le disaient les gaullistes’ (PPV, p. 25). He is outraged that he should have been pronounced a traitor when he was clearly acting in France’s best interests. In retaliation, he charges the Resistance with ideological myopia, arguing that it prefers to interpret the current situation in transient national terms and so fails to grasp its long-term universal significance. In his opinion, the Resistance groups ‘restent accrochés aux mots, aux mythes, à un romantisme politique dont ils font la réalité’ (p. 38), but he neglects to acknowledge that a similar charge could easily be levelled at himself in return on the basis of his interpretation of National Socialism both prior to and during the Occupation. He further emphasises that ‘les hommes de la Résistance n’ont connu et ne connaissent encore les choses que par leurs petits mots’, adding that, as a result: En face d’un événement qui a posé devant eux, dans l’universel, le terrible problème d’un regroupement, à pied d’œuvre, des forces mondiales, ils n’ont vu que le fait – insupportable à leur patriotisme – de l’occupation de la France par les Allemands. Comme si le problème politique n’était pas mille fois plus grave, mille fois plus compliqué. (p. 39)

To minimalise in this way the place of the Occupation of France in the scale of the Second World War is scandalous, for it diverts attention from the very real hardship and terror engendered and experienced. But Châteaubriant continues with his reasoning, concluding that ‘la Résistance, telle qu’elle se manifeste, ne fut du reste pas tant résistance à l’ennemi que résistance à l’événement’ (p. 42). Where the Resistance was concerned with the defeat of 1940 purely as a temporal event, Châteaubriant argues that he and others accepted that defeat, and interpreted it as the incarnation of France’s real enduring enemy, namely ‘la décadence française et […] la chute de l’humanité blanche’ (ibid.). The Resistance’s short-term vision has meant that ‘résistant à l’événement, les hommes de la Résistance veulent supprimer 217

aujourd’hui cet événement de notre souvenir. Et pour cela, ils suppriment les hommes qui ont accepté l’événement’ (ibid.), hence the épuration. Châteaubriant’s self-defence involves turning on the Resistance the judgement placed on the collaborators. In his opinion, the Resistance has no values and even fewer morals, and he has little regard for ‘their’ justice. In executing former collaborators, he holds that the Resistance is killing ‘ceux pour qui le problème se posa dans ses vraies et vastes proportions’ (p. 39). In its pursuit of individuals of conviction, it is therefore both immoral and incapable of understanding the wider context of the Second World War: Si les tribunaux de l’épuration gaulliste avaient jugé selon des valeurs réelles, nous n’aurions rien à leur reprocher. Mais leur refus de connaître les raisons qui justifiaient et gouvernaient l’évolution des temps nous libère de toute considération à leur égard. Ils se sont mis hors de la morale juridique. Ils se montrent d’ailleurs plus indifférents vis-à-vis de ceux qui ont agi sans conviction. Les plus coupables, aux yeux de leur justice, étant les convaincus. (p. 41)

Châteaubriant believes that the trials of the former collaborators could have cast some light on what he terms ‘la maladie morale de notre pays’ (p. 45) and could thereby have helped France to understand her problems. But the Resistance’s myopia, coupled with its superficial desire for vengeance, meant that it did not want to listen. This, he argues, explains either the silence of the accused, for ‘aucun de ceux qu’ils ont accusés ne songea à dire ce qu’il y aurait eu à dire’ (p. 44), or else their retreat into: […] l’unique formule supportée par le patriotique aréopage: qu’ils avaient donc pris telle mesure, édicté telle ordonnance, fait ceci ou cela pour éviter le pire; qu’il le fallait pour empêcher la France de subir un gauleiter. (p. 45)

There is no hint that he would ever accept that the accused may have remained silent because they had nothing to say in the face of overwhelming evidence, or that they may have claimed to have been ‘protecting’ France from a worse fate largely in order to save them 218

selves. How Châteaubriant himself would have reacted in court cannot be known for sure, for he never put the courage of his conviction to the test, choosing never to return to face those he held responsible for damaging France. Faced with the breakdown of authority and responsibility which he blames on contemporary democratic and constitutional politics, Châteaubriant’s despair at the nature of Fourth Republic France leads him to the stark but not unexpected conclusion that ‘c’est à vomir’ (p. 44). He takes some satisfaction, however, from his conviction that the roles of judge and accused will be reversed in the long term: Seulement, le ‘traître’ devient un justicier à l’égard de ses juges quand, condamné par eux à l’infamie pour avoir résisté à un préjugé politique qu’il estimait devoir provoquer le malheur de l’Europe menacée dans son humanité, il assiste aux impuissances du gouvernement de ses juges à tirer, du funeste préjugé, autre chose que la catastrophe si bien prévue et prédite. Nous laisserons donc l’avenir s’expliquer avec eux. (p. 45)

In the post-war period, Châteaubriant is a bitter and angry man. He is outraged that those who lack his own ‘superior’ intelligence should have the temerity to judge him and is even more appalled by the nature of his judgement. His arrogance and self-belief remain unwavering and boundless, while his capacity for guilt or remorse is nonexistent. His commitment to the validity of his political ideas remains steadfast – particularly in respect of his views on Franco-German collaboration, anti-Bolshevism and Europe – and he still wants to see his ideas put into practice. He openly returns to a spiritualisation of these ideas (a methodology dating from the inter-war years) as opposed to the spiritualisation of their practice (as seen in his approach to National Socialism during the Second World War), since he still sees collaboration as the means to save Europe from spiritual and moral ruin, and still considers himself an anti-Bolshevist on the grounds of his ‘essence religieuse’ (p. 29). Châteaubriant may have been disappointed by National Socialism in practice, and may well have chosen to recognise its ‘limitations’ in the post-war period, 219

although the fact that he criticises and rejects the National-Socialist experience from 1945 in no way lessens his guilt. He manifestly still holds the same beliefs, and must not be permitted to shelve what he did and what he said.

Revisioning Christian renewal Châteaubriant’s vision of National-Socialist Germany as the incarnation of a nouvelle chrétienté may have disintegrated along with National Socialism itself, but his vision of the necessity of Christian renewal is both maintained and redefined in the post-1945 period, as the remainder of this chapter will demonstrate. A suitable methodology for Christian renewal occupied the hearts and minds of many Catholics at the time. Jacques Maritain, for instance, who had shared Châteaubriant’s concern for an inter-war nouvelle chrétienté (albeit one in which believers and non-believers alike would co-operate, unlike Châteaubriant’s version), was convinced by his experience of life in America during the Second World War that he had found his desired pluralist society across the Atlantic. Not surprisingly, therefore, he chose to remain there after the war.26 Back in France, many younger Catholics in particular had begun to question whether their traditional theology could still respond to the needs of the modern world, and they were disappointed by Pius XII’s post-war reconfirmation of the validity of Thomist principles for the Roman Catholic Church. These principles, they felt, belonged to a different time and a different world, and their renewed endorsement represented evidence of a reactionary spirit within the Church. These Catholics were keen instead to formulate a new Catholic response to the modern world and to the concomitant crisis of the progressive dechristianisation of France as 26

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See Jacques Maritain, Réflexions sur l’Amérique (Fayard, 1958).

revealed by a series of surveys and texts.27 In Yvon Tranvouez’s words, where ‘la génération précédente disait “chrétienté”, celle-ci dira “mission” […] et les prêtres-ouvriers [deviennent] le symbole de ce nouvel âge’; nouvelle chrétienté, he concludes, ‘qui avait été une idée mobilisatrice et d’avant-garde jusqu’en 1940, devient alors un concept répressif’.28 Evidence of this new mood in France was substantial. For instance, Mounier’s Esprit movement, influential in Catholic circles in the inter-war period, accepted that Christians could co-operate on a political level with Communists, although it also warned against Communist exploitation and advised that Christians remain aware of their doctrinal differences with Marxism. But other young progressive Christians who were influenced by the idea of a Catholic ‘mission’ went even further, for they were clearly attracted by Marxism and produced a Manifeste des chrétiens progressistes in 1947, widely regarded at the time as a statement of allegiance to the Communist Party.29 The explication of Châteaubriant’s spiritual thought detailed in earlier chapters indicates that he would not have welcomed Rome’s post-war promotion of neo-Thomism, or Maritain’s positive response to the pluralist society he saw in America, or the attitude of those Catholics (including Church representatives) who now preferred mission to chrétienté and who accepted and even promoted co-operation with post-war Marxism. Châteaubriant still wanted to see the implementation of his desired brand of nouvelle chrétienté which would emphasise the direct power and primacy of the spiritual. The difference, however, is that he is now disillusioned with practical politics because they have failed to live up to his spiritual expectations. And so his post-war journey becomes a retreat into a reactivation and development of his earlier spiritual ideas but now without reference to any potential or actual suitable political incarnation of those ideas. 27 28 29

See especially Henri Godin and Yvan Daniel, La France, pays de mission? (Lyon: Éditions de l’Abeille, 1943). Tranvouez, Catholiques d’abord, pp. 129–30, p. 130. Winock, Histoire politique de la revue ‘Esprit’, pp. 344–45.

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Châteaubriant’s post-war spiritual thought is detailed in the final section of his diaries (C, pp. 227–345) as well as in his Itinéraire vers la lumière divine, which he describes in his diaries as ‘mon testament religieux’ (p. 273). The composition of this text is deemed necessary to validate his life, and he thereby – fairly or not – effectively relegates all other activity to a secondary sphere, writing that ‘toute ma vie serait manquée si je mourais avant d’avoir pu écrire ce que je voudrais expliquer dans mon Itinerarium’ (p. 294).30 The textual and theoretical starting-point for the Itinéraire vers la lumière divine is Châteaubriant’s long-standing conviction that ‘le monde de Dieu s’est misérablement appauvri dans l’homme’ (ILD, p. 20). Familiar arguments are reactivated, for he proclaims that ‘le drame humain n’est pas psychologique, il est métaphysique et religieux’ (p. 146) and explains that ‘les sociétés d’aujourd’hui sont rendues tragiquement nulles par les ruines spirituelles qui sont leur rançon’ (pp. 189–90). And he concludes on a similar note in his diaries that ‘absence de désir de Dieu et abaissement universel sont les deux faits simples en lesquels se résume toute la situation humaine de notre siècle’ (C, p. 236). The two most striking contemporary examples of abaissement universel identified by Châteaubriant are the invention and use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima in 1945 and the horrors which took place in the German concentration camps. For Châteaubriant, the achievement of science in the invention of the bomb is ‘éclatant’, but he qualifies his judgement, explaining that:

30

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Alphonse de Châteaubriant, Itinéraire vers la lumière divine, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Éditions du Vieux Colombier, 1955). The text is constructed of ‘une partie des notes assemblées par Alphonse de Châteaubriant au cours des années 1945–1951 […] [qui] devaient être utilisées dans le mémoire que préparait l’écrivain’ (ILD, p. 17). The editor acknowledges that ‘la présente version du texte est donc très différente de ce qu’eut été l’ouvrage si l’auteur avait pu le conduire jusqu’à son terme’ (ibid.), although study of the text reveals that the editor’s choice of content correlates closely with the themes detailed in earlier Châteaubriant texts.

Il n’est pas éclatant parce qu’avec une seule bombe elle peut tuer cent mille êtres ou même beaucoup plus, mais parce qu’elle a entraîné toute l’espèce humaine dans l’adoration de son mensonge meurtrier. (ILD, p. 193)

Moreover, he argues that the crimes against humanity perpetrated in the camps should not be read purely as a German crime, for they incarnate the disintegration of humanity as a whole, as witnessed by the earlier explosion of similar incidents elsewhere: On n’a pas compris la redoutable portée universelle que présentaient les exemples d’inhumanité relevés dans les camps allemands. Le pharisaïsme politique et les illusions des nationalismes n’ont voulu voir là que des crimes allemands et l’on a rejeté sur l’Allemagne ce qui était le prodrome en Allemagne, après l’avoir été en Russie, en Espagne et ailleurs encore, de la désorganisation mentale de l’homme moderne. (C, p. 322)

Man’s inhumanity to man is a theme widely debated and accepted in today’s world, and Châteaubriant’s comment seems appropriate in that light.31 But it also nonetheless sits uncomfortably with our knowledge of his aspiration to rid Europe of its ‘undesirables’ and to restore a racially ‘pure’ people. Would he, for instance, have reacted in the same way to the camps, had Germany won the war? Whether his comment is disingenuous or not in respect of the victims, it is clearly in line with his general world-view. It also represents further proof of his ability to extract from a situation what is useful to his purpose at the time – in this case, to serve the elaboration of his spiritual thought in the postwar context. To counter abaissement universel, the salutary pathway advocated is regeneration through ‘le christianisme’, defined in Châteaubriant’s terms as ‘une nouvelle naissance […], le passage d’une rive de la fausse vie à la rive de la vraie vie’ (ILD, p. 20), or as ‘le passage […] du monde de l’homme au monde de Dieu, le passage de l’existence à 31

There is, for instance, a striking similarity of content between this passage and the arguments put forward by Marguerite Duras in La Douleur (POL, 1985), itself written in the mid-1940s.

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l’essence, de la chair à la substance’ (p. 225). Echoes immediately sound here of the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante and La Réponse du Seigneur, both written in the 1930s, and this similarity of theme and terminology underlines the constant nature of Châteaubriant’s spiritual thought to date. Indeed, his final writings serve both to confirm and to elaborate the philosophy of his earlier writings, this in response to the world he sees around him and to the role and status of the modern-day Catholic Church.

Modern existence: un monde hallucinatoire Châteaubriant’s world-view remained constantly antimoderne over the course of his lifetime, thereby providing ongoing evidence of his intransigent Catholic roots. The modern Godless world he saw around him was, he held, erroneously focused on the false ‘gods’ of science, materialism, individualism and intellect, all to the detriment of true intelligence and spirituality. In his eyes, the post-war world was therefore no different to the pre-war world. For example, in July 1947 he attacks ‘le monde moderne de la matière souveraine, un monde qui entend fonder tout l’édifice social de l’avenir, moral et matériel, sur l’exclusif principe de sa science et de ses techniques’ (C, p. 287). In a comment which betrays his attitude to secular France, he describes the science of human biology and the theory of the origin of species with its inherent rejection of divine creation as ‘cette laïcisation totale de la conception des choses’ (ibid.). Modern science is responsible for ‘la désorganisation et la dispersion de tout ce dont était fait la concentration chrétienne acquise depuis des siècles’ (p. 329). He acknowledges that science facilitates our understanding of the world in which we live, even that ‘ses calculs sur ce monde, et par rapport à ce monde, sont exacts’, but cautions that there can be no true progress without God and that those who confine their ideas purely to the 224

scientific sphere will only experience ‘le néant ou la découverte du néant’ (ILD, p. 191). Modern science fails truly to open human eyes. It is, he writes, purely ‘une foi de l’intellect’ (p. 47) and he argues instead that ‘la vraie science n’est pas le savoir de l’intellect, elle est la vie de l’Être’ (p. 209). He warns not only that ‘l’intellect seul est incapable de lire dans le monde de Dieu’ (p. 139) but also that ‘l’homme intellectuel est l’homme animal’ (p. 38), and hence that ‘l’homme de l’intellect n’est en rien l’homme de l’esprit’ (p. 190). Logic is associated with intellect and so similarly dismissed, for he is convinced that: Dégager intellectuellement un principe par une suite d’opérations logiques […] n’est pas saisir directement une vérité première dans son intelligibilité immédiate et, pour ainsi dire, dans son essence vivante. (p. 40)

And he maintains his distinction of the intelligible (viewed in elitist terms) and the sensible, which he had explored in depth in his 1930s writings: Nous connaissons deux mondes – auxquels correspondent les deux intelligences – le monde sensible que nous connaissons avec l’intelligence du sensible, et le monde d’au-delà du sensible, que nous pouvons appeler le monde de l’esprit, le monde de l’intelligible, le monde des réalités de l’Être ou monde des idées, que nous connaissons avec l’intelligence de ce monde, à laquelle seulement peu d’hommes accèdent. (p. 37)

Châteaubriant, of course, considers himself to be one of these elite beings. He holds that scientific and intellectual thought has created what he terms a ‘moi humain empirique [qui n’a] que la qualité d’un fantôme’ (p. 51). And, again revitalising an earlier theme, he argues that humanity’s emphasis on the individual moi is harmful in organic terms since ‘l’individuation porte avec elle l’esprit d’orgueil, de séparation et d’indépendance du multiple’ (p. 82). For Châteaubriant, ‘le monde sensible et l’homme de ce monde ne sont plus le monde et l’homme que Dieu a créés’ (p. 67). Rather, as he had previously declared in the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, ‘le monde sensible n’est qu’une conséquence de la faute’ (p. 69), that is, rooted in 225

the actions of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2, who became ‘independent’ of God (or divine intelligence) through their dealings with the serpent (or intellect). Original sin is thus defined as the choice of an intelligence other than that of God, with the result that ‘l’homme choisit une autre intelligence et donc une autre vision et un autre monde’ (p. 71). This action was, he believes, the source of the modern ‘monde de la chute’, or ‘monde sans substance’ (p. 72). Humanity’s mistake is to interpret this world as if it were real, whereas in reality ‘sous le faux dehors de ce monde solide […] se déroule le drame d’une gigantesque représentation hallucinatoire’ (p. 100). The theme of the modern monde hallucinatoire finds particular expression in the post-war context in Châteaubriant’s attack on existentialism. This, as we shall discover, serves to underline his ‘essentialism’, itself consistent with his anti-nominalism. In respect of human beings, the relationship of existentialism to classical philosophy raises the question of whether primacy is to be accorded to essence or to existence. Where classical philosophy replies that the value of a human being rests on their essence, existentialism disassociates itself from essence and concentrates instead on that which exists, arguing that, where human beings are concerned, existence precedes essence. Given the themes and vocabulary of Châteaubriant’s writings to date, especially as seen in his exploitation of the Middle Ages, it was almost inevitable that his attention would be drawn to existentialism’s emphasis on the primacy of existence over essence and on issues of freedom and responsibility. As we shall see, his approach favours theological essentialism as opposed to atheistic existentialism. For Châteaubriant, existentialism stands as yet one more manifestation of the spiritual crisis of the world, which he exploits within the clarification of his programme for universal spiritual regeneration in the post-1945 period. Châteaubriant constructs a sustained attack on existentialism, arguing that ‘aucune philosophie ne peut atteindre le réel si elle ne part de l’expérience de Dieu’, and adding that ‘faire de l’homme un être autonome et responsable, c’est trancher le lien nécessaire et nécessitant 226

qui le relie à Jésus-Christ’ (p. 136). He writes disparagingly of freedom as ‘l’idée fixe de l’homme moderne’ (p. 139). It is an idol ‘engendrée de l’athéisme des âmes’ (ibid.), but which in reality is simply an illusion of freedom, for ‘la liberté qu’ils [les hommes] se représentent quand ils définissent la liberté, n’est pas la liberté dont ils ont besoin’ (p. 137). Revitalising a theme from the Second World War, he comments that true freedom ‘ne sera jamais gagnée par la guerre entre les hommes, mais par la science divine dans l’homme’ (C, p. 299). Its attainment lies in God: L’homme ne naît pas libre – il devient libre – mais encore faut-il que, pour le devenir, il s’adresse à Dieu. […] Celui qui choisit Dieu fait un premier pas vers la seule liberté qui soit. (ILD, p. 130, p. 138)32

The existentialist notion of the death of God is exploited by Châteaubriant to emphasise his view of the absence of God in modern humanity: Et parce qu’ils sont morts, les hommes disent: Dieu est mort. Et Dieu est en effet mort pour eux – ou plutôt ils sont, eux, ce qu’ils appellent la ‘mort de Dieu’. Dieu est mort et l’homme est mort, la personne humaine avec son âme et sa qualité d’éternité est abolie. Chaque homme n’est plus qu’un système organique sans autorité et sans prestige. (pp. 153–54)

For Châteaubriant, humans are nothing without God, and he therefore writes of existentialist nihilism (or le néant) that: L’existentialiste n’a pas tort de voir le néant de ce qu’il est dans la vérité du seul être qu’il connaît en lui et qui est un être de néant. L’absolu de sa négation de l’absolu est un être de néant. (C, p. 294)

32

This statement recalls Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe, first published by Gallimard in 1949, which contains the famous pronouncement: ‘On ne naît pas femme, on le devient’. Châteaubriant was aware of De Beauvoir’s work, describing her in his diaries as ‘un auteur existentialiste’ (C, p. 260), but no solid evidence exists that he had read Le Deuxième Sexe.

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The height of nothingness is defined as ‘hell’, otherwise termed ‘une pièce qui se joue constamment’,33 and Châteaubriant plainly views modern existence as just such a hell: Sans doute, par rapport à Dieu, cet enfer est-il le comble du néant – mais, en soi-même, il réalise, dans la douleur, le comble de l’existence, bien qu’il ne puisse qu’affirmer une existence sans espoir et privée, par l’extinction en elle du dernier rayon divin, de toute mort possible à soi-même. (ILD, p. 146)

He willingly accepts that existentialism is right to underline ‘la gratuité de cette existence-ci’, but its problem is that it knows no other form of existence (C, p. 303). He thus takes issue with existentialist authors for their ‘partial’ treatment of the human condition, writing that: […] il n’y a aucun doute que les auteurs athées ne représentent pas une expérience complète des deux problèmes, spirituel et intellectuel, […] ils ne connaissent que l’intellectuel et ils ignorent totalement le spirituel. (ibid.)

This reasoning offers an easy opportunity for him to attack Jean-Paul Sartre, arguably the existentialist writer par excellence: ‘C’est ainsi que Jean-Paul Sartre me paraît être (tout simplement) le produit d’un siècle et non une intelligence libre, munie de l’expérience totale et dominant les temps’ (ibid.).34 Existentialist authors are thus ‘des arriérés ou des traînards’, incapable of understanding that regeneration demands ‘le franchissement de l’existence à l’essence’ (p. 323). In contrast, ‘le mystique chrétien voit et réalise qu’il n’est rien, en partant de Dieu dont il s’est donné l’expérience’ but experiences ‘la joie pure de la délivrance apprise de sa brûlante initiation à son être en Dieu’ (p. 294). 33 34

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This is manifestly a sarcastic reference to Jean-Paul Sartre’s play Huis clos, first published by Gallimard in 1947, which contains the famous line: ‘L’enfer, c’est les autres’. Châteaubriant was also aware of the writings of Albert Camus, whose Le Mythe de Sisyphe (Gallimard, 1942) is identified as ‘un exemple frappant d’interprétation strictement intellectuelle’ (ILD, p. 201), and who is used to illustrate Châteaubriant’s belief that ‘l’homme de l’intellect n’est en rien l’homme de l’esprit’ (p. 190).

Challenging the Church: a heterodox to the end Châteaubriant’s comments on existentialism are located within a wider presentation of his spiritual ideas which revitalises and elaborates his views as formulated by his reading of medieval Christian thought. We have already discussed various examples of the nature of this thought, including his essentialism, his anti-Thomism and his preference for his interpretation of Augustinianism, all of which found expression in his location of National-Socialist Germany within his preferred medieval Christian framework. Châteaubriant’s post-1945 writings provide more detailed and explicit evidence of his spiritual ideas, now largely divorced from the contemporary political context but directly related to the attitudes and activity of the modern-day Catholic Church, his long-standing target in his programme for spiritual renewal. The roots of Châteaubriant’s preference for the monde intelligible over the monde sensible lie in his reading of Plato, as we saw in his Lettre à la chrétienté mourante. In the Itinéraire vers la lumière divine, he writes that ‘le Dieu actif est magnifiquement nommé par Platon “le roi du monde intelligible”’ (p. 34). He sees a correspondence of ideas with Plato which confirms and validates his own views, writing that: Dans l’idée platonicienne, principe d’unité, d’identité, de mesure du monde sensible, nous retrouvons notre conception des rapports de l’être chrétien avec son idée créatrice en Dieu. […] Platon dit bien que l’idée est le principe de toute perfection dans les choses sensibles. L’Être véritable n’appartient en propre qu’aux idées, dit Platon. Les choses individuelles n’ont qu’une apparence de réalité. (pp. 58–59)

Châteaubriant continues to favour those thinkers he identifies in the Platonic mould, namely his long-standing spiritual ‘heroes’. Saint Augustine, he writes, recognised in Plato ‘le disciple fidèle de l’intelligence divine’ and so ‘un pur et authentique voyant de Dieu’ (p. 143). And Saint Bernard tended towards Platonism in his view that ‘les idées ne sont pas seulement des idées, mais leur être est l’être vrai, 229

puisqu’elles sont immuables et éternelles’ (p. 59). Others similarly lauded include Saint Anselm and Saint Bonaventure, described as ‘de grands enfants de l’Église, qui peuplent son passé grandiose et lui font immensément honneur’ (C, p. 313). Such references to Saint Augustine and to those medieval thinkers who generally followed in his tradition confirm that Châteaubriant also upholds the primacy of essence over existence (and of the universal over the individual), that he distrusts knowledge when divorced from belief and, what is more, does not see reason as a prime faculty of knowledge. In a development of the content of the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante which serves to emphasise his constant reading of the world, Châteaubriant unfavourably contrasts Aristotle to Plato, on the basis that: [Aristote] ne conçoit pas au-dessus du monde sensible – à la manière de Platon et des chrétiens – le monde de Dieu, que Platon appelle le monde des idées et les chrétiens, la création ou le ciel. Il demeure dans le monde sensible, c’est-àdire dans l’intellect. (ILD, p. 105)

His quarrel with Aristotle lies in his perception of Aristotle’s empiricism which Châteaubriant opposes to Christian thought: La philosophie d’Aristote est la mise en ordre intellectuelle de l’expérience empirique alors que le christianisme est fondamentalement le bouleversement de ces catégories. (p. 77)

For Châteaubriant, this philosophy serves to define Aristotle as ‘le guide et l’initiateur du Nominalisme’ (p. 105), defined as ‘le début d’une grande catastrophe devant Dieu et devant sa loi irrémissible’ (p. 187) – the result of which is nothing less than the atheism of our age (p. 181). Châteaubriant’s subsequent presentation of the debate on universals, deliberating ‘qu’est-ce que le réel?’ (pp. 179–87), echoes that employed in La Gerbe des forces, and opposes ‘les réalistes [pour qui] le réel est l’universel’ to ‘les nominalistes [qui] placent au contraire l’individu là où se voit l’homme de chair, seul réel’, and who uphold 230

the view that ‘le vrai monde est celui des choses visibles, des phénomènes et de leurs rapports’ (p. 180).35 For Châteaubriant, the nominalists represent ‘les premiers initiateurs de l’esprit d’analyse et d’expérience’ (p. 182), with intellect (or reason) again defined as the monster against which Saint Bernard warned, as Châteaubriant noted earlier in La Gerbe. In line with the Augustinian tradition of the Middles Ages, Châteaubriant gives primacy to faith: ‘Ce que la raison trouve, la foi le savait déjà. Et la raison ne l’a trouvé que parce que la foi le savait. La foi et la raison sont, l’une avec l’autre et l’une dans l’autre, l’intelligence de Dieu’ (p. 142). Belief must come first, followed by understanding, and reason is thus allowed no independent validity. Debating the respective merits of the savant and the saint, Châteaubriant therefore concludes in his own inimitably superior way that: Pour nous, grâce aux clartés que nous avons acquises, nous n’hésitons pas. Entre le regard du savant penché sur les réactions de ses laboratoires et le regard illuminé du spirituel à qui sont révélées, dans une intuition incomparable, audessus de toute expérience sensible, les raisons premières et dernières de l’essence des choses, il n’est pas de commune mesure. (p. 185)

He maintains his view of Saint Thomas (evidently a savant) as a nefarious turning-point in Christian thought, writing of the ‘grande et admirable époque’ which preceded him and noting that ‘saint Thomas d’Aquin en personne se tient à cette place où le passé entre dans l’ombre et où s’annonce l’avenir’ (p. 176). Of course, as Gordon Leff notes, ‘it would be wrong […] to imagine that there were two firm and distinct alignments of Augustinianism and Thomism’,36 and yet Châteaubriant simplistically opposes the two approaches, much as we saw him do in the Lettre à la chrétienté mourante. He associates Augustinianism with intelligence, intuition and direct spiritual 35 36

One section of the Itinéraire vers la lumière divine in particular is a direct copy of a section in La Gerbe des forces (see ILD, p. 181 and GF, p. 130). Leff, Medieval Thought, p. 13.

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illumination by God, and writes of Saint Augustine himself that ‘[il] voit ce qu’il dit. Il réalise dans l’intelligence […] l’indivision ineffable de l’âme et de la raison’ (pp. 59–60). In contrast, Châteaubriant is critical of ‘la voie dialectique et d’adaptation aux doctrines suivies essentiellement par saint Thomas’ (p. 67), including in this what he sees as Aquinas’s proclamation of ‘l’autonomie de l’intelligence volontaire en chaque individu’ (p. 147). These themes still incorrectly suggest to Châteaubriant that Saint Thomas gave primacy to reason over faith, rather than that he used reason to complete or to explain faith. Châteaubriant damns Saint Thomas’s approach with faint praise, describing it as ‘la doctrine la mieux faite pour concilier la substance doctrinale de l’orthodoxie théologique avec les exigences individualistes de l’humanisme naissant’ (p. 176). He argues that, as a result, ‘les temps forçaient saint Thomas à dire que l’homme prenait ses affaires en main, qu’il ne comptait plus sur Dieu, l’obligeaient à le hausser à ses propres yeux, à lui donner liberté et responsabilité’ (p. 205). Given the demands of the times, including ‘l’intellectualisme scientifique’ (p. 195), Châteaubriant believes that the Catholic Church was weakly prepared to ‘se limiter volontairement à la formule de saint Thomas d’Aquin parce qu’elle était la formule qui semblait la mieux faite pour être la forme religieuse de la conception scientifique moderne’ (p. 196). And he adds that Aquinas therefore offered ‘la doctrine dont l’Église avait besoin pour éteindre en elle un conflit qui menaçait d’être irréductible’ (p. 176), in other words, an easy way out of a difficult situation. But, for Châteaubriant, Thomism represents an insufficient Christianity. He rejects the opinion of those who ‘consacrent définitivement à la doctrine de saint Thomas, à l’exclusion de toute autre qui ait pu avoir sa raison d’être dans l’Église, le titre d’unique formule de l’orthodoxie’ (p. 204). Thomism, he writes, is not the definitive answer to the problem of ‘l’homme devant la loi divine’, for ‘la question n’est pas si simple, et elle est loin d’être réglée’ (p. 205). It is simply ‘une chrétienté’, ‘une solution amiable mais funeste’ (ibid.), which suggests that

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Châteaubriant would accept the existence of at least one other form of Christendom which he no doubt prefers. Châteaubriant holds Saint Thomas responsible for the creation of the ‘intellectual Christianity’ which he believes has dominated the Catholic Church since the late thirteenth century to the detriment of his preferred intuitive Christianity of revelation. He despairs at the activity of certain contemporary (unnamed) theologians who, he believes, are endeavouring to prove that, in a way, science has its roots in Saint Thomas (p. 204), for such activity represents the unwelcome willing transaction of the ‘superior’ Church with the ‘inferior’ modern world: ‘Or, l’Église, qui est au-dessus de notre civilisation, par délégation et par fonction, fait actuellement tout son possible pour se mettre et se tenir à la page de cette civilisation’ (p. 197). He also objects heartily to the modern Church’s programme of Catholic Social Action, including in his disapproval the Mission de France project and the worker-priest initiative begun in the early 1940s.37 In November 1949, he records his damning overall view of the contemporary ‘esprit chrétien […] héritier de cinq à six siècles de Renaissance humaniste’ (C, p. 331). This has lost touch with the intelligible and the réel, with the result that: Affaissé sur lui-même, et comme écarté par les laboratoires du droit intellectuel de parler de ces choses, il s’est confiné, dans la conservation de la lettre de ses traditions, dans la morale pratique, dans un effort d’adaptation à l’évolution de l’esprit de ce temps, dans les actes méritoires, dans l’action sociale directe. (ibid.)

Châteaubriant’s anti-Thomism fits in with his exaltation of the early Middle Ages, as we saw in his references to Charlemagne and the Franks. It is similarly consistent with his opposition to the Papacy, which reconfirmed its choice of Saint Thomas as the Christian doctor in the post-Second-World-War period. Châteaubriant’s antimoderne stance was therefore radical – much more, say, than that of a Maritain 37

On the Mission de France and the worker-priest experiment, see Paul Sérant, Les Grands Déchirements des catholiques français (Perrin, 1989), pp. 200–21.

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– while his dismissal of Thomism represents his rejection of a means of modernisation for the Catholic Church. He argues that the Church’s transaction with the modern world limits its true potential, and openly challenges its approach, asking ‘dans l’impuissance où la plonge la médiocrité du monde, peut-elle encore enseigner aux chrétiens d’aujourd’hui ce qu’est le salut?’ (p. 271). As we have seen, Châteaubriant had long been dissatisfied with what he saw as the sterile, static nature of contemporary, popular Christianity as expressed in the institutional Catholic Church, and which he deemed insufficient for himself. This remains an important theme in the final years of his life, as confirmed by an entry in his diaires for May 1947: Elle [la chrétienté] possède la Vérité, enfermée dans la cassette de son intellect, elle ne la cherche plus avec cet esprit de foi, d’humilité et de désir qui sait que ne la pas trouver soi-même continuellement équivaut à ne pas la posséder vraiment; qui sait que les vérités enfermées et conservées dans l’intellect n’y restent pas des agneaux, mais deviennent de vieux moutons têtus, craintifs, récalcitrants, débandards et faits pour le troupeau. (C, p. 282)

For Châteaubriant, the post-war Catholic Church is ‘paralysée dans sa foi par le manque de spiritualité de ce temps’ (p. 271), while modern man represents ‘l’incarnation d’une certaine manière actuelle de réagir contre l’enseignement chrétien’, the result of ‘un minimum de vingtcinq générations d’esprit en marche vers le détachement de la foi’ (p. 330). Modern, secular education has completed this detachment, for ‘l’homme moderne ne reçoit plus, au cours de ses études, aucun enseignement théologique. La théologie est pour lui lettre morte’ (ILD, p. 155). Châteaubriant doubts the Church’s ability to communicate the meaning of its teachings, proclaiming that: Ce que dit le christianisme ne peut absolument pas être cherché dans la parole moyenne de son moderne enseignement public, enseignement auquel le condamnent l’ignorance religieuse des générations de ce temps et leur inaptitude foncière à pénétrer ses immenses richesses spirituelles. (C, p. 288)

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And to some extent he holds Christians themselves to blame, revitalising a constant theme with his comment that ‘la chrétienté meurt autant de l’ignorance des siens que de l’incroyance de ses ennemis’ (p. 305). Although Catholic dogma deals with essential truths, these are not always well expressed and – above all – not always understood (p. 320), for the majority of Christians (himself excluded, of course) lack true spiritual understanding. Modern religion is limited by: […] tant de notions apprises, qu’un si grand nombre de chrétiens répètent sans pouvoir les comprendre, parce qu’ils sont enfermés dans un lieu sombre où le manque de lumière n’a pas permis à l’essence des choses de Dieu d’éclater, comme d’une graine sèche, hors des mots de l’homme. (ILD, p. 34)

In Châteaubriant’s opinion, here, as in his earliest writings, ‘la christianité de l’homme ne gît pas dans une formule apprise’ (p. 155). Hence, although ‘pragmatic’ Catholicism – ‘qui administre aux foules le pain quotidien de sa boulangerie populaire’ (ibid.) – is deemed useful for ‘la masse des hommes demeurés dans le premier esprit’ (C, p. 318), Châteaubriant argues that this brand of Catholicism ‘ne peut et ne doit pas faire tort à la solution, à la compréhension, à la pratique et à l’action du christianisme supérieur’ (ILD, p. 155). Christianity must be understood directly ‘et non à travers le voile brodé des cérémonies’ (p. 233). He therefore advocates that, ideally, ‘l’Église du Christ doit avoir une foi illimitée et ne pas se mettre à la remorque de l’esprit des foules, car le culte dépasse le culte. Le geste ne peut remplacer la lumière’ (ibid.). None of this is new, of course, but serves to confirm Châteaubriant’s steadfast belief in his own spiritual superiority and in his capacity and his right to bypass the institutional Church and its systems and to access God directly. He is convinced that men such as himself, of whom there are few, are simply on a higher spiritual level. In many respects, Châteaubriant’s post-war programme for a nouvelle chrétienté openly echoes that detailed in his earlier writings, and as discussed earlier in this study. Where his later project differs markedly, however, is in its lack of reference to its possible application to any political regime. His interpretation of Christianity remains heroic, 235

for, as he writes in July 1947, ‘le christianisme est loin de n’être qu’une morale, loin de n’être qu’une religion de pardon, loin de n’être qu’un dogme théologique’ (C, p. 287). Indeed, Christianity is also, and above all, ‘une puissance, un ordre, un commandement, un salut et une vue prophétique de l’avenir’ (p. 288). He demands that the Church resist its own complete submersion by ‘l’intelligence matérialiste’ (p. 308), announcing that ‘il est urgent d’opposer aux découvertes actuelles de la dialectique matérialiste, les découvertes actuelles de l’esprit de révélation’ (p. 323). As before, the theme of crucifixion is played down while the themes of resurrection and ascension are again prioritised (ILD, p. 218), with emphasis placed on the need for ‘le passage de la conscience humaine dans la chair à la conscience divine dans la substance’ (p. 220). Immutably confident that he has the answers, he proclaims that ‘l’essentiel pour l’homme n’est pas de trouver un soulagement à sa souffrance’ (p. 226), but rather to experience recreation in God, confirmed by a second birth and a second baptism which will achieve ‘la grande œuvre du Christ en chacun de nous’ (p. 228). He therefore triumphantly concludes that the ‘acte nécessaire au salut de la race humaine’ is rechristianisation through a rejection of anthropocentrism – ‘la loi naturelle de la première naissance’ – and a re-emphasis on the primacy of the spiritual, defined as ‘un christocentrisme intégral, qui est à la base de la seconde naissance’ (p. 234). Where men such as Maritain advocated an adapted new Christianity based on a new humanism, defined as ‘un humanisme théocentrique ou véritablement chrétien’ which sits alongside ‘un humanisme anthropocentrique’,38 Châteaubriant rejects humanism outright. All that interests him is his vision of a renewed Christianity. Châteaubriant’s brand of heroic Christianity still requires an appropriate elite whose activity will bring about the salvation of humanity. The failure of the National Socialists to live up to his spiritual expectations has not dampened his enthusiasm for such an elite, defined as ‘ceux qui sont passés ou pourraient passer dans l’autre 38

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Jacques Maritain, Humanisme intégral, p. 36.

esprit’ and whose role it is to be ‘les intermédiaires entre les masses et le Saint Esprit transformateur’ (C, p. 318). The difference, however, is that where Châteaubriant’s earlier new Christian elite (the NationalSocialist warrior-monks) represented his spiritualisation of a temporal, political group, his target group is now allocated a purely spiritual function. He writes in late 1947 that appropriate collective action still remains the key to regeneration: Il faut seulement que des groupes de saints hommes se réunissent et se lient dans la connaissance pour fondre leurs prières en une seule prière illuminée. Alors l’action de Dieu se fera sentir dans la société humaine. (p. 310)

Not surprisingly, given his earlier words, his other main recommendation is that the Church should not abandon the views it held at certain great moments during the Middle Ages (p. 263). And he continues: Il est nécessaire, si l’on veut connaître l’essence de son esprit, d’embrasser, à travers les siècles, le cours profond et varié de doctrines, souvent pleines de hardiesse et remplie de génie divin […]. Il nous faut remonter en compagnie des premiers interprètes de son inspiration, saint Jean et saint Paul, les Pères de l’Église, et aussi maints grands réalistes mystiques du moyen âge. (pp. 288–89)

And, referring to his preferred heroes, Châteaubriant advocates that ‘l’Église doit, en ce temps de détresse chrétienne, les rassembler et les serrer sur son cœur’ since they are the very incarnation of the Church’s immense spiritual wealth (p. 313). In the post-1945 period, Châteaubriant remains out of line with the evolution of the contemporary Catholic Church. He is certainly no Thomist, while his continuing advocacy of a heroic and elitist nouvelle chrétienté differentiates his approach from those promoting and implementing Catholic Social Action and the Mission de France, and especially from those Catholics who flirted with Marxism. He remains trenchant in his criticism of the institutional Church and its systems, obviously believes that he knows better than the Church, particularly in respect of the pathway it should journey, and continues to betray 237

the spiritual arrogance first displayed in Monsieur des Lourdines. Châteaubriant was an unorthodox Catholic in the extreme, but a Catholic nonetheless. And yet, in spite of all his criticisms and his doubts, on 25 December 1948 Châteaubriant returned to the Church, taking the sacrament for the first time in fifty-five years (p. 324) and announcing that ‘je suis chrétien et, très nettement aussi, je suis catholique’ (p. 340). His self-reintegration occurred after what he calls thirty years of ‘combat en moi-même contre la puissance du mensonge de l’illusion que nous appelons la réalité’ (p. 338), a period crowned by: La découverte du christianisme et des puissances que par destination possède l’Église pour la sanctification et le soulagement matériel de l’humanité, et qui a été une révélation dépassant tout ce qu’on m’avait décrit et tout ce qu’on aurait pu m’enseigner. (p. 339)

The Church, he continues, is the ultimate ‘inspiratrice et législatrice des hommes, au-dessus de tous les pouvoirs’; it is ‘l’unique patrie que nous ayons en ce monde’ (p. 342), so suggesting that he has come to accept the Church as the supreme authority. But this, it would seem, is no real capitulation on Châteaubriant’s part, for it emerges that he is prepared to accept Catholic dogma since this coincides with what he believes: ‘Mon expérience religieuse propre m’a conduit à une entente du dogme catholique basée sur une parfaite coïncidence entre ce qui m’est apparu comme vrai et ce qui est enseigné comme article de foi’ (p. 340). Châteaubriant’s spiritual arrogance remains undiluted to the end, as he confirms when he notes that he did not receive from the Church the welcome he believes he deserves: Par tout ce que j’ai souffert pour en arriver à ce que je pense et ce qui s’est construit en moi, par tout ce que peut-être j’apporte aussi d’arguments puisés à l’expérience vivante et utilisables […], je mériterais tellement un autre accueil, un accueil qui serait un échange et non ces jugements ex cathedra distribués de haut et assaisonnés d’ironie par des esprits qui manifestement – il suffit de les lire – ne savent pas ce que je sais. Je voulais me jeter dans les bras de l’Église, mais je vois que l’Église n’a que faire de moi. (p. 338)

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This disappointment with the Catholic Church as an institution (but not with his interpretation of his faith) prompts him in February 1951 to adopt a self-imposed distance although not a complete separation from the Church, a stance perhaps influenced by the approaching end of his life (ibid.). Looking back over his life in the spring of 1951, Châteaubriant notes that ‘pour mes souvenirs, j’en ai de beaux, quelques-uns de grands… Et puis aussi bien des regrets, bien des confusions, bien des remords: une vie d’homme, une simple vie d’homme’.39 At the end of his life, he writes, the spiritual alone carries significance: Je mourrai bientôt, je n’ai rien à ménager. Rien à ménager de ce qui est de la terre, n’ayant rien à attendre de ses moissons. Je ne vois plus que le chemin intérieur qui me reste à suivre, je n’entends plus que la voix intime qui me parle de ce chemin. (p. 232)

But regret and remorse are alien words in Châteaubriant’s vocabulary, particularly in respect of his political activity, for, as he continues, ‘ce qu’on me reprochera le plus, mes égarements politiques, c’est ce que je me reproche le moins’ (p. 233). Châteaubriant lived and died a traitor to France and a traitor to common decency, compassion and humanity, although he would never accept either judgement. The only thing he does genuinely regret is ‘de n’avoir pas vécu, en quelque douzième siècle, la vie d’un moine contemplateur de la gloire de Dieu’ (C, p. 315). Without doubt, and by his own admission, Châteaubriant was ultimately a man at variance with his century.

39

Alphonse de Châteaubriant, L’Acte intérieur, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1992), pp. 232–33.

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7 Châteaubriant and the (Re)Writing of History

On 2 May 1951, Alphonse de Châteaubriant died in the sanatorium at Kitzbühel, Austria, at the age of 74. He was buried there under the name of Alfred Wolf, the identity he had assumed in 1945 in order to hide from those who sought him out.1 But the writing of Châteaubriant’s life is in no way completed with his death. Indeed, following the self-reassessment in which he indulged in his later years, he subsequently benefited from the construction of a sympathetic history which ventured to sanitise his life in pursuit of his rehabilitation, first by means of seemingly innocuous activity, but then by the sustained manipulation and reworking of his words and deeds. As such, Châteaubriant’s case is essential to the broader history of modern France, since it is illustrative of a wider revision of the Vichy years. Of course, revisionism is a standard historical methodology which sets out to reconsider and reinterpret the past in the light of new evidence and/or a fresh reassessment of long-standing evidence. But it is also a loaded term which needs to be defined with care in its particular application to study of the Second World War, for in this context revisionism becomes negationism, a trend which offers a reading of the past based on trivialisation, distortion and denial, one of whose goals is to rescue the reputation of many former collaborators and with it that of the Vichy Regime itself. That Châteaubriant has benefited from revisionism as negation is certain, as this chapter will show, and the need to rectify his distorted history as recorded to date stands as a primary impulse for the writing of this book. Given the supremely 1

According to Robert de Châteaubriant, Alphonse’s younger son, in an interview with the author of this book in July 1988, Alfred Wolf was a Jewish doctor in Kitzbühel, who had died in his eighties in the early 1940s. Given Châteaubriant’s anti-Semitism, it is ironic that he should have been effectively saved from the authorities by a Jew.

sensitive nature of the Occupation years within France’s history, it is to be expected that study of the period should arouse passions and inspire heated debate. One misconception sometimes voiced, however, is that writing about the collaborators (whether those who supported collaboration d’État through Vichy or the collaborationnists in Paris) implies sympathy with negationism. While this may be true in the case of those who have a vested interest in the recording of a history based on discretion, it is very far from true in the case of genuine researchers, and such short-sighted judgements demand a direct and forthright response. The whole point of writing about the collaborators is to provide a context for an objective reading and understanding of the subject, to explore each case in scrupulous detail, to activate the truth as revealed by the evidence of the archives available, thereby to counter the sympathetic voices, and to do so with sobriety, rigour and method. This is all the more important when those involved are – as in Châteaubriant’s case – not as well known today as others who more readily spring to mind. If their cases are not thoroughly investigated, and the true nature of their ideas and activity is not exposed, then the very real danger is that they are allowed to fade into an historical fog of ignorance which can be exploited in order deliberately to mislead subsequent generations and to divert the focus of responsibility. In writing the collaboration, political and personal causes must be challenged. The only passion involved must be a passion for the truth. It is only in writing the true history of men such as Châteaubriant that we can do justice to the victims. Only then can France say that she has not refused to look her past in the face. And only the assumption of her past can be the nation’s true liberation, enabling her to move on to embrace the future. In that light, this chapter will have a dual focus. Elucidation of the post-war rehabilitation of Châteaubriant will be complemented by an analysis of the national context, for, in the painting of the overall picture, the one cannot be dissociated from the other.

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Exposing negationism: a reworked past Châteaubriant’s words and deeds have been systematically and strategically whitewashed over the years since his death. Without the knowledge of the true weight of historical evidence against him, readers have thus far had only caricature or a refashioned image on which to base their judgement. The misrepresentation of Châteaubriant began just months after he died, when Grasset started to publish texts which Châteaubriant had either left unfinished or in manuscript form. During the Second World War, Grasset was widely regarded as sympathetic to Right-wing writers and had operated with the approval of the German occupier, and so its decision to publish Châteaubriant’s work in the post-war period is especially interesting.2 But the most influential factor must surely have been that Grasset’s literary editor at the time – and also the editor of the texts themselves – was Robert de Châteaubriant. The initial impulse in the post-war promotion of Alphonse de Châteaubriant came, then, from within his own family. The need to understand a parent’s wartime behaviour is natural, and has been a key theme since the Occupation for many writers in France, for example, Patrick Modiano, Pascal Jardin and Marie Chaix.3 But rehabilitation rather than understanding was Robert de Châteaubriant’s goal. Far from accepting the judgement delivered in 1948, he openly shared his father’s political views and championed his cause until his own death in 1992.4 2 3 4

See ‘L’Affaire Grasset’, Les Cahiers de la Résistance, 2 (1949). Patrick Modiano, La Place de l’Étoile (Gallimard, 1968); Pascal Jardin, La Guerre à neuf ans (Grasset, 1971); Marie Chaix, Les Lauriers du lac de Constance: chronique d’une collaboration (Seuil, 1974). Family ties also played their part in the case of Maurice Bardèche – described by Rousso as one of ‘les néo-fascistes [qui] restent attachés aux traditions politiques de l’occupation’ – who supported the cause of his brother-in-law Robert Brasillach through his key involvement in the Association des amis de Robert Brasillach (Henry Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy, 1944–8… (Seuil, 1987), p. 89).

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In all, six new works by Châteaubriant were published between 1951 and 1955, three of which – Lettre à la chrétienté mourante (1951); Fragments d’une confession (1953); Itinéraire vers la lumière divine (1955) – portray him as a man with purely mystical concerns, detailing for the benefit of humanity his programme for world salvation on a moral and religious level. In addition, a fourth book, the Lettres des années de guerre 1906–1914 (1952) serves to relocate Châteaubriant in the First World War and to divert attention from his activities during the Second World War.5 The 1950s and 1960s also saw the repeated republication of his three earliest novels, which were also the only works still in print at the end of the century.6 In itself, the publication of Châteaubriant’s literary and religious texts at that time does not seem particularly striking, since, as we have noted, he was an acknowledged, prize-winning writer. But, with the benefit of hindsight, and in the full knowledge of later aspects of Châteaubriant’s reassessment, this systematic publication of his religious and literary texts might be seen to harbour a more sinister intention. For, during the 1950s, a period when passions about the war still ran high, when the desire for revenge was most acute, and when former collaborators were least likely to enjoy sympathetic treatment, emphasis was laid on the creation, consolidation and presentation of a Châteaubriant persona not linked in any way to the Second World War. Negative and manifestly damaging aspects of his life were ignored, while his recognised literary and mystical persona was highlighted, thereby serving as a smoke-screen that obscured the full reality of his thought and activity. The Châteaubriant thus presented in the immediate postwar period was a very different man to the Châteaubriant we have dissected in this book. 5 6

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The other two books were diaries: Des saisons et des jours: journal de l’auteur 1911– 1924 (1953); and Cahiers 1906–1951 (1955). Monsieur des Lourdines was republished in 1952, 1953 and 1963; La Brière was republished in 1954, once a year from 1956 to 1960, and in 1969; La Réponse du Seigneur was republished in 1951 and 1956. La Brière was also re-edited in Grasset’s Cahiers rouges series in 1987.

The reassessment process progressed to a second stage in 1977 with the publication of the first biography of Châteaubriant, LouisAlphonse Maugendre’s Alphonse de Châteaubriant 1877–1951: dossier littéraire et politique. Interviewed in the Right-wing Rivarol at the time, Maugendre claimed that his study was ‘le fruit d’un travail scrupuleux et dégagé de tout parti pris’,7 while the endpage of his book praises the ‘documentation tout à fait unique [qui] ne laisse dans l’ombre aucune source d’information quelle qu’elle soit, susceptible d’éclairer la démarche de l’homme privé, celle de l’homme de pensée et de l’homme public’. On the surface, then, the biography promises to put forward an objective and complete analysis of Châteaubriant’s literary and political activity, constituting a rich and indispensable source of information on an author long overdue for serious study. But a reading of the text rapidly proves these to be unfulfilled expectations, for it in fact represents not so much an impartial attempt to detail and explain Châteaubriant’s career as a sympathetic attempt at vindication. Maugendre’s claim that his book would help ‘à faire mieux connaître Châteaubriant et à faire cesser sur lui, je l’espère vivement, les fauxbruits qui courent depuis si longtemps, depuis trop longtemps’8 needs to be carefully interpreted. For he does not set out to challenge the faux-bruits which presented Châteaubriant purely in terms of his literary and spiritual persona – the strategy employed by his son until that point – but rather to sustain that reading by minimising, ignoring or distorting his political activity, an approach which implies that to focus on Châteaubriant as a former collaborator is to tell the ‘wrong’ history. The biography is littered with passages which provide a discreet or favourable interpretation of Châteaubriant’s life, the construction of which is aided by significant omissions and inaccuracies. Nowhere does Maugendre point to any political reading of Châteaubriant’s regionalist texts nor to the early implications of his spiritualisation of 7 8

Madeleine Peltier, ‘Qui était Alphonse de Châteaubriant? Un entretien avec L.A. Maugendre’, Rivarol, 3 (1977), 10. Ibid.

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politics during the First World War, so important in an understanding of the source and evolution of his thought. There is inadequate study of Châteaubriant’s encounter with National Socialism in the 1930s as recorded in La Gerbe des forces, for Maugendre argues that the text is concerned with higher matters than politics and that its true significance lies in its ‘contenu proprement spirituel’.9 Admittedly, politics is subordinated to spiritual concerns in La Gerbe des forces, as we have seen, but this to the extent that politics is spiritualised rather than ignored. But Maugendre makes no reference to Châteaubriant’s longstanding belief that National Socialism was the consummate political incarnation of Christianity and thus the ideal regenerative force, what he termed in La Gerbe des forces ‘un recommencement de l’œuvre de Dieu’ (p. 161) and ‘un jaillissement religieux’ (p. 245). Moreover, the presentation of Châteaubriant’s exploratory visits to Germany in 1936 and 1937 abounds with details of dates and places, but is glaringly lacking in analysis, as is the report of Châteaubriant’s meeting with Hitler in August 1937, which is referred to briefly in an otherwise lengthy 445-page biography (p. 205). The same remarkable discretion is displayed concerning Châteaubriant’s activities during the war itself. There is insufficient investigation of the activities of both La Gerbe and the Groupe Collaboration, as well as of the major part Châteaubriant played in these organisations. Maugendre dares to state, for instance, that La Gerbe ‘tenait à se désolidariser de l’antisémitisme’ (p. 285), despite the blatant anti-Semitic tone and content we noted earlier. And he accounts for Châteaubriant’s racism on the grounds that it was a positive expression of his belief in ‘le droit à la différence’ and not ‘un principe élevé contre l’étranger’ (p. 286), rather than admitting the religious justification which Châteaubriant himself actually employed. Furthermore, Châteaubriant’s anti-Bolshevism is emphasised throughout the biography while his pro-Nazism receives significantly less attention. 9

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Maugendre, Alphonse de Châteaubriant, p. 243. Subsequent immediate references to this book are given in the text.

For example, in what stands as a fraudulent manipulation of the context, Maugendre attaches papal justification to Châteaubriant’s antiBolshevism by referencing Pius XI’s 1937 condemnation of atheistic Communism in the encyclical Divini redemptoris, while failing to reference the Pope’s synchronal condemnation of National Socialism in the encylical Mit brennender Sorge, a text which is not helpful to Châteaubriant’s cause. The reading of Châteaubriant which results is therefore partial. This is a biography whose author displays an obvious personal sympathy for his subject, a factor no doubt recognised by the Châteaubriant family since it granted him access to its archives. This sympathy is most evident in the chapter based on the immediate postLiberation period and Châteaubriant’s post-war exile, summarised as a time when ‘la France ne vivait plus que dans la haine et les règlements de compte, sous prétexte de patriotisme pur et dur’ (pp. 355–56). Châteaubriant’s death sentence is described in similar terms as a ‘simulacre sanglant’, while the épuration as a whole is classified as ‘sinistre’ (p. 337). In sum, Maugendre’s biography is sparing on essential detail and favourable in its analysis. It either sidesteps or plays down Châteaubriant’s political activity, resulting in the creation of a modified image of its subject which bolsters his rehabilitation. The history it tells is distinctly negligent. Châteaubriant’s rehabilitation both entered its third phase and moved up a gear in the 1980s, with the creation in October 1981 of the Club Alphonse de Châteaubriant, the primary function of which emerges as the promotion of a sympathetic reappraisal of its subject. In recent years, considerable interest had been sparked in France in the extreme Right, incarnated by the ‘classic’ extreme-Right Front national (created in 1972 and led by Jean-Marie Le Pen) and also by what was termed the New Right. The latter was represented by such groups as GRECE (Groupement de recherche et d’études pour la civilisation occidentale, formed in 1967) and the Club de l’Horloge (created in 1974), and was described in the French press as neo-fascist and reminiscent of the period 1939 to 1944. Primarily intellectual in inspiration, the New 247

Right soon became associated (rightly or wrongly) with terrorism, and numerous terrorist activities were attributed to it between 1977 and 1981, including the attempted assassination of Henri Noguères (then president of the Ligue des Droits de l’homme) on 21 September 1980, and a series of gun attacks on Jewish sites in Paris just five days later.10 During the 1980s, the extreme Right gained political representation in the shape of the Front national, which won thirty-five seats in the March 1986 legislative elections, while Le Pen himself garnered an impressive 14.4% of the vote in the first round of the 1988 presidential election, although he failed to reach the second round.11 Interest in the extreme Right in the 1980s fostered a climate favourable to the genesis of the Club Alphonse de Châteaubriant. The Club’s official director was one Franck Peyrot, who edited its quarterly bulletin (an amateurish pamphlet of ten-to-twelve poorly typed and produced pages) and organised seminars of a general nature, such as the 1986 event, entitled ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: sa vie et son œuvre’.12 But the influence of Robert de Châteaubriant is obvious, for a considerable number of the contributions are signed either Robert Canzillon or Robert Wolf, both pseudonyms commonly used by Châteaubriant’s younger son, with the second in particular echoing that adopted by his father during his exile.13 With the appearance of the Club, more troops were marshalled to Châteaubriant’s cause. Although small at around eighty members, its very existence is significant since it serves to illustrate the activity of those who have 10 11

12 13

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See Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy, pp. 207–16 for these and other details on the New Right. It is accepted that the FN won so many seats in 1986 because the elections were held under a system of proportional representation. In 1986, legislative elections reverted to the two-ballot system, since when the FN has failed to win more than one or two seats at each election. The bulletin first appeared in 1983. Announcements therein indicate that the seminars were held on an irregular basis. Robert de Châteaubriant admitted in 1992 that he had written under the name Robert Canzillon (L’Acte intérieur, p. 9).

sought since 1945 to promote a sympathetic reading of the collaboration. An analysis of the Club’s membership reveals that a pattern of common traits and tendencies can be established. Basing our findings on a survey carried out in 1990, we can establish that members of the Club were then predominantly male (76%), and ranged in age from twenty-seven to ninety-six, with 48% aged over sixty and 30% aged under forty. The interest of the oldest members can be linked to their direct experience of the war period, with four such members surveyed citing their personal activity as collaborators as the reason for their involvement in the Club. But over half the members surveyed either had no direct experience of the war period or were too young to remember it in any detail. Of this group, three claimed that they were induced to defend Châteaubriant by a desire to defend a parent who may have collaborated, while others openly linked their involvement to their current political affiliation. As might be expected, 80% of those surveyed expressed forthright Right-wing political sympathies, while 35% claimed to have voted for the Front national in the 1988 Presidential and National Assembly elections (as opposed to a national average of 10% of the voting population). Those surveyed were also mainly practising Catholics, since 75% said that they regularly attended mass (compared to a national average of 12%), of whom 21% voted FN in 1988 (compared to 12% of practising Catholics nationally). They were on the whole well educated, with 80% at baccalauréat level or above (as opposed to a national average of 15%), while 75% were then or had formerly been members of the top three socio-professional categories.14

14

A questionnaire was distributed to members of the Club along with issue 30 of the bulletin in February 1990. 52% had been sent back by the return date of 31 December 1990, representing a high response rate in contrast to the 35% expected norm. A commonality of opinion among the respondents suggests that their views can reasonably be interpreted as representative of the membership as a whole.

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Asked to explain the reasons for their membership of the Club as well as their understanding of its philosophy, 80% stated that the Club primarily existed to defend and rehabilitate Châteaubriant’s political memory, while only 5% cited the ‘official’ philosophy of the Club (defined by Peyrot as the promotion of Châteaubriant’s literary and spiritual career) as its most important aspect.15 During the early years of its publication, the bulletin did devote much of each issue to articles with specific literary or mystical themes, reproducing extracts from Châteaubriant’s writings or printing appreciations of his work.16 But even the early issues hint at the Club’s political leanings, while the later numbers offer a direct response both to the politics of the war years and to more recent events and issues. Analysis of such articles indicates that the Club sought to encourage its members to campaign actively for the republication of what the editor calls ‘les ouvrages mis à l’index par le tout-pouvoir’, which, although not explicitly named, would include those texts of Châteaubriant’s which remain unavailable to this day – principally La Gerbe des forces.17 The May 1986 issue calls on Club members to join the annual pilgrimage to Brasillach’s grave (p. 8); readers of the December 1986 number are invited to attend a lecture on Brasillach given by his former defence counsel, Jacques Isorni (p. 11); and the recommended reading section of the May 1987 issue promotes Alfred Rosenberg’s Der Mythus des 20 Jahrhunderts, describing it as ‘essentiel pour ceux qui désirent approfondir leur connaissance du National-Socialisme’ (p. 11). These political references in the early issues of the bulletin relate largely to people, topics and circumstances from Châteaubriant’s lifetime. But, in later numbers, the bulletin shifts its approach to consider contemporary events and issues, directly employing Châteaubriant’s ideas in its interpretation. For example, in response to the collapse of 15 16 17

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Given in a letter to the author of this book dated 22 September 1989. See, for example, ‘En Brière’, issue 14 (May 1986), 1–5; ‘Le Chasseur de paysages’, issue 15 (August 1986), 1–8; ‘La Création littéraire’, issue 16 (October 1986), 1–6. Issue 16 (October 1986), 7.

Communism and the opening up of eastern Europe, the June 1990 issue includes a ‘texte prémonitoire’ allegedly written by Châteaubriant in 1948 (pp. 1–19). The comments which accompany the text highlight Châteaubriant’s earlier anti-Bolshevism and his promotion of collaboration with Germany, and argue that the European-wide adoption of his beliefs in the mid-century would have prevented the subsequent ‘sovietisation’ of eastern Europe. The current situation is therefore exploited to suggest the ‘prophetic’ nature of Châteaubriant’s thought and, by extension, to justify his collaboration. Other issues raised in the bulletin are not directly related to Châteaubriant, but step beyond the reassessment process to illustrate the general political tenor of the review and to stand as evidence of its intention to enter the contemporary arena and to pronounce on issues of current importance and interest. For example, in the light of the 1989 bicentenary celebrations, the February 1990 number published a ‘petite annexe à notre bicentenaire’ which describes the 1789 French Revolution as a ‘farce tragi-comique’ and condemns the resultant ‘idées destructrices de la France athée’ (pp. 12–14). The Club may have been small in itself, and obviously preached largely to the converted, but a reading of its bulletin provides convincing evidence that it was not a solitary, isolated organisation. Rather, it forms part of a wider movement of post-war partisan associations which have furthered the rehabilitation of war personalities. For instance, the bulletin makes repeated reference to financial and moral mutual support between the Club and such significant groups as the Association des amis de Robert Brasillach and the Club Célinien, both of which publish Cahiers devoted to their subject. There also exist clearly identifiable links to other organisations with such telling names as Présence et priorité françaises, Le Comité de défense de l’Occident, and L’Union des nations de l’Europe chrétienne. In addition, the bulletin enjoyed a reciprocal publication agreement with a number of influential Rightwing reviews, including L’Anti-89, Lectures françaises and Rivarol, and over 60% of those surveyed subscribed to these and other similarly oriented reviews (for example, National Hebdo and Présent, this latter 251

published by the Front national from 1981), and claimed membership of such groups as the Club de l’Horloge. Research suggests not only that the bulletin had ceased publication by the mid-1990s, significantly around the time of the death of Robert de Châteaubriant, but also that the Club has suspended its activities.18 However, despite this, its impact and its connections were such that it must not be discounted in any assessment of French post-war responses to the collaboration; nor should it be disregarded in any examination of the contemporary extreme Right. The Club and its bulletin were illustrative of their times. The fourth stage in the rehabilitation of Châteaubriant came with the appearance in 1987 of a work entitled Procès posthume d’un visionnaire, published by Nouvelles Éditions Latines, a small Parisian publishing house with Right-wing sympathies. As editor of the book, Robert de Châteaubriant profited from the intense publication activity and the atmosphere of historical reconsideration which marked the mid-1980s, a period which saw the publication of several works (both sympathetic and objective) on better-known Occupation personalities, including Brasillach, Céline and Pétain, as well as on the general context of the collaboration and on the question of French fascism.19 As we saw in Chapter 6, the Procès posthume d’un visionnaire is constructed of extracts chosen by Robert de Châteaubriant from among his father’s post-1914 18 19

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The last number of the Bulletin held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France is dated 1992. Letters sent to the Club’s last known postal address have been returned indicating that the box number has been reallocated. Example publications from the period 1986 to 1987 alone include: Maurice Bardèche, Louis-Ferdinand Céline (La Table ronde, 1986); Isabelle Chantemerle, Céline (Artefact, 1987); Paul del Perugia, Céline (Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1987); Frédéric Vitoux, Céline (P. Belfond, 1987); Maurice Bardèche et al., Robert Brasillach et la génération perdue (Éditions du Rocher, 1987); Peter Tame, La Mystique du fascisme dans l’œuvre de Robert Brasillach (Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1986); Anne Brassié, Robert Brasillach ou encore un instant de bonheur (Laffont, 1987); Marc Ferro, Pétain (Fayard, 1987); Claude Mouton, Philippe Pétain (Publication M.C., 1986); Marie Cointet-Labrousse, Vichy et le fascisme (Brussels: Éditions Complexe, 1987); Philippe Milza, Fascisme français, passé et présent (Flammarion, 1987); Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy (Seuil, 1987).

writings, and includes previously unpublished notes which betray selfrevision and justification. The choice of text for inclusion is, in itself, evidence of a manipulative attempt to reconstruct Châteaubriant in post-war eyes. Indeed, Robert de Châteaubriant’s selection of extracts which emphasise his father’s anti-Bolshevism has to be considered in the light of one argument upheld in the 1980s, namely that, since the Cold War, anti-Bolshevism had formed the basis for the rehabilitation of the collaborators.20 Anti-Bolshevism is allocated a much larger place in the Procès than it received in La Gerbe des forces, thus confirming and repeating the tactic employed in both Maugendre’s biography and the Club’s bulletin, namely the exploitation of recent political trends in order to serve Châteaubriant’s reassessment and to justify his collaboration as a positive move which would destroy the greater evil of Bolshevism. But the Procès also presents much more sophisticated evidence of negationism, in the shape of the son’s efforts to vindicate the father through the systematic and deceitful reworking of original text prior to republication. The new version sanitises Châteaubriant’s words and spruces up his image, and so paints a distorted portrait, a fake which is intended to be ‘bought’ as the original by the post-war consumer of history. Many of the previously published extracts used in the Procès are taken from La Gerbe des forces, and a careful reading of the original work confirms that the changes applied take two forms, namely text omission and text alteration. The editor’s admission that the Procès represents ‘edited highlights’ of his father’s writings (PPV, p. 14) openly indicates that text has been omitted. However, the criteria by which the included extracts have been chosen come into question when we consider the highly sensitive nature of the omitted text. Omission occurs in two basic areas: those chapters of La Gerbe des forces which deal with Hitler, and those which are concerned with religion. For example, the eulogistic comments so evident in La Gerbe des forces, which praise Hitler’s clarity of vision, his purity, intelligence 20

See, for example, Sternhell, Ni droite, ni gauche, p. 23.

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and innate goodness (pp. 68–69), or which compare him to the prophet Jeremiah (p. 109), or suggest his proximity to God (p. 136), are absent from the Procès. Where the original defines National Socialism as ‘une religion imposée au peuple allemand par le prophète Hitler’ (pp. 189–90), the revised text omits the direct reference to the Führer (p. 101). Revealingly, the Procès maintains those sections of La Gerbe des forces which hold that religious freedom is allowed in Hitler’s Germany (GF, p. 217; PPV, p. 116), since this implies God-fearing respectability, but any previous equation of National Socialism with Christianity – a theme central to Châteaubriant’s thought from the 1930s – is ignored in the Procès, as it was in Maugendre’s biography. Hence the Procès omits such original proclamations as ‘les nationauxsocialistes allemands sont l’apparition humaine d’un recommencement de l’œuvre de Dieu’ (GF, p. 161), or ‘le national-socialisme fut un jaillissement religieux’ (p. 245), as well as the main body of Chapter 15 of La Gerbe des forces (entitled ‘L’Allemagne et le crucifix’), where Châteaubriant finds religious justification for racism. In La Gerbe des forces, Châteaubriant wrote of Hitler that ‘[il] n’est pas un conquérant, il est un édificateur d’esprits, un constructeur de volontés. C’est à l’intérieur des âmes que son national-socialisme semble avoir construit sa cathédrale germanique’ (p. 345), but this extract, too, is not employed in the Procès. Hitler is effectively erased from the revised text. This occurs even in those sections of the Procès which deal with the Führerprinzip and which are taken from Chapter 18 of La Gerbe des forces (entitled ‘Führerisme’), for specific references to the Führer are removed, and emphasis is placed instead on the sub-divisions of the pyramidal German State, and on the numerous führers (with a deliberate lower-case ‘f’) at the different levels (pp. 148–49). While largely eliminating the presence of Hitler, the revised text includes sections which emphasise the theory of National Socialism as the destroyer of international Bolshevism, and which therefore exploit contemporary fears about Communism as a means of neutralising attitudes towards National Socialism (GF, p. 263; PPV, p. 148). This tactic then allows for the one mention of Hitler within the Procès, for he is presented 254

purely in terms of the struggle against Bolshevism and in no way as the Nazi dictator he was (pp. 168–69). Text revision through alteration is a more subtle method of sanitisation than text omission because the passages included in the revised text may at first appear to be original extracts. However, on closer study, certain word changes can be identified. The main alterations that have been made to extracts from La Gerbe des forces concern the editor’s treatment of the words ‘Hitler’ and ‘hitlérisme’, as well as his usage of verbs. Examples litter the text. For instance, where the original claimed that ‘Hitler symbolise un esprit nouveau, celui d’une révolution, la révolution qui se dresse en face du bolchevisme’, the Procès substitutes ‘l’Allemagne’ for ‘Hitler’ (GF, p. 140; PPV, p. 94); elsewhere, it replaces ‘l’hitlérisme’ with ‘le National-Socialisme’ (GF, p. 307; PPV, p. 158); or the phrase ‘Quand Hitler est arrivé au pouvoir’ (GF, p. 221) becomes ‘Quand le National-Socialisme est arrivé au pouvoir’ (PPV, p. 119). The effect of these alterations is to play down the prominence given to Hitler in Châteaubriant’s original work, to place the emphasis more on National Socialism as an ideo-logy and less on Hitler as the leader of an actual party, and thereby to create a text which is rather less emotive and evocative than the original because reference to Hitler is removed. A further example of revision through alteration is shown in those sections where verbs have been changed. La Gerbe des forces is crammed with affirmative statements on the potential of National Socialism, as in ‘Le National-Socialisme allemand, en obligeant les individus à renoncer à eux-mêmes, a fait le premier pas sur la route abandonnée par les hommes’ (p. 135). In the Procès, ‘a fait’ becomes ‘semble’, reducing the affirmation to a suggestion and thereby toning down Châteaubriant’s claims. Similarly, his discussion of the Führerprinzip in La Gerbe des forces is softened by the substitution of the verb ‘gouverner’ for the original ‘régner’, suggesting that the Führerprinzip was not a dictatorship but rather a government which involved the people (GF, p. 271; PPV, p. 153). Both revision strategies employed by Robert de Châteaubriant compromise the writing of an honest history of his father, and, as 255

such, illustrate some of the problems facing the writing of the wider history of the war years. Inevitably, omitted text cannot be used in evidence against the writer, while text that has been altered by switching the emphasis of a statement tones down the content to a more acceptable level, neutralisation becoming a form of smokescreen between the original and the reconstructed version. As is often the case with collaborationist texts, original editions are difficult to find. This permits the reconstructed texts to present a more favourable portrait which is unlikely to be challenged by recourse to original works, and, if the reader has no knowledge of the original, then the danger is that the revised text will come to be accepted as the only text. Indeed, the fact that the Procès appeared only a year after calls in the Club’s bulletin for the republication of books ‘mis à l’index par le toutpouvoir’ seems hardly coincidental. Add to all this the fact that every direct witness to the war will eventually die, thereby leaving only the written word upon which the reader can rely, and the need to remain alert to the possibility of text revision takes on its full importance.21 A fifth, and thus far final, stage in Châteaubriant’s rehabilitation rests on the publication of two books in the 1990s. In December 1992, Nouvelles Éditions Latines published L’Acte intérieur, the last book edited by Robert de Châteaubriant which he had completed shortly before his death two months earlier. As with the Procès, the text is made up of extracts from Châteaubriant’s published writings (most notably his diaries) and previously unpublished pieces, assembled within and alongside commentary by his son. For Robert de Châteaubriant, his father possessed ‘l’âme d’un poète’ (AI, p. 7), while his life was one long ‘lutte épuisante pour la lucidité, à travers les énigmes de la vie, vers la pensée enfin lumineuse’ (p. 8). The goal of this final work is to elucidate that thought, to ‘permettre au lecteur de 21

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An earlier assessment of Châteaubriant’s post-war rehabilitation can be found in my articles ‘Reviewing the Evidence: the Procès posthume d’un visionnaire by Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Modern and Contemporary France, 39 (1989), 51–68; and ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant, collaborator on (re)trial: un non-lieu individuel d’une portée nationale’, French Historical Studies, 4 (1994), 1057–82.

mieux percevoir la signification qu’Alphonse de Châteaubriant attache à la vie en fonction de ses incarnations infinie de l’idée divine’ (p. 9). In L’Acte intérieur, Robert de Châteaubriant again sanitises his father’s life. To that end, he re-employs an earlier strategy, namely the misrepresentation of the real Châteaubriant by recourse to carefully selected aspects of his writing. And, in similar fashion to the books he edited in the 1950s, he once more chooses to highlight his father’s literary and mystical persona, focusing on his lifelong spiritual journey, and so elects afresh to ignore the facts of his political activity. L’Acte intérieur includes numerous sections which illustrate the thrust given to the text, and which are thus allocated titles such as ‘Les richesses vivantes de l’esprit’, ‘Le sens intime du divin’, ‘La contemplation de la vie’, ‘Le jour de la naissance de Dieu dans l’homme’, ‘Le ciel intérieur de la connaissance’, and many others. The extracts used range across Châteaubriant’s life, and hence include pieces written during the 1930s and the Second World War. However, these are in no way symptomatic of the greater body of his work over these years, since there are only rare references to the current political situation and Châteaubriant the collaborator is barely recognisable. Rather, the extracts highlight familiar Châteaubriant themes, such as his antiBolshevism, his despair at Renaissance Man and the death of ‘true’ Christianity, and his Europeanism, but all neatly divorced from any mention of National Socialism or collaboration. Worse still, the one oblique reference to La Gerbe des forces suggests that all he had intended was that his book ‘servirait à rapprocher les deux peuples’ (p. 227), and that it should thus be read in the same light as his friend Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe (1914). Such comments can only mislead the uninformed as to the true content of Châteaubriant’s panegyric of Hitler’s Germany. Yet again, Châteaubriant benefits from partial and sympathetic study. Then, in 1996, four years after the appearance of L’Acte intérieur, Albin Michel published a second volume of correspondence between Alphonse de Châteaubriant and Romain Rolland in its Cahiers Romain Rolland series. A first volume had appeared in 1983, and contains 257

letters exchanged by the two men between 1906 and 1914, while the second volume contains correspondence dating from the period 1914 to 1944. Both were edited and introduced by Louis-Alphonse Maugendre. The first volume provides an insight into the growing friendship between Rolland and Châteaubriant in the early years of the twentieth century. It records their discussion of literary and family matters, and ends as Châteaubriant headed off into the nightmare scenario of the First World War battlefields. It is clear that both men shared a vision of co-operation between nations, although they would both follow entirely separate pathways in their pursuit of this ideal. But the second volume of correspondence contains little evidence of their differences. Indeed, if we take the period 1936 to 1944, potentially the most interesting for our purposes, the letters for these years take up just forty-six pages of the 481-page volume. Moreover, their content is disappointing. There are many references to their own state of health or that of their respective families; there are details of plans to meet, of appointments kept and missed, of photographs exchanged, in fact all the ordinary details which feature in any friendship. But there are only occasional references to the contemporary situation, as when Châteaubriant mentions a forthcoming meeting with Pétain and Laval in November 1940 (p. 399), or when Rolland takes him to task in February 1941 for ‘l’antisémitisme brutal, injurieux, acharné, qui remplit les colonnes de tes échos, et qui déborde bien souvent sur les autres pages’ (p. 402). For the most part, the correspondence seems to confirm Châteaubriant’s reading of the friendship, encapsulated in a letter to Rolland in March 1937, in which he writes of ‘notre amitié qui demeure au-dessus de nos pauvres idées humaines, et même au-dessus de nos débiles combats’ (p. 387). But it is also clear that events did finally take their toll on the friendship, for the correspondence slowed in the early part of the war and the last, albeit amicable, letters were exchanged in January 1943. Ultimately, the correspondence with Rolland serves Châteaubriant’s rehabilitation because here, as in the Procès and in L’Acte intérieur, Châteaubriant the collaborator and staunch supporter of 258

National Socialism is veiled by the main body of the publication. This is no fault of Rolland’s, for the content of his letters was a matter for him alone. Rather, it serves to illustrate once more how certain materials have been used and manipulated over the years in order to construct and maintain an image of Châteaubriant which is far less damning than the truth, and which risks allowing him to escape proper judgement. The final incriminating evidence is that Châteaubriant’s manuscripts, given in 1990 by his family to the Bibliothèque nationale de France ‘à la disposition des chercheurs’,22 consist principally of initial notes and draft extracts for his early literary texts, most notably Monsieur des Lourdines, La Brière and La Réponse du Seigneur. The vast majority of the papers are not dated, and there are no papers relating to the period 1939 to 1945, spelling disappointment and frustration for researchers intending to focus on Châteaubriant’s wartime past. Given the rehabilitation strategies discussed thus far, the suggestion that the manuscripts were themselves sanitised prior to their donation is convincing.

Constructing history: the national burden Half a century has passed since Alphonse de Châteaubriant died a condemned traitor in exile. Fifty years, during which the writing of his history was skewed by his negationist assessors, by those who clearly shared his own post-war goal, namely ‘élucider […] ce qui reste obscur, […] purifier ce que des mains adverses, maladroites ou mal intentionnées ont pu rendre trouble’ (PPV, p. 22), by those who, in other words, have sought to construct and disseminate their own sanitised reading of Châteaubriant’s life and career. But their distorted truth crumbles under the weight of the historical evidence presented in 22

This information is given on the back cover of L’Acte intérieur.

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this study, and so reveals theirs to be the corrupting hand. As such, the present book is unlikely to be well received in some quarters, although that is neither its intention nor its wish. The content of volumes such as this is manifestly important in terms of constructing a satisfactory narrative of what actually happened during the Occupation, but it is equally apparent that the writing of those years has become as important as what is written, with the result that the whole historical process itself has become a focus for debate and conflict. Analysis of Châteaubriant’s case therefore serves a double function, for it not only offers specific and compelling evidence of his personal history, which consequently contributes to our reading of the Second World War, but it is also illustrative of wider issues relating to the way in which the French have attempted over the years to deal with the burden of their wartime past. The multiple histories and readings of the period which have become possible as archives have been opened and research has progressed, and which are still being written, reveal not only that the telling of that past is by no means complete, but also that no single, definitive history could ever be constructed. However, the massive, ground-breaking general histories of the Occupation years have now been written (witness, among others, Robert Paxton’s seminal study Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–1944, published in 1972), and have therefore made it possible for researchers to progress to the production of more localised studies which set out, as here, to refine and advance knowledge on a whole range of smaller but equally significant fronts. Constructing the history of the nation’s wartime past has thus far proved to be a long and tortuous business. Even now, at the turn of the century – over sixty years since the start of the Occupation – much still remains to be done if France is ever truly to understand her past and achieve a satisfactory settling of accounts. Debunking the various myths which have arisen surrounding the war years has proved to be an essential element in that process. Right from the immediate postwar period, the pressures of the dominant memory as upheld by Charles de Gaulle did little to foster an atmosphere conducive to the 260

construction of an objective reading of the Occupation. Rather, the version promoted focused on France as a nation of resisters, who fought and overcame the few marginal collaborators who dared to raise their heads. This interpretation of the war was popular because it promoted an appealing self-image, and it still holds true for those French who refuse to re-visit their past for personal or other reasons. At the time, it also no doubt served an essential psychological function, for, as André Harris commented in the light of the criticism which met the 1971 release of Le Chagrin et la pitié (one of the best known cinematic attempts to reconsider the war): ‘On a toujours besoin, après une période historique qui a fortement bouleversé les fondements politiques d’une société, de croire à certains ancrages mythologiques.’23 Challenges to the Gaullist interpretation of the war were few up to 1968. Rather, his version of events was confirmed by the work produced by the influential Comité d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale (CHDGM), which had been formed in 1951 by merging the Commission d’histoire de l’Occupation et de la Libération de la France (set up in 1944) and the Comité d’histoire de la guerre (set up in 1945). During the 1960s, big-name historians at the CHDGM (including Henri Michel and Claude Lévy) focused their efforts on a study of the Resistance, including the compilation of a detailed ‘Chronologie de la Résistance’ designed to present ‘la toile exhaustive de la lutte contre l’occupant’.24 In contrast to such activity, the theme of the collaboration was rarely broached by historians. For years, Robert Aron’s moderate and politically appeasing Histoire de Vichy (1954) was accepted as the standard account of Vichy and the collaboration, namely that France had had 23

24

André Harris, ‘A propos d’une fresque’, Avant-scène cinéma, 127–28 (1972), 11. Jean-Jacques Besson, Director-General of the ORTF, employed a similar reasoning in 1971, banning the film from French television on the basis that ‘ce film détruit les mythes dont les Français ont encore besoin’ (cited in Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy, p. 125). Ibid., pp. 262–66 (p. 263). The present book is indebted to Rousso’s findings for the period 1945 to 1985.

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no option but to comply with German demands, while the three volumes of De Gaulle’s own war memoirs (published between 1954 and 1959) served principally to bolster the myth of Resistance France.25 In cinema, films such as Alain Resnais’s short but powerful Nuit et brouillard (1956) offered deportation and concentration camp images which disturbed and challenged its audiences. But Resnais’s film focused on events outside France while its audience was implicated in human rather than in specific national terms, and the majority of French films on the Occupation years which were produced between 1945 and 1968 in fact conveyed conventional ideas: the Resistance was generally glorified, as in Georges Péclet’s Le Grand Cirque (1950), while traditional attitudes towards the collaborators were upheld in René Clément’s aptly-titled Les Maudits (1947). In literature, signs already existed by 1948 of attempts to demythicise both the Resistance and the Collaboration. Novels such as Jean-Louis Curtis’s Les Forêts de la nuit (1948), described as a ‘roman contre les mythes’, and Marcel Aymé’s Uranus (1948), viewed as a ‘miroir de l’hypocrisie moderne’,26 showed that collaboration was not quite the exception claimed by the dominant memory and presented a portrait of a divided and often vicious Resistance which contrasted sharply with that lauded by popular opinion. And Jean Dutourd’s Au bon beurre (1952) took issue with the strategic treachery and opportunism of some French during the Occupation through the presentation of his main characters, the well-named Poissonards, crémiers by trade, ruthlessly exploitative of their unfortunate customers, and denounced by one appreciative critic as ‘ce couple immonde, à qui, plus ou moins, nous aurons eu tous affaire pendant quatre ans’.27 But clearly ahead of their time in theme and approach, such novels were not, in general, well received by a still sensitive French public. 25 26 27

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Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre, 3 vols (Plon, 1954–59). Jean-Louis Bory, ‘Jean-Louis Curtis: un romancier contre les mythes’, Les Lettres françaises, July–August 1948, 2–3; Pierre Boutang, ‘Marcel Aymé’s Uranus’, L’École des lettres, 14 (July 1991), 67–90. François Mauriac, ‘Jean Dutourd: Au bon beurre’, Revue littéraire, 8 (1952), 16.

May 1968 represents a watershed in an analysis of French responses to the Second World War. On the streets, cries of ‘CRS = SS’ encapsulated a generation’s rejection of Gaullist society, including by association its vision of history.28 Born and brought up on myth and legend, many young people began to demand answers to questions which had rarely been posed before, this in an attempt to comprehend the actions and behaviour of those involved, and therefore to understand both their personal and their national past. De Gaulle survived the challenge to his administration in the short term but served only one more year as President. His resignation on 28 April 1969, followed by his death on 9 November 1970, removed the most famous representative of Resistance France from the centre of national life and opened the way for a proper reconsideration of the war years. As one critic proclaimed at the time: ‘Le père est mort, on fait l’inventaire de l’héritage.’29 Since De Gaulle’s death, the war years have remained high on the French national agenda. Interest has focused on issues of importance to the national consciousness – such as national morality and responsibility, national identity and mémoire – and has been fed by an endless succession of events which have exposed shameful and sometimes shocking truths, aroused passions, fanned debate and sowed division. At the start of Georges Pompidou’s presidency in 1969, France was a country on the verge of a lengthy and painful postmortem of the national body. The initial incision came with the first rumblings of the now infamous Touvier case. Paul Touvier had been a ruthless Milice leader in Lyon during the later part of the Occupation. Twice condemned to death in his absence, in 1946 and 1947, Touvier benefited in 1967 from what is known as prescription (lapsing of an imposed sentence after twenty years). In 1969, Pompidou was approached about a pardon for Touvier, which was eventually granted in 1972. In response to the public outcry which greeted his decision, 28 29

Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy, p. 111–12. Cited in ibid., p. 113.

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Pompidou argued that the moment had come for the nation to calm internal discord, to forget a time when French fought French, and to promote national reconciliation. A policy of oubli, he held, would allow difficult memories to fade, this in the name of the goal of la France tranquille.30 But Pompidou’s call for oubli was brought sharply into question by the content of Le Chagrin et la pitié, which had been released a year earlier, since this promoted memory and so implicitly challenged the President’s clement treatment of Touvier. The case of Klaus Barbie also emerged to complicate matters, for he was arrested in Bolivia in March 1972 at the behest of the French authorities who intended to extradite and try him for his wartime activity in Lyon. Oubli, it seemed, would benefit a Frenchman but not a German, a clear discrepancy in treatment which would enable France to dodge the sensitive question of national guilt and responsibility under the cloak of reconciliation. However, as time would tell, genuine reconciliation has a natural corollary in truth, and its pursuit had thus far hardly begun. The popular notion of Resistance France implies that, at best, the French prefer not to face up to their past, and, at worst, that they reject it entirely. But this reading equally is something of a myth whose propagation distorts the true picture. As the years have passed, it has become apparent that Pompidou’s call for oubli as a means to reconciliation could never have properly satisfied majority public opinion or contented France’s historians. And it is now widely accepted that a full exploration of the war years is essential, this in pursuit of the construction, articulation and communication of a satisfactory mémoire. This will inevitably be multiple, given the variety, complexity and contradictory nature of the experiences to be 30

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‘Allons-nous éternellement entretenir saignantes les plaies de nos désaccords nationaux? Le moment n’est-il pas venu de jeter le voile, d’oublier ces temps où les Français ne s’aimaient pas, s’entredéchiraient et même s’entretuaient, et je ne dis pas cela, même s’il y a ici des esprits forts, par calcul politique, je le dis par respect de la France’ (Georges Pompidou, Entretiens et discours, 1968–74 (Flammarion, 1984), pp. 157–58). The speech dates from September 1972.

recorded. As such, the question now facing historians of the period is not so much ‘l’alternative entre mémoire et oubli’ but rather ‘les modalités du savoir’.31 In essence, debunking the myths demands a triple focus. It is important to counter the sympathetic voices and attitudes sometimes associated with study of the collaboration – as in the case of Alphonse de Châteaubriant – as well as to challenge the dominant myth of Resistance France which has helped eclipse his role (and that of similar individuals) as a collaborator. But it is equally essential to pay due attention and credit to French efforts to deal with the heavy burden of the war years, efforts which suggest that handling the national past can be an intensely difficult process. The post-war glorification of the Resistance, coupled with the lack of sufficiently rigorous studies of Vichy, lend weight to the thesis that there existed at the time a certain traditional historiography whose alleged objective was to dissociate contemporary French society from both the thorny issue of collaboration and the Vichy Regime itself. This argument represents an implicit criticism of France’s own response to her sensitive past, and has prompted one bold judgement that ‘it is no accident that the best work done on it has been done by foreigners’.32 The question of whether or not national identity influences historical analysis and thus compromises objectivity is both complex and controversial. Writing the collaboration from ‘abroad’ is different to writing as a French national, for the simple reason that the experience of the events is not and can never be the same. But this does not necessarily mean that all French histories are somehow ‘tainted’ by subjectivity. Indeed, the numerous challenging and compelling French-authored studies of the period which had been published by the end of the twentieth century bear witness to the achievements of French historians in the field. The difference between French and non-French histories lies not so much in their analysis as in their timing, for the first book to offer a comprehensive, ground31 32

‘Le Poids de la mémoire’, Esprit, 193 (July 1993), 5–6 (p. 5). McMillan, Twentieth-Century France, p. 135.

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breaking reassessment of the Occupation, and so to begin to debunk the mythology of the war, not only came from outside France but also preceded the home-grown studies. This was Robert Paxton’s seminal Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–1944. First published in the United States in 1972, the book was translated into French as La France de Vichy in 1973, and prefaced by Stanley Hoffmann, an American historian of part-French descent who had himself published on the war years.33 Hoffmann’s preface pleads the benefits of Paxton’s work, arguing that ‘sur un sujet qui remue encore trop profondément les Français, il est bon qu’un miroir leur soit tendu par un auteur étranger’.34 Paxton, he notes, is well suited as a historian of Vichy: as a young, foreign researcher with exemplary academic credentials, with no direct personal experience of the war and no interest in preserving the image of Resistance France, he is considered detached, devoid of prejudice, and not subject to the nation’s internal quarrels or the traditional historiography of the period (ibid.). His book is a merciless but refreshing piece of writing, crammed with details culled from solid archival research. Its controversial central thesis, now commonly known and accepted, is that much of Vichy policy was home-made and not imposed by the German occupier, as Robert Aron had claimed in his 1954 book. In focusing directly on an area of France’s past until then either avoided or barely treated by French historians, Paxton raised questions and opened debate on issues which the French either could not or did not want to discuss. This is no direct criticism of all French historians of the day, but rather simply recognition of the fact that in the early 1970s it would have proved difficult – if not impossible – for a French historian to write a similar history, given both the current restrictions on access to archive materials in France and the pressures of the dominant memory and its emphasis on Resistance France. Some French did willingly recognise 33 34

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See, for example, Hoffmann, ‘Collaborationism in France during World War II’. Robert Paxton, La France de Vichy, trans. by Claude Bernard (Seuil, 1973), p. 10.

the qualities and contribution of Paxton’s work, but others were openly hostile, choosing instead to call into question his academic ability and authority. Rather absurdly, he was considered too young to have been able to write such a history (he was forty-one in 1973). How, it was asked, could he even begin to conceive of the difficulties experienced by the French under Vichy, when he had not lived through it himself? More interestingly, there was evidence of a retreat into chauvinism, for Paxton’s nationality was held against him: Vichy, it was proclaimed, was a matter for the French alone, and certainly nothing to do with an American.35 However, while it is obviously superficial to claim that foreigners write the ‘best’ histories, we can convincingly contend that the first proper reassessment of the war years had to come from outside France. Paxton’s history certainly played a crucial role in the construction of a narrative of the period, for it acted as a catalyst in France, helping to construct the climate for the development of a French reassessment which grew from the mid1970s onwards. While the Resistance remained a topic for exploration, French attentions began to turn increasingly not only to the ideology of collaboration, but also to the collaborators themselves, men who, like Alphonse de Châteaubriant, had thus far been able to lie low and whose files had slumbered in dusty archives. But three short years saw the publication of a number of important French-authored books which would mark a new direction, including Claude Lévy’s analysis of a collaborationist newspaper, Les Nouveaux Temps et l’idéologie de la collaboration (1974), Jean-Pierre Azéma’s short, general study La Collaboration, 1940–1944 (1975), Fred Kupferman’s Pierre Laval (1976), and Pascal Ory’s Les Collaborateurs, 1940–1945 (1976), which revealed that French collaborators had often been much more radical than the

35

For details of these and other reactions to Paxton’s book, see Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy, pp. 268–71.

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German occupier.36 Then the end of the decade was marked by the publication of Azéma’s substantial De Munich à la Libération, 1938–1944 (1979), innovatory in its coverage and long considered a classic in its field. But the climate of inquiry which flavoured the 1970s was also exploited by those with more sinister intention, and who indulged less in explanation than in (self-)justification and sympathetic reinterpretation. The biography of Alphonse de Châteaubriant, published in 1977, is one among several cases of note. Witness, in addition, Le Rêveur casqué (1972), the autobiography of Christian de la Mazière – a former Waffen-SS officer who had been an interviewee in Le Chagrin et la pitié – which offers a justificatory interpretation of his wartime activities. Mention can also be made of Bertrand de Jouvenel’s autobiography, Un voyageur dans le siècle, 1903–1945 (1979), in which he rejects his earlier blatant anti-Semitism electing instead to express pride in his Jewish origins.37 But these efforts at self-rehabilitation were to be superseded both in scope and in dishonesty by the activity of those whose intention far exceeded the rehabilitation of individuals to focus on the negation of genocide itself. This was nothing new on an international scale, for a ‘No Holocaust’ movement had been active in the United States for some years already, and received ‘academic’ sanction from 1980 in the shape of the Journal of Historical Review published by the negationist Institute for Historical Review.38 In Britain, the Historical Review Press headed by Richard Harwood (the pseudonym of Richard Verrill, then leader of the British National Front) published pamphlets with such titles as Did Six Million Really Die? (1974), while in Germany, Thies Christophersen’s Die AuschwitzLüge (The Auschwitz Lie, 1973) set the tone. From the later 1970s, revisionism as negation acquired a specific French dimension in the form of Robert Faurisson, a Lyon academic, and his acolytes. 36 37 38

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The theme of the collaboration hit the cinema at the same time with the release of Louis Malle’s Lacombe, Lucien in 1973. See also Lucien Rebatet, Mémoires d’un fasciste (Denoël, 1976). A sample article from the first issue is Holger Stein’s ‘The Holocaust or the Myth of the Past’, Journal of Historical Review, 1: 4 (1980), 309–22.

Faurisson’s basic argument was that ‘les prétendus massacres en “chambres à gaz” et le prétendu “génocide” sont un seul et même mensonge’,39 this on the basis that, although the incineration of detainees’ bodies had taken place, no firm scientific proof could be given that those who died in the camps had been deliberately and systematically exterminated. Disputing the indisputable was the trademark of the negationists, and trivialisation was their methodology: the Holocaust was a myth, they claimed, for the events of the war were nothing special and the Final Solution never existed. French negationists trumpeted this outrageous message throughout the 1980s. In 1985, academic respectability for its content was even claimed with the award of a doctorate by a Right-wing jury at the University of Nantes for a thesis which rejected the existence of the gas chambers, although its author, Henri Rocques, was stripped of the qualification a year later. Then, in 1987, the negationists moved to formalise the propagation of their version of history through the publication of a French equivalent of the Journal of Historical Review, entitled the Annales d’histoire révisionniste. Its pages were littered with pieces by Faurisson, Rocques and others, proclaiming their ‘truth’ in articles such as ‘Comment on falsifie l’histoire’, ‘La haine de la vérité’ and ‘L’histoire et la vérité’, all deeply ironic titles given their real thrust. Pursued by the courts on the basis that its message on genocide represented ‘un trouble manifestement illicite à l’ordre public’, the journal was removed from public sale after its second number, and was henceforward available only to subscribers.40 The last of eight issues appeared in autumn 1989, by which time Faurisson himself had twice been condemned by the French courts. Clearly, the journal had a wider focus than France alone, but it evidently contributed on a domestic level both to a falsification of the debate on the fate of deported French Jews and to the construction of a climate which 39 40

Robert Faurisson in Le Matin, 16 November 1978; cited in Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy, p. 166. Annales d’histoire révisionniste, 3 (1987), frontispiece.

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enabled negationism to prosper. Châteaubriant’s supporters certainly took advantage of the times, both with the publication of the Procès posthume d’un visionnaire and through the activity of the Club Alphonse de Châteaubriant. The 1980s saw the post-mortem of the war years become a matter for widespread public consumption. In 1981, Le Chagrin et la pitié was shown on French television for the first time, revealing its conclusions to a much wider audience than its cinematic screening could ever have achieved. This was also the decade of François Truffaut’s Le Dernier Métro (1980), Jean-Marie Poiré’s Papy fait de la Résistance (1983) – both of which had been seen by up to four million French by 1985 – and Claude Lanzmann’s heart-rending, nine-and-ahalf-hour epic Shoah (1986).41 By May 1981, the past of one Maurice Papon (a Vichy bureaucrat in Bordeaux) had become a subject for scrutiny in the French press; and, from November 1981, efforts began to seek out Paul Touvier to answer for his actions. Then, in February 1983, Klaus Barbie was finally extradited to France and charged with crimes against humanity. The middle of the decade was especially marked by a torrent of French-authored publications on the collaboration and its personalities,42 French academic study of the period diversified and flourished as Vichy increasingly became a topic for doctoral inquiry,43 and the infamous Jean-Marie Le Pen rooted himself firmly in the negationist camp with his outrageous definition of the gas chambers as ‘un point de détail de l’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale’ during a television interview in September 1987. In the second half of the 1980s, the war years were brought very sharply into public focus with the trial of Klaus Barbie, which began 41

42 43

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Le Chagrin et la pitié was shown on FR3 over two nights on 28 and 29 October 1981. It was watched by fifteen million viewers each evening, significantly more than the 700,000 who saw it at the cinema during the television ban. For these and other viewing figures, see Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy, p. 126, p. 289. See note 18 above. ‘Répertoire des chercheurs sur la Deuxième Guerre mondiale’, Cahiers de l’IHTP, 2 (1985), cited in Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy, p. 274.

on 11 May 1987. During the delay between Barbie’s extradition and trial, it had become clear that his appearance in the French courts would be exploited by his defence in order to attack the French Resistance, to spotlight its internal divisions and to expose its alleged betrayal of its own in the shape of the emblematic Jean Moulin. This tactic inflicted a painful blow on the national body, for France was forced once more to reflect on the question of French co-operation with the occupier. But on this occasion, those brought under scrutiny were not the scurrilous former collaborators, but rather the heroic Resistance. Judging a German brought in its wake significant internal repercussions for France’s reading of the war years, for while Barbie was (inevitably) found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, and although well-known former resisters refused to appear at his trial and face his lawyer’s questions, the Resistance emerged from the events both dented and tarnished. In 1990s France, Vichy remained a period for national focus and investigation. The question of whether or not the nation could truly face up to her past was reactivated by a string of events, including the trials of two Frenchmen on charges of crimes against humanity, the murder of a third prior to trial, issues relating to the official commemoration of wartime events and to the Republic’s response to Vichy, and revelations about President Mitterrand’s own past. Filmmakers continued to consider the war years, now often employing historians in the process, as in the case of Claude Chabrol’s L’Œil de Vichy (1993), which was written by Azéma and Paxton and whose goal was, in Chabrol’s words, to ‘illustrer les faits tels que les études historiques les plus poussées et les plus objectives les ont établis en n’utilisant que des documents de la période, accompagnés de leurs commentaires’.44 The historians themselves sustained their enquiries in 44

Cited on the box of the video version of the film. See also Pierre Beuchot’s Hôtel du Parc (1992), on which the historians Denis Peschanski and Daniel Lindenberg collaborated, and René Marbœuf’s Pétain (1993), on which the historian Marc Ferro collaborated.

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works which focused increasingly on the question of the transmission of a sufficiently complete understanding of the war and of French responsibilities. As they contemplated ‘le poids de la mémoire’, or the question of national amnesia, or asked ‘que faire de Vichy?’, it became apparent that debate on the writing of the war years had become an obsession to rival debate on their nature.45 Vichy was, quite simply, ‘un passé qui ne passe pas’.46 1992 heralded the trial of Paul Touvier, then seventy-seven, and the first Frenchman to be brought before the French courts for crimes against humanity perpetrated during the Second World War. He had gone underground after the outcry over his pardon in the early 1970s, but was traced in 1989 to a Catholic priory in southern France and arrested. At his trial, Touvier faced seven charges alleging his involvement in the deportation or killing of Jews, resisters, and human rights campaigners. He was cleared on six counts, all of which he had denied, on the basis that the evidence against him was insufficiently detailed and riddled with uncertainty, inaccuracy and improbability. The seventh charge was based on his alleged role in the execution of Jewish hostages at Rillieux-la-Pape in June 1944, an action never disputed by Touvier. Since 1964, French law had judged crimes against humanity to be ‘imprescriptibles’ and so not subject to the twenty-year time-limit for prosecution and/or the imposition of a sentence passed for other crimes. The legal definition of a crime against humanity had then been clarified at Barbie’s trial in 1987 as one committed ‘dans l’exécution d’un plan concerté accompli au nom d’un État pratiquant 45

46

272

See Que faire de Vichy?, special number of Esprit, 181 (1992), with articles by, among others, Azéma, Bédarida, Conan, Hoffmann, Lindenberg and Rousso; Pierre Nora, ed., Les Lieux de mémoire, 3 vols (Gallimard, 1984-86), repr. 1997; ‘Présence du passé, lenteur de l’histoire: Vichy, l’occupation, les Juifs’, special number of Annales, 3 (1993), with articles by, among others, Ferro, Marrus, Paxton and Rousso; ‘Le Poids de la mémoire’, special number of Esprit, 193 (1993); Dimitri Nicolaïdis, ed., Oublier nos crimes. L’amnésie nationale, une spécificité française? (Éditions Autrement, 1994). Eric Conan and Henry Rousso, Vichy, un passé qui ne passe pas (Fayard, 1994).

de façon systématique une politique d’hégémonie idéologique’.47 Based on these rulings, Touvier’s guilt seemed certain. However, in a surprise move, his judges decided that the Rillieux-la-Pape incident was a spontaneous criminal act rather than a crime against humanity, since they considered that the Vichy Regime for which Touvier had worked had not practised such a policy. Touvier was therefore granted a nonlieu on the basis that there was insufficient evidence against him on the charges laid.48 But the verdict caused an immediate public outcry, for Touvier’s vindication was widely read as a whitewash of the Vichy Regime itself. In the words of one member of the prosecution team, it seemed that ‘lorsqu’il s’agit de juger un Français, on est amnésique’, while historians generally agreed that ‘ces juges ont travesti la réalité historique’.49 The verdict was clearly a crime against history but hardly unique as a judgement, since others with an equally suspect past had already benefited from a similar albeit less public whitewash – including, as we have seen, Alphonse de Châteaubriant. Three months after Touvier’s trial, France commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the July 1942 rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv’, when nearly thirteen thousand French Jews had been rounded up prior to deportation. The commemoration committee called upon President Mitterrand to make a public gesture in the name of France which would recognise and condemn Vichy’s responsibility in the crimes committed against French Jews, believing that such a move would represent not only a much-needed sign of respect for Vichy’s victims, but also a necessary cathartic process in the evolution of the national reading of the war years, considered ‘malade de ce non-dit’.50 But in November 1992, Mitterrand announced that the Republic need make no such gesture since it had no link with Vichy, and so should not be expected to comment on the actions of this ‘régime nouveau, 47 48 49 50

Le Monde, 26 November 1992, p. 12. For the ruling, see Le Monde, 15 April 1992, p. 9. Maître André Lévy, in ibid., p. 13; André Kaspi, ‘Un crime contre l’histoire’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 16–22 April 1992, p. 25. Le Monde, 17 June 1992, p. 4.

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différent, occasionnel’.51 Although technically correct, this reasoning failed to satisfy public opinion, and the situation was further aggravated by the fact that on 11 November Mitterrand had had a wreath placed on the grave of Philippe Pétain in memory of his achievements in the First World War, conveniently ignoring, or so it seemed, Pétain’s later role as Vichy’s Head of State. Criticism of this event was widespread, with many sharing the opinion expressed by Lionel Jospin, Mitterrand’s former Education Minister, that ‘le Pétain de 1914–1918 est effacé par celui de Vichy’, and the commemoration committee’s view that ‘cet hommage à Pétain rouvre la coupure de la France dont Vichy s’est rendu coupable’.52 France, it was argued, should accept once and for all that ‘ce sont des Français qui ont été responsables des rafles; ce n’était pas la République, c’était l’État de Vichy, mais c’était la France’.53 The formulation and vocalisation of comments such as these offer evidence of a distinct evolution in popular attitudes towards the national past which can be sourced in the outrage which met the initial verdict on Touvier. In February 1993, Mitterrand finally responded to popular demand and announced that there was to be a Journée nationale commémorative des persécutions racistes et antisémites commises sous Vichy, to be held annually on 16 July, the anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv’ round-up – although the text of the decree continued to dissociate Vichy from the modern-day Republic and thus to sidestep the wider question of French responsibility. Events continued apace. On 2 June 1993 it was announced that Touvier would once more face trial on the basis that the Rillieux-la-Pape executions did constitute a crime against humanity since they had been instigated by the Gestapo and were thus an expression of genocide, although it was clear that the question of the nature of the Vichy Regime would not be a matter for 51 52 53

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Le Monde, 16 November 1992, p. 7. Le Monde, 7 November 1992, p. 9; Le Monde, 13 November 1992, p. 10. Mitterrand began the ‘tradition’ of wreath-laying in 1986. Henri Emmanuelli, then President of the Assemblée nationale, Le Monde, 7 November 1992, p. 6.

reconsideration.54 Then, on 8 June, the former Vichy police chief René Bousquet, aged eighty-four, was assassinated at his Paris flat while awaiting his trial for crimes against humanity. His killing revealed the passions which the Occupation years could still arouse, yet at the same time disappointingly destroyed all opportunity not only for judgement by trial of Bousquet’s individual actions but also for a further exploration of the national past. Touvier, however, did not escape justice a second time. On 20 April 1994, he was found guilty and condemned to life imprisonment, serving just over two years before he died, aged eighty-one, on 17 July 1996 in Paris’s Fresnes prison. To the end, he expressed no remorse for his crimes. The mid-1990s was a time of remembrance and celebration, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Normandy landings, the Liberation and the end of the Second World War. But as Britain and the United States planned a string of commemorative events in which questions of historical concern often seemed to play little role, France was again gripped by the post-mortem of the national body. In 1994, passions were reactivated by the publication of Pierre Péan’s biography of President Mitterrand’s early years, which provided details of his wartime links with Vichy, and by a television interview which Mitterrand himself gave later the same year.55 The debate quickly widened from the President alone to consider national history as France’s foremost daily newspaper, Le Monde, invited historians to comment in its columns on his refusal to embrace his own past in an honest, straightforward fashion, and on what this meant for the nation’s assumption of her past. That such issues continued to beleaguer France, it was held, represented proof of the nation’s ongoing inability to view her history dispassionately, an argument used by Le Monde to justify its decision to interview foreign historians of the wartime years on the basis that they were ‘plus distants et moins

54 55

For the ruling, see Le Monde, 3 June 1993, p. 26. Pierre Péan, Une jeunesse française: François Mitterrand, 1934–1947 (Fayard, 1994).

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impliqués’.56 Such a decision unfairly ignored the contribution made thus far by French historians to a better understanding of the national past, and seemed to bolster the view we noted earlier that the best histories are written by non-French researchers. Resurrecting this issue could have proved dangerous to the historical process. Indeed, the French historian René Rémond exploited the debate to re-open old wounds caused by the furore which had surrounded the publication of Paxton’s La France de Vichy in 1973, and to contend once more that foreigners can never truly understand what happened during the Vichy Regime.57 But this approach did not in the end divert attention from the real issue, namely that, as pointed out by the British historian Tony Judt, France had to embrace her past since this was ‘simplement la condition nécessaire pour vivre dans la vérité le présent national’. Yet, as he concluded, ‘la continuité d’une nation impose des responsabilités par rapport au passé, pas le devoir de s’excuser indéfiniment de ce passé’.58 The old argument of whether the past is to be remembered or forgotten is, then, obsolete. What matters is the use to which mémoire is put in the establishment of a fair record of events which will counter the myths and taboos surrounding the writing of the war years. Just a few months later, in May 1995, François Mitterrand completed his second term as President. Two months into the new presidency, and on the fifty-third anniversary of the Paris round-ups, his successor, Jacques Chirac, officially recognised the crimes committed by Vichy against French Jews. But his choice of terminology also implicated in perpetuity the subsequent generations, for he spoke of France’s ‘dette imprescriptible’ and ‘faute collective’ in respect of the deportations, and announced that ‘ces heures noires souillent à jamais notre histoire’.59 Albeit a gesture with the best of intentions, Chirac’s reference to continuing guilt implies that the issue 56 57 58 59

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Le Monde, 21 September 1994, p. 5. Le Monde, 5 October 1994, p. 2. Le Monde, 21 September 1994, p. 6. Cited in Alain-Gérard Slama, ‘Le nostra culpa du Président’, Le Point, 22 July 1995, pp. 24–25.

can never fully be settled. France does bear a responsibility for what happened, matched by a duty to remember and thus to prevent a recurrence, but a proper settling of the accounts does not require that current and future generations bear a burden of ongoing guilt for the crimes carried out by Vichy and its representatives, or by the infamous collaborationists. Guilt belongs to the regime, and to men such as Touvier, Bousquet, Papon and, of course, Châteaubriant. France’s true responsibility is the debt of justice it owes to their victims. The trial of Maurice Papon, the last Frenchman to face the courts for crimes against humanity, began on 2 October 1997. Exactly six months later, on 2 April 1998, he was found guilty on the basis of his involvement in the deportation of over 1,500 Jews from the Bordeaux area between June 1942 and August 1944, where he had served as Secretary-General of the Gironde préfecture. Sentenced to ten years in prison, he was freed awaiting appeal, but failed to appear in court for his appeal hearing on 21 October 1999, at which point a warrant was issued for his immediate arrest. It emerged that Papon had fled France some days earlier, telling his legal team that he preferred exile to jail. But he was arrested late the same evening in Switzerland, extradited to France three days later, and jailed in accordance with the sentence passed on him. Just as Touvier’s trial had been about more than the man himself, given the focus it placed on the Milice, so Papon’s trial had provided an opportunity for a reinvestigation of the war years, this time in respect of the public administration of the day. Moreover, the Papon case also raised issues pertaining to the historical process and thus revitalised debate on the writing of the national past. Several historians were called to give evidence at the trial, including the American Robert Paxton and the French historians Jean-Pierre Azéma, Marc-Olivier Baruch and Henry Rousso. The first three took the stand in turn, but Rousso refused to attend. Papon’s defence attempted to persuade the court to proceed with the trial without the historians on the basis that the ‘evidence’ they offered did not relate to the actual facts of the trial but rather ‘simply’ provided a context, and that they were therefore not witnesses in the true sense of the term. 277

But Henri Desclaux, the State prosecutor, countered that ‘il est très important que le procès soit situé dans son contexte. C’est participer au fond du débat que de connaître l’environnement dans lequel les actes ont été accomplis’,60 a view accepted by the court and questioning of the historians went ahead. Paxton admitted that he knew nothing specific about Papon, but that as a historian he was there not to judge the individual man but rather to provide an historical context. Papon and his counsel did not agree, arguing that historians influence since they provide a reading and an understanding of the subject under study, and that multiple readings of the same event can and do exist, written by different historians.61 This last point is self-evident, and is illustrated by the different approaches of Paxton’s own study of Vichy when set alongside that of a Robert Aron. Moreover, Paxton’s findings were clearly harmful to Papon’s defence, which no doubt explains their hostility to his presence in the courtroom. Do historians have a place in the courtroom? Henry Rousso evidently thought not, justifying his absence from the proceedings on the grounds that ‘ce qu’on attend des historiens – suppléer au fait que les jurés n’ont pas connu cette époque en restituant un contexte – est selon moi une responsabilité écrasante’.62 But it is apparent that, as time goes by, as the centuries change and the Occupation years recede still further in time, as the personalities and the direct witnesses die out, history bears an ongoing responsibility in the writing of the war years and the settling of accounts which it cannot and must not shirk. History and the historians share France’s duty to the victims. As the century and the millennium turn, echoes of the Second World War reverberate worldwide in the shape of mankind’s ongoing inhumanity to mankind, while the events of the war itself continue to trouble hearts and minds. The libel case of the negationist David 60 61 62

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Cited in Le Monde, 31 October 1997. The exchanges were reported in Le Monde, 2–3 November 1997. Cited in Le Monde, 16 October 1997.

Irving versus the American Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt, held at the High Court in London in March 2000, highlighted the defiant rejection of the Holocaust which is still maintained in some quarters, albeit in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Despite the judgement against him and the rubbishing he subsequently received in the media, Irving remains a disturbing incarnation of revisionism as negation, a reminder that we must remain watchful in defence of a fitting narrative of the war years.63 In France, constructing an account of the Occupation has proved to be a heavy burden for a nation long fraught with guilt, anguish and denial, but which now looks set to pursue that goal in a refreshing and appropriate climate of responsibility. Its first significant step forward in the twenty-first century came with the April 2000 report of the Mattéoli Mission, set up in 1997 to investigate the confiscation by Vichy of money and property belonging to some 330,000 French Jews, of whom 76,000 were deported. The debt owed at the Liberation was, the Mission calculated, some 5.2 billion francs (equivalent to 8.8 billion francs in 2000), much of which was repaid at the time. But 2.4 billion francs (at 2000 values) still lies in the national coffers, representing money owed largely to the 73,000 who never returned from the camps, but also to a few surviving individuals whose claims will be heard in due course. The debt is clearly both monetary and moral. With that in mind, the funds are to be held by a Fondation pour la mémoire allocated a clearly focused ‘mission d’histoire, d’éducation et de solidarité’, and will be used to finance a range of projects on the theme of ‘les persécutions antisémites et les atteintes aux droits de la personne humaine pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, [ainsi que] d’autre génocides ou crimes contre l’humanité’.64

63 64

Irving brought the case against Lipstadt and her publishers arguing that she had libelled him in her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (New York: The Free Press, 1993). ‘Shoah: la France reconnaît sa dette’, Le Monde, 18 April 2000, p. 1, pp. 8–9 (p. 8).

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The writing of Alphonse de Châteaubriant’s history is inextricably linked with the writing of France’s national history, and, as such, is an essential element in the post-war reassessment of the French experience of the Second World War. As we have seen, Châteaubriant’s case illustrates the dangers of revision as negationism, for his history has been whitewashed by his sympathisers through the publication of carefully chosen texts, indulgent biographical study and sanitised original writings, as well as by the activity of a dedicated association which has championed his cause. Those operating in his interests have worked relentlessly over the years to fabricate a post-war persona which would eclipse the true Châteaubriant, namely the diehard racist and elitist we have exposed in these pages. The accounts and sketches of Châteaubriant written thus far have been dangerously incomplete, whether by design or simply through unfamiliarity with his case. A fitting narrative of the war years demands that the cases of men such as Châteaubriant are fully aired and studied, for only a complete exploration of the truth behind the individual histories can underpin the construction of a thorough and proper national history which will finally lay to rest the ghosts which have long haunted the French national psyche.

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Conclusion

If we are to learn the lessons of history, then the lives of notorious collaborators such as Alphonse de Châteaubriant need to be explored and understood. In particular, his history as told to date by his negationist assessors must be challenged for its misrepresentation of past reality in the service of his rehabilitation, and therefore for its falsification of the historical record. The writing of Châteaubriant’s life which has been undertaken in this book does not – indeed, cannot – claim to offer a complete picture. Writing the past relies upon our reconstruction of what has been left behind and of what can be found. Who, after all, can say for sure that every shred of evidence has been taken into account, or who can tell what may have been accidentally or deliberately destroyed or lost? The past, it would seem, is something that we can only ever see partially. And yet, partial though it may be, the weight of the evidence which does exist – what we know for certain and what we can infer from our reading of the numerous historical documents available, including Châteaubriant’s own writings – provides us with a compelling and damning portrait of a traitor, collaborator and evil manipulator which is far closer to the truth than the refashioned image thus far constructed for public consumption. Châteaubriant’s words and deeds tell us who he really was, what he stood for and what he held dear. The only proper action to take in the service both of history and of the victims of the Second World War is to ensure that his guilt is rightly and fully recorded. Throughout his life, Alphonse de Châteaubriant hated with a vengeance, targeting those he held responsible for the decadence of the modern world and attacking those he considered too feeble to formulate any appropriate response. Jews, Communists, Socialists and Republicans all blighted his vision of a perfect France. The traditional Catholic Church failed to satisfy his regenerative aspirations, sunk as it

was – so he held – in the mire of its own mediocrity. Châteaubriant’s spiritual arrogance knew no bounds. He preached and harangued where others would debate and discuss. Supremely confident in his reading of Christianity, he had no hesitation in bypassing the Church or manipulating religion to suit his ends, finally substituting National Socialism for institutional religion in a move which revealed his defective understanding of the values and teachings of Christianity. It still shocks today that Châteaubriant rooted his collaboration in his faith, for this shows how some who evolved from the intransigent Catholic humus could develop in the turbulent twentieth century. In Châteaubriant’s case, he openly employed his religion to justify his elitism and his racism. Prepared to accept human losses in the First World War in the name of spiritual redemption, during the Second World War he championed the National Socialists as superior warrior-monks – men of merit and vision who would re-evangelise the world – and called for the purification of Europe through the removal of those he classed as ‘undesirables’, specifically Jews and Bolshevists. Châteaubriant’s vision of the new post-war Europe rested solidly on ethnic cleansing. Of course, nothing predisposes a Catholic to be a collaborator, and this study of Châteaubriant as a collaborator who was also a Catholic should not be read as an attack on the Catholic Church, or as proof of any widespread direct association between Catholicism and collaboration. Indeed, it is well known that many Catholics carried out heroic acts of resistance during the Second World War. But, equally, it must be acknowledged that Châteaubriant was no isolated case, for a handful of other significant Catholics – including Philippe Henriot, Vichy’s notorious Propaganda Minister – also conflated their faith and their political action, and their careers still await full and proper explanation. Châteaubriant’s collaboration was neither an aberration nor a deviation in his life, but rather a consciously chosen and travelled pathway. From his early years he sought a ‘suitable’ incarnation of his spiritual and political theories, and his encounter with National Socialism from the 1930s represented, for him if not for the Nazis 282

themselves, a long-awaited meeting of minds. His commitment to the Germans was unquestionable and unwavering, or at least until they lost the war. Then, in the true manner of the turncoat and the coward, he indulged in a startling attack on his former heroes in a blatant attempt at self-revision and self-protection. Condemned as a traitor to France, Châteaubriant fled to Germany and then Austria, from where he fulminated against his judges until his dying day. In sum, he was a man of little humility and even less compassion. His God was not the God of humanity, equality or simple common decency, but rather the false prophet who incites mankind to commit acts of inhumanity against his own. In that sense, Alphonse de Châteaubriant’s case stands as a lesson for all time.

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Bibliography

Unless otherwise stated, the place of publication is Paris for books in French and London for books in English. In listing manuscripts, documents and pamphlets, the following abbreviations have been used to indicate the location of the item: AN BDIC BnF CDJC IHTP ORTF

Archives Nationales, Paris Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine, Université de Paris-X, Nanterre Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, Paris Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent, Paris Office de la Radiodiffusion–Télévision Française, Paris

Works by Alphonse de Châteaubriant (all listed chronologically) Books Monsieur des Lourdines: histoire d’un gentilhomme campagnard (Grasset, 1911) La Brière (Grasset, 1923) Le Baron de Puydreau (Marcelle Lesage, 1926) Monsieur de Buysse (Marcelle Lesage, 1926) Instantanés aux Pays-Bas (Kra, 1927) La Meute (Le Sablier, 1927) Locronan (Cahiers libres, 1928) La Réponse du Seigneur (Grasset, 1933) Au pays de Brière (De Gigord, 1935) La Meute (collection of short stories) (Grasset, 1935) Le Bouquet fané (Tisné, 1937) La Gerbe des forces (Nouvelle Allemagne) (Grasset, 1937)

Les Pas ont chanté (Grasset, 1938) Écrits de l’autre rive (André Bonne, 1950) Lettre à la chrétienté mourante, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Grasset, 1951) Lettres des années de guerre 1914–1918, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (André Bonne, 1951) Fragments d’une confession, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Desclée de Brouwer, 1953) Des saisons et des jours 1906–1924, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (André Bonne, 1954) Cahiers 1906–1951, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Grasset, 1955) Itinéraire vers la lumière divine, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Éditions du Vieux Colombier, 1955) Histoire d’une amitié: textes inédits de Romain Rolland et d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant, ed. by Sorella (Perrin, 1962) L’Un et l’autre: correspondance entre Romain Rolland et Alphonse de Châteaubriant, I, 1906– 1914, ed. by Louis-Alphonse Maugendre (Albin Michel, Cahiers Romain Rolland, 26, 1983) Procès posthume d’un visionnaire, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1987) L’Acte intérieur, ou le sens intime du divin, ed. by Robert de Châteaubriant (Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1992) L’Un et l’autre: correspondance entre Romain Rolland et Alphonse de Châteaubriant, II, 1914– 1944, ed. by Louis-Alphonse Maugendre (Albin Michel, Cahiers Romain Rolland, 30, 1996)

Works in journal form ‘Instantanés aux Pays-Bas’, La Revue de Paris, October (1906), 486–508 ‘Le Baron de Puydreau’, La Revue bleue, March (1908), 370–74 ‘Monsieur de Buysse’ (part 1), La Revue bleue, November (1909), 687–90 ‘Monsieur de Buysse’ (part 2), La Revue bleue, December (1909), 712–18 ‘La Brière’, La Revue universelle, 12 (1923), 1–28; 145–86; 305–21; 429–57; 561–93; 731–59; 13 (1923), 75–91; 151–68; 328–48 ‘La Meute, pages inédites’, La Revue de Bas-Poitou’, 3 (1926), 225–30 ‘La Meute’, La Revue européenne, 1 (1927), 1–21 ‘La Meute’, La Revue européenne, 2 (1927), 107–45 ‘Les Propos de Monsieur de Mauvert, pages inédites’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 3 (1928), 157–65 ‘La Réponse du Seigneur’, La Revue universelle, 48 (1932), 1–31; 193–229; 315–54; 451– 84; 580–602; 703–20

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Poetry in journals ‘Prémisses: La Goutte d’eau; Ballade du gondolier; Lendemain’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 1 (1902), 3–4 ‘L’Épée’, La Revue des poètes, (1903), 143 ‘Pour vous’, La Revue nantaise, February (1903), 50 ‘Près de vous’, La Revue nantaise, March (1903), 70 ‘Poésies: L’Épée; Lux; Le Cygne’, La Revue de l’Anjou, May–June (1903), 455–56 ‘Poésies: Rendez-vous; Vers libres du Sylvan; Fantôme’, La Revue de l’Anjou, July– August (1903), 89–92 ‘Les Simulacres: Le Rêve du bœuf; Les Pêcheurs; Automne; Aux marais salants; Départ; Le Pas-du-loup’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 1 (1904), 43–46 ‘Le Rêve du bœuf’, La Revue des poètes, 2 (1904), 108 ‘Muses vendéennes: Les Pêcheurs; Un sou de brise; Intimités’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 2 (1906), 150–51 ‘Poèmes au vol’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 4 (1907), 447–49 ‘Souvenir: poème inédit’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 4 (1923), no page (BnF, 8-ye pièce9160)

Articles in journals ‘Souvenir de Guérande’ La Revue nantaise, 7 (1898), 158–59 ‘Pastels vendéens: La Cèpe’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 1 (1902), 16–22 ‘Pastels vendéens: Conte de la terre bleue’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 3 (1902), 246–55 ‘Pastels vendéens: Le Corbeau de Dame Clorinde’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 3 (1903), 209–14 ‘Théocrite, Mireille et Grisélidis’, La Revue nantaise, 5 (1903), 109–13 ‘Pastels vendéens: Le Soulier du vilain ou petite chronique des temps difficiles’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 2 (1905), 125–42 ‘Critique littéraire: La Dame de Pierre de Paul de Gidors’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 3 (1913), 203–04 ‘La Brière: portrait’, Les Annales politiques et littéraires, 81 (1923), 123 ‘M. Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Les Annales politiques et littéraires, 83 (1924), 645–46 ‘Souvenirs d’enfance: images dans ma mémoire’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 1 (1926), 1–2

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‘Une lettre inédite d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 3 (1927), 205–07 ‘Locronan et son culte’, L’Illustration, 86 (1928), 369–72 ‘Esprit’, La Revue universelle, 52 (1933), 93–97 ‘L’Expérience de l’esprit’, La Revue universelle, 52 (1933), 341–47 ‘De la sainteté’, La Revue universelle, 52 (1933), 595–601 ‘Fragments d’un journal’, La Revue universelle, 53 (1933), 55 ‘L’Acte intérieur’, La Revue universelle, 53 (1933), 57–63 ‘Pensées détachées’, La Revue universelle, 53 (1933), 336–41 ‘Les Karamazov et le Sphinx’, La Revue universelle, 54 (1933), 1–6; 193–99; 317–22 ‘Pensées détachées’, La Revue universelle, 55 (1933), 82–86 ‘Saint Jean et l’Apocalypse d’Albert Dürer’, La Revue universelle, 55 (1933), 275–79; 513–21; 56 (1934), 19–26; 329–37; 694–708 ‘Servir’, La Revue universelle, 57 (1934), 196–203 ‘L’Esprit de la terre’, La Revue universelle, 58 (1934), 189–200 ‘Le National-Socialisme et nous’, Cahiers franco-allemands, 3 (1937), 81 ‘Nouvelle Allemagne’, Cahiers franco-allemands, 4 (1937), 81–90 ‘Souvenirs’, La Revue de Paris, 1 (1938), 241–68 ‘Cuirassiers’, Les Annales politiques et littéraires, 3 (1938), 597–98 ‘La Nécessité d’un rapprochement franco-allemand’, Cahiers franco-allemands, 3 (1939), 85–89 ‘Europa gegen des Bolschewismus’, Cahiers franco-allemands, 4 (1941), 205–11 ‘Der Vertrag von Verdun einst und jetzt’, Cahiers franco-allemands, 3 (1943), 141–48

Articles in newspapers ‘Conférence sur La Meute ’, Les Nouvelles de Versailles, 16 March 1927, p. 3 ‘Gentilshommes campagnards’, Les Nouvelles de Versailles, 19 February 1936, p. 3 and 26 February 1936, p. 3 ‘Devant l’âme véhémente des foules de Nuremberg’, Le Jour, 26 September 1936, p. 1 & p. 2 ‘J’ai parlé avec le grand sapin que Wagner, le premier, écouta’, Le Jour, 27 September 1936, p. 1 & p. 2 ‘Entre sa crainte de la Russie et sa haine de l’Allemagne’, Le Jour, 30 September 1936, p. 1 & p. 2 ‘Où va l’art allemand?’, Le Petit Journal, 1 September 1937, p. 2 ‘Hitler m’a dit’, Le Journal, 2 September 1938, p. 1 & p. 4 ‘Nuremberg dans la ferveur nazie’, Le Jour, 8 September 1938, p. 1

288

‘Lettre à Monsieur le Maréchal Pétain’, La Gerbe, 11 July 1940, p. 1 ‘Sur la Gerbe...’, La Gerbe, 18 July 1940, p. 1 ‘Du peuple et de sa liberté’, La Gerbe, 25 July 1940, p. 1 ‘Lettre aux jeunes’, La Gerbe, 1 August 1940, p. 4 ‘Principe’, La Gerbe, 15 August 1940, p. 1 ‘Alerte!...’, La Gerbe, 29 August 1940, p. 1 & p. 2 ‘Révélation du présent’, La Gerbe, 5 September 1940, p. 1 ‘A propos du discours du Chancelier Hitler’, La Gerbe, 12 September 1940, p. 1 & p. 2 ‘Le Dernier Duel!’, La Gerbe, 19 September 1940, p. 1 ‘A Dieu vat!’, La Gerbe, 26 September 1940, p. 2 ‘Les Autoroutes à la conquête de la terre: la mystique des grands travaux’, La Gerbe, 17 October 1940, p. 4 ‘A propos du 11 novembre’, La Gerbe, 7 November 1940, p. 2 ‘Le Maréchal m’a dit’, La Gerbe, 28 November 1940, p. 1 & p. 2 ‘La Leçon de Noël’, La Gerbe, 26 December 1940, p. 1 ‘Sinon...’, La Gerbe, 9 January 1941, p. 1 & p. 2 ‘Les Deux Mondes’, La Gerbe, 12 June 1941, p. 1 ‘Pour l’Occident’, La Gerbe, 26 June 1941, p. 1 ‘Le Salut de tous’, La Gerbe, 3 July 1941, p. 1 ‘L’Éclair’, La Gerbe, 10 July 1941, p. 3 ‘Automne’, La Gerbe, 19 September 1941, p. 1 ‘Gerbe française’, La Gerbe, 9 October 1941, p. 1 ‘Une conférence de M. Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, La Gerbe, 6 November 1941, p. 8 ‘Ordres de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 27 November 1941, p. 1 ‘Ordres de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 4 December 1941, p. 1 ‘La Leçon de Noël’, La Gerbe, 25 December 1941, p. 1 ‘Ordres de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 22 January 1942, p. 1 ‘Pourquoi je parlerai dimanche au Vel’d’Hiv’’, Le Cri du peuple, 29 January 1942, p. 3 ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant et la Légion des volontaires français’, Le Cri du Peuple, 29 January 1942, p. 3 ‘Pour les volontaires français’, La Gerbe, 5 February 1942, p. 1 ‘Singapour’, La Gerbe, 19 February 1942, p. 1 ‘Le National-Socialisme et nous’, La Gerbe, 12 March 1942, p. 1 ‘Tableau de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 19 March 1942, p. 1 ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant a dit’, La Gerbe, 2 April 1942, p. 1 ‘Ordres de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 9 April 1942, p. 1 ‘Suprême solution’, La Gerbe, 23 April 1942, p. 1 ‘Testament spirituel’, La Gerbe, 4 June 1942, p. 1 ‘Écrits prophétiques’, La Gerbe, 11 June 1942, p. 1 ‘Anniversaire’, La Gerbe, 3 September 1942, p. 1

289

‘Pensées de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 10 September 1942, p. 1 ‘Note de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 17 September 1942, p. 1 ‘Karl Bremer’, La Gerbe, 24 September 1942, p. 1 ‘Profession de foi’, La Gerbe, 8 October 1942, p. 1 ‘Ordre de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 29 October 1942, p. 1 ‘Ordre de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 12 November 1942, p. 1 ‘Déclaration’, La Gerbe, 12 November 1942, p. 3 ‘Ordre de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 26 November 1942, p. 1 ‘Ordre de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 3 December 1942, p. 1 ‘Raisons d’hier et d’aujourd’hui’, La Gerbe, 10 December 1942, p. 1 ‘Note de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 14 January 1943, p. 1 ‘La Dernière Chance de l’Europe’, La Gerbe, 4 February 1943, p. 1 ‘La Situation’, La Gerbe, 11 February 1943, p. 1 ‘A Monsieur Churchill’, La Gerbe, 18 February 1943, p. 1 ‘Quand s’élèvent des voix françaises’, Le Cri du peuple, 18 February 1943, p. 1 ‘Par l’effet de circonstances imprévues...’, La Gerbe, 25 February 1943, p. 1 ‘Le Peuple de France commence à comprendre’, La Gerbe, 4 March 1943, p. 2 ‘Le Grand Travail de l’homme...’, La Gerbe, 11 March 1943, p. 1 ‘Lettre à Doriot’, Le Cri du peuple, 26 March 1943, p. 1 ‘Ordre de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 1 April 1943, p. 1 ‘Cœur de France’, La Gerbe, 5 August 1943, p. 1 & p. 3 ‘Tableau de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 5 August 1943, p. 1 ‘Il y a sept ans’, La Gerbe, 19 August 1943, p. 1 ‘Le Traité de Verdun, jadis et aujourd’hui’, La Gerbe, 26 August 1943, p. 1 & p. 3 ‘Patriotismes’, La Gerbe, 2 September 1943, p. 1 ‘L’Esprit de La Gerbe ’, La Gerbe, 16 September 1943, p. 1 ‘Le Feu’, La Gerbe, 18 November 1943, p. 1 ‘Pensées d’une nuit’, La Gerbe, 6 January 1944, p. 1 ‘Tableau de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 20 January 1944, p. 1 ‘Le Conflit polono-allemand de 1939...’, La Gerbe, 27 January 1944, p. 1 ‘Ordre de l’heure’, La Gerbe, 3 February 1944, p. 1 ‘Le Monstre et son mensonge’, La Gerbe, 10 February 1944, p. 1 ‘Europe!...’, La Gerbe, 9 March 1944, p. 1 ‘La Carte rouge’, La Gerbe, 23 March 1944, p. 1 ‘Cassino... et l’avenir’, La Gerbe, 6 April 1944, p. 1 ‘Vie ou mort’, La Gerbe, 13 April 1944, p. 1 ‘Anniversaire’, La Gerbe, 20 April 1944, p. 1 ‘Nous nous interrompons...’, La Gerbe, 27 April 1944, p. 1 ‘Nous avons dans notre malheur...’, La Gerbe, 4 May 1944, p. 1 ‘Jeanne d’Arc’, La Gerbe, 18 May 1944, p. 1

290

‘Veillée d’armes’, La Gerbe, 25 May 1944, p. 1 ‘L’Ame et le style’, La Gerbe, 1 June 1944, p. 1 ‘L’Apocalyptique...’, La Gerbe, 8 June 1944, p. 1 ‘Pour plusieurs raisons profondes...’, La Gerbe, 15 June 1944, p. 1 ‘L’Arme nouvelle allemande...’, La Gerbe, 22 June 1944, p. 1 ‘Cherbourg défend son dernier espoir...’, La Gerbe, 29 June 1944, p. 1 ‘Le Bloc occidental’, La France, 10 January 1945, p. 1 ‘De Breughel à Beethoven’, La France, 15 January 1945, p. 1 & p. 2

Texts of lectures and speeches ‘La France devant la collaboration’, Salle Gaveau, Paris, 15 December 1940; in La Gerbe, 19 December 1940, p. 7 ‘Le Drame français’, Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1 February 1941; in La Gerbe, 6 February 1941, p. 1 & p. 6 ‘Vers l’Europe’, Vierzon and Bourges, May (?) 1941; in La Gerbe, 22 May 1941, p. 2 ‘La France, ce qu’elle doit vouloir’, Salle Wagram, Paris, 28 October 1941; in La Gerbe, 6 November 1941, p. 8 ‘Hommage à Jeanne d’Arc’, Salle Pleyel, Paris, 9 May 1942; in La Gerbe, 14 May 1942, p. 1 & p. 8 ‘L’Espace français dans le drame mondial’, Salle Pleyel, Paris, 14 November 1942; in Collaboration, November–December 1942, 1–13 ‘La Psychologie et le drame des temps présents’, offices of the Cercle européen, Paris, 27 January 1943; in La Gerbe, 4 February 1943, p. 6 ‘La Littérature et le drame des temps présents’, offices of Radiodiffusion nationale, Paris, 23 March 1943; in La Gerbe, 1 April 1943, p. 6 ‘Deux visages’, offices of the Rassemblement national populaire, Paris, 18 September 1943; in La Gerbe, 23 September 1943, p. 1 ‘L’Heure des résolutions’, offices of the Cercle européen, Paris, 25 September 1943; in La Gerbe, 30 September 1943, p. 1 and Collaboration, September–October 1943, 18– 20 ‘La Loi de la vie’, Aux Ambassadeurs, Paris, 22 February 1944; in Le Franciste, 26 February 1944, p. 4 ‘Un fraternel salut’, offices of La Gerbe, Paris, n.d.; in La Gerbe, 20 April 1944, p. 2 ‘A Monsieur Otto Abetz’, Club de la Presse, Paris, n.d.; in La Gerbe, 13 July 1944, p. 4

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Prefaces Vallette, René, Le Bas-Poitou (La Rochelle: Éditions d’Art, 1927) Blanpain de Saint-Mars, Louis, Souvenirs de vénerie en Bas-Poitou (Fontenay-le-Comte: Imprimerie moderne, 1932) Jacquelot du Boisrouvray, J. de, Sur les chemins de Bretagne (Éditions Berger–Levrault, 1933) Mugnier, Henri, Les Passagers (Attinger, 1934) Witt, Jean de, Chasses de Brière (Éditions de la Bonne Idée, 1935) Castelot, Gabrielle, Les Trois Roses (Messein, 1936) Chabas, Maurice, Sur les routes du Lot (De Gigord, 1936) Le Roy, Florian, Les Châteaux de Bretagne (Rouen: Defontaine, 1936) Ferrus, Paule, La Révélation de soi (Éditions Adyar, 1938) Boissel, Jean, Mon discours de Nuremberg (Éditions du Réveil du peuple, 1941) Fallada, Hans, Vieux cœur en voyage (Sorlot, 1941) Hess, Hermann, Un chef et son peuple (Éditions Trois Épis, 1941) Roy, Bernard, Fanny ou l’esprit du large (Baudinière, 1942)

Documents Lettre de Châteaubriant à Pétain à l’occasion du premier anniversaire de la parution de ‘La Gerbe’ (CDJC, CDXXXI–53) Les Principes des Gerbes françaises (1943) (BnF, 16-lb58-112)

Manuscripts Fonds Alphonse de Châteaubriant (BnF, awaiting classification)

Radio broadcasts Causerie sur son roman Monsieur des Lourdines, 22 November 1942 (ORTF, reel KO 78B)

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Causerie contre le bolchevisme, n.d. (1942?) (ORTF, reel KO 132) Discours prononcé à l’occasion du dixième anniversaire de la fondation du nationalsocialisme, 31 January 1943 (ORTF, reel KO 265B) Discours prononcé lors d’une assemblée du FRN contre le bolchevisme, 28 February 1943 (ORTF, reel KO 265B)

Film appearances Le Chagrin et la pitié (André Harris, Marcel Ophüls, Alain de Sédouy, 1971) L’Œil de Vichy (Claude Chabrol, 1993)

Secondary Works Books Amouroux, Henri, La Grande Histoire des Français sous l’occupation, 10 vols (Laffont, 1976–93) Aron, Robert, Histoire de Vichy 1940–1944 (Fayard, 1954) ———, Histoire de l’épuration, 2 vols (Fayard, 1975) Aron, Robert, and Arnaud Dandieu, La Révolution nécessaire (Grasset, 1933) Assouline, Pierre, L’Épuration des intellectuels (Brussels: Éditions Complexe, 1985) Augier, Marc, Les Survivants de l’aventure hitlérienne (Geneva: Payot, 1975) Azéma, Jean-Pierre, La Collaboration 1940–1944 (PUF, 1975) ———, De Munich à la Libération 1938–1944, Nouvelle Histoire de la France contemporaine, 14 (Seuil, 1979) Azéma, Jean-Pierre, and François Bédarida, Vichy et les Français (Fayard, 1992) Barrès, Maurice, Les Déracinés (Fasquelle, 1897) ———, Mes cahiers, 14 vols (Plon, 1929–57) Bédarida, Renée, La Vie quotidienne des catholiques sous Vichy (Hachette, 1999) Bellanger, Claude, Histoire générale de la presse française, 4 vols (PUF, 1972) Berdiaev, Nikolai, Un nouveau Moyen Âge (Plon, 1927) ———, L’Esprit de Dostoïevski (Éditions Saint-Michel, 1931) ———, L’Homme et la machine (Éditions ‘Je sers’, 1933) Bertrand, Louis, Hitler (Fayard, 1936)

293

Brasillach, Robert, Les Quatre Jeudis (Éditions Balzac, 1944) ———, Œuvres complètes, ed. by Maurice Bardèche, 12 vols (Club de l’honnête homme, 1963–66) ———, Les Captifs (Plon, 1974) ———, Notre avant-guerre, 3rd edn (Plon, 1981) Brinon, Fernand de, France–Allemagne 1918–1934 (Grasset, 1934) Cahm, Eric, The Dreyfus Affair in French Society and Politics (Harlow: Longman, 1996) Carlyle, Thomas, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (Chapman & Hall, 1841) Carré, Jean-Marie, Les Écrivains français et le mirage allemand (1800–1940) (Boivin, 1947) Carter, Alfred, The Idea of Decadence in French Literature 1830–1900 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1958) Cecil, Robert, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (Batsford, 1972) Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, D’un château l’autre (Gallimard, 1957) Cesbron, Georges, ed., Mythe–rite–symbole: 21 essais d’anthropologie littéraire sur des textes de Homère (Angers: Presses Universitaires d’Angers, 1984) Cholvy, Gérard, and Yves-Marie Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 3 vols (Toulouse: Privat, 1986–88) Christophe, Paul, 1936. Les Catholiques et le Front populaire (Les Éditions ouvrières, 1989) ———, 1939–1940. Les Catholiques devant la guerre (Les Éditions ouvrières, 1989) Cointet, Michèle, L’Église sous Vichy (Perrin, 1998) Cointet, Michèle, and Jean-Paul Cointet, Dictionnaire historique de la France sous l’occupation (Tallandier, 2000) Colin, Paul, Allemagne (1918–1921) (Rieder, 1923) Conan, Eric, and Henry Rousso, Vichy, un passé qui ne passe pas (Fayard, 1994) Conway, John, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933–1945 (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1968) Cooke, John, Georges Bernanos: A Study of Christian Commitment (Amersham: Avebury, 1981 Cotta, Michèle, La Collaboration 1940–1944 (Colin, 1964) Cruickshank, John, Variations on Catastrophe (Some French Responses to the Great War) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982) Déat, Marcel, Mémoires politiques (Denoël, 1989) Delbreil, Jean-Claude, Les Catholiques français et les tentatives de rapprochement franco-allemand (Metz: Presses Universitaires de Metz, 1972) Dioudonnat, Pierre-Marie, Je suis partout 1930–1944: les Maurrassiens devant la tentation fasciste (La Table ronde, 1973) ———, L’Argent nazi à la conquête de la presse française 1940–1944 (Picollec, 1981)

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Osgood, Samuel, ‘The Anti-Semitism of the French Collaborationist Press’, The Wiener Library Bulletin, 23 (1969), 51–56 Passage, Henri du, ‘La Gerbe des forces ’, Études, 2 (1937), 564–65 ———, ‘Les Pas ont chanté ’, Études, 8 (1938), 429 Payen de la Garanderie, Paul, ‘Monsieur des Lourdines par Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 2 (1912), 78–84 Peltier, Madeleine, ‘Qui était Alphonse de Châteaubriant? Un entretien avec L.-A. Maugendre’, Rivarol, 3 (1977), 10 Pichard du Page, René, ‘De Monsieur des Lourdines à La Brière: notes sur Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 1 (1923), 1–8 Pomeau, René, ‘Guerre et roman dans l’entre-deux-guerres’, Revue des sciences humaines, 1 (1963), 77–95 Poulet, Robert, ‘Résurrection d’un Burgrave’, Écrits de Paris, 373 (1977), 83–86 ———, ‘Alphonse de Brédenbec de Châteaubriant, romancier illuminé’, Le Spectacle du monde, October (1978), 109–14 Présence du passé, lenteur de l’histoire: Vichy, l’occupation, les Juifs, special number of Annales, 3 (1993), 1–85 Que faire de Vichy?, special number of Esprit, 181 (1992), 1–87 Rachilde, ‘Monsieur des Lourdines ’, Mercure de France, November (1911), 368–70 ———, ‘La Brière ’, Mercure de France, 8 (1923), 199 Rémond, René, ‘Les Catholiques et le Front populaire (1936–1937)’, Archives de sociologie des religions, 10 (1960), 63–69 ———, ‘Le Catholicisme français pendant la Deuxième guerre mondiale’, Revue d’Histoire de l’Église de France, 64 (1979), 203–13 Rousseaux, André, ‘Les Châteaux en Vendée d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, La Revue universelle, 63 (1935), 83–86 Roussel, Jean, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Larousse mensuel, 13 (1952), 3 Rousso, Henry, ‘Sigmaringen: le dernier carré de la Collaboration’, L’Histoire, 44 (1982), 6–19 Roux, Philippe de, ‘Le Roman poitevin’, La Revue du Bas-Poitou, 4 (1949), 237–52 Roz, Firmin, ‘A. de Châteaubriant’, La Revue universelle, 14 (1923), 513–19 ———, ‘La Brière ’, La Revue bleue, August (1923), 569–71 ———, ‘Appel à la vie spirituelle’, La Revue bleue, September (1933), 537–40 Serini, Paul, ‘Note di letteratura francese: Alfonso de Châteaubriant’, Il Concilio, October (1923), 912–16 Simard, Marc, ‘Intellectuels, fascisme et antimodernité dans la France des années trente’, Vingtième Siècle, 17 (1988), 55–75 Soucy, Robert, ‘Barrès and Fascism’, French Historical Studies, 1 (1967), 67–97 Speigelberg, Dieter, ‘Deutschland und Frankreich im Weltbild Alphonse de Châteaubriants’, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, 64 (1942), 89–118

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Stein, Holger, ‘The Holocaust or the Myth of the Past’, Journal of Historical Review, 1: 4 (1980), 309–22 Sternhell, Zeev, ‘Les Origines intellectuelles du racisme en France’, L’Histoire, 17 (1979), 106–14 Thomas, Georges-Michel, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant en Bretagne’, Les Cahiers de l’Iroise, 1 (1958), 11–14 Vallery-Radot, Robert, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, La Revue hebdomadaire, 32 (1933), 7 Vichy Syndrome, The, forum in French Historical Studies, 19 (1995), 461–526 Viollis, Jean, ‘Monsieur des Lourdines ’, Les Marges, 8 (1911), 171–73

Articles in newspapers and magazines Baudrillart, Alfred, ‘Choisir, vouloir, obéir’, La Gerbe, 21 November 1940, p. 1 Behr, Hermann, ‘Ein Französe sieht das neue Deutschland: Betrachtung zu Châteaubriants Geballte Kraft ’, Nationalsozialinischer Gaudien Baden, 5 December 1938, p. 4 Bertault, Philippe, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, Vers l’avenir, 2–3 December 1933, p. 6 Bidou, Henri, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, Les Débats, 30 June 1933, p. 7 Billy, André, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, L’Œuvre, 11 July 1933, p. 5 Brasillach, Robert, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: La Gerbe des forces ’, Action française, 8 July 1937, p. 3 Chapponière, Paul, ‘Le livre du jour: La Gerbe des forces’, Journal de Genève, 16 July 1937, p. 1 Copeau, Jacques, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, La Vie catholique, 2 September 1933, p. 16 Coulot, Jean-Christophe, ‘Rétro: La Meute par Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Le Quotidien de Paris, 26 September 1990, p. 16 Cousteau, Pierre-Antoine, ‘Monsieur de Châteaubriant nous parle du nationalsocialisme’, Je suis partout, 24 April 1937, p. 1 ———, ‘Nuremberg, cœur de l’Allemagne’, Je suis partout, 10 September 1937, p. 9 Crémieux, Benjamin, ‘La Brière ’, Les Nouvelles littéraires, 21 July 1923, p. 2 Faure Biguet, Jacques-Napoléon, ‘Ein Bündel Verworrenheit zu Alphonse de Châteaubriants Hitlerhymnus’, Pariser Tageszeitung, 20 August 1937, p. 6 Fréteval, Jean, ‘Monsieur des Lourdines ’, Le Figaro, 12 May 1928, p. 3 Gandon, Yves, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, L’Intransigent, 6 July 1933, p. 2 ———, ‘La Meute d’A. de Châteaubriant’, L’Intransigent, 12 July 1935, p. 4 Gille, Jean, ‘Un livre à clef: La Brière ’, L’Éclair, 7 July 1923, p. 1 Harcourt, Robert d’, ‘L’Allemagne comme la voit Monsieur de Châteaubriant’, L’Époque, 1 September 1937, p. 1 & p. 2

304

Heine, Lutz, ‘Bücher die Sie lesen müssten: A. de Châteaubriants Geballte Kraft ’, Deutsche Wochenschau, 14 December 1938, p. 11 Jouvenel, Bertrand de, ‘A propos de mon interview du Führer-Chancelier’, La Flèche, 7 March 1936, p. 1 & p. 4 ———, ‘Nuremberg’, Gringoire, 9 September 1938, p. 3 Kaspi, André, ‘Un crime contre l’histoire’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 16–22 April 1992, p. 25 Le Fèbvre, Yves, ‘La Brière d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Pensée bretonne, 15 September 1923, pp. 3–5 Les Treize (pseud.), ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, L’Intransigent, 6 July 1933, p. 2 Loewel, Pierre, ‘Opinions libres: ode au Nazi’, Le Droit de vivre, 10 July 1937, p. 1 & p. 4 ———, ‘La Vie littéraire: La Gerbe des forces ’, L’Ordre, 19 July 1937, p. 2 ———, ‘La Vie littéraire: Les Pas ont chanté ’, L’Ordre, 31 July 1938, p. 2 Pellisson (pseud. Charles Maurras), ‘La Gerbe des forces ’, Action française, 4 July 1937, p. 1 Pierrefeu, Jean de, ‘La Brière ’, Le Journal des Débats, 4 July 1923, p. 3 Porché, François, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: La Gerbe des forces ’, L’Époque, 26 July 1937, p. 5 Rebatet, Lucien, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: La Gerbe des forces ’, Je suis partout, 3 September 1937, p. 8 Régnier, Henri de, ‘La Brière ’, Le Figaro, 3 July 1923, p. 3 Slama, Alain-Gérard, ‘Le nostra culpa du Président’, Le Point, 22 July 1995, pp. 24–25 Théolleyre, Jean-Marc, ‘L’Exécution de Robert Brasillach’, Le Monde, 6 February 1995, p. 2 Thérive, André, ‘La Brière ’, L’Opinion, 6 July 1923, pp. 8–9 ———, ‘Un héraut du Troisième Reich: Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, Vendémiaire, 28 July 1937, p. 6 ———, ‘La Gerbe des forces ’, Le Temps, 16 September 1937, p. 3 ———, ‘Chère Allemagne’, Vendémiaire, 5 October 1938, p. 1 & p. 3 Tyl, ‘Un livre sur l’Allemagne’, Choc, 30 September 1937, p. 4 Vincent, Jean, ‘La Brière ’, La Croix, 22–23 July 1923, p. 3 ———, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, La Croix, 15 October 1933, p. 3 & p. 4

Documents A Selected Who’s Who in Vichy France (New York: Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, 1944) (IHTP, R1582)

305

Allemagne et France, hier, aujourd’hui, demain: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Friedrich Grimm (18 January 1941) (BnF, 8-m pièce-7007) Articles antisémites parus dans la presse parisienne (février–mai 1941) (CDJC, 8090) Blocus et espace vital: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Francis Delaisi (8 August 1941) (BnF, 6-r pièce-1532) Buts de la Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchevisme (15 September 1943) (BDIC, F163 réserve) Collaboration: codification des textes législatifs relatifs à sa répression et à l’indignité nationale (Haute Cour de Justice, 1945) (BDIC, O pièce 23.185) Comité d’épuration de la race française: manifeste et extraits (1941) (BDIC, O pièce 21.448) Comment on reconstruit les peuples: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Jacques de Lesdain (15 February 1941) (BnF, 8-r-48668) Compte rendu très positif de ‘Geballte Kraft’ (CDJC, DLIV-9) Contribution de la section économique du Groupe Collaboration à l’étude des problèmes européens (15 May 1941) (BDIC, Q pièce 4323) Déclarations faites par son excellence le cardinal Baudrillart (4 December 1941) (BDIC, S26913) Divini redemptoris (Pius XI, 19 March 1937) (repr. Éditions Saint-Michel, 1988) Documents d’information: liste des groupes politiques autorisés pendant l’occupation (La France libre, 1942) (BDIC, 4°P377 réserve) Dommages subis par la France et l’Union française du fait de la guerre et de l’occupation ennemie (1939–1945): part imputable à l’Allemagne, 8 vols (Imprimerie nationale, 1947) (IHTP, GF14) Extraits de presse de divers journaux collaborationnistes concernant l’application de la mesure antijuive, port de l’Étoile juive (June–August 1942) (CDJC, XLIXa44) France d’hier et de demain: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Friedrich Sieburg (22 March 1941) (BnF, 8-lb58-856) French Basic Handbook (Foreign Office, 1944) French Pro-Fascist Groups (New York: Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, n.d.) Gesamtliste des foerdernswerten Schrifftums bis 31.12.42 (Propaganda-Abteilung Frankreich, Gruppe Schrifftum, 1942) (CDJC, DLIV-60) Groupe Collaboration: réunion de vendredi 27 décembre 1940 (BDIC, F1355) Interrogatoire de Botschafter Rahn (Tribunal général du gouvernement militaire pour la zone française d’occupation en Allemagne, 28 February 1947) (CDJC, XCVI/93) Jeunesses d’Europe, unissez-vous!: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Marc Augier (17 May 1941) (BnF, 8-g-3978) L’Avènement d’une nouvelle Europe dans le cadre d’un nouvel ordre mondial: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Colin Ross (25 October 1941) (BnF, 8-g-3956)

306

L’Avenir de la qualité française dans la production européenne: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Henri Magne (10 May 1941) (BnF, 8-r pièce-23702) L’Europe, espace vital de l’agriculture française: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Marcel Braibant (25 September 1941) (BnF, 8-g-3955) La Liste Otto: ouvrages interdits par les Allemands en France (IHTP, 6602) La Presse autorisée sous l’occupation allemande (1940–1944) (Notes documentaires et études, 1946) (IHTP, RF427) La Répression des faits de collaboration (Notes documentaires et études, 1946) (IHTP, R845) La Révolution technique et ses conséquences: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Jean Maillot (5 April 1941) (BnF, 8-r-48669) Le Dialogue franco-allemand: conférence du Groupe Collaboration (17 May 1941) (BnF, 8-g3978) Le Fait continental: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Max Clauss (24 May 1941) (BnF, 8-g-14739) Les Jeunes de l’Europe nouvelle (April 1943) (BDIC, Q pièce 4282 réserve) Les Jeunes devant l’ouverture européenne: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Marc Augier (27 October 1941) (BnF, 8-r-48548) Les Problèmes sociaux de l’Europe nouvelle: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Ferdinand Fried (29 August 1941) (BnF, 8-g-14738) Les Ultras de la collaboration (InterFrance Documents, 1949) (CDJC, 1882-62) Liste des auteurs français traduits en allemand 1941–1943 (Propaganda-Abteilung Frankreich, Gruppe Schrifftum, 1943) (CDJC, DLIV-62) Liste des journaux parus pendant l’occupation (January 1945) (BDIC, Q pièce 729 réserve) Manifeste pour la défense de l’Occident (1935), in René Rémond, Les Droites en France (Aubier Montaigne, 1982), pp. 459–61 Mit brennender Sorge (Pius XI, 14 March 1937) (repr. Librairie Téqui, 1989) Notre rôle européen: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Jacques de Lesdain (1 June 1941) (BnF, 8-g-3957) Ordonnance du 9 août 1944 relative au rétablissement de la légalité républicaine (Imprimerie des Journaux Officiels, 1944) (BDIC, F1467) Ordonnance sur le séquestrement des journaux: liste des journaux poursuivis (Palais de Justice, n.d.) (BDIC, F réserve 368/1-2-3) Petit florilège de la défaite (extraits de la presse parisienne du 19 septembre 1940 au 18 mars 1941) (CDJC, 7327) Pourquoi nous croyons en la collaboration: causerie donnée par Jean Weiland sous les auspices du Groupe Collaboration (27 December 1940) (BnF, 8-lb58-30) Projets de la loi d’épuration dans la presse et le spectacle (Commission de l’Information, 1944) (BDIC, F réserve 365) Quadragesimo anno (Pius XI, 15 May 1931) (repr. Éditions Saint-Michel, 1989)

307

Rerum novarum (Leo XIII, 15 May 1891) (repr. Éditions Saint-Michel, 1991) Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 8 December 1864) (James Miller, 1864) Une année d’activité du Groupe Collaboration (October 1941) (BnF, 8-lb58-195A) Vers une Nouvelle Europe: conférence du Groupe Collaboration par Werner von Rheinbaben (19 April 1941) (BnF, 8-g-4634)

Manuscripts Activité des partis politiques autorisés 1941–1944 (AN, F7/14897) Alphonse de Châteaubriant: copies dactylographiées du lui à Brinon (AN, fonds privés, 411 AP6, March–April 1945) Documents du cabinet de l’Ambassadeur: correspondance avec des particuliers, C-D-E (AN, F60/1492) Documents du cabinet de l’Ambassadeur: groupement ‘Collaboration’ (AN, F60/1486) Dossier de la Cour de Seine: van Brédenbec de Châteaubriant (AN, Z6 402 no. 41,30) Hebdomadaires et mensuels parisiens: avril 1941–avril 1943 (AN, AJ40/1013) Liste des journaux par départements et par régions, liste des journaux autorisés, listes divers 1939– 1944 (AN, F41/98) Presse: statut des journalistes 1941–1944 (AN, F41/107) Rapports mensuels sur le tirage des publications éditées à Paris 1940–1944 (Archives de la Préfecture de Police, BA 1713) Renseignements en provenance du Conseil national d’information (1942–1944): groupements collaborationnistes (AN, F41/347) Service de la censure 1940–1944 (AN, F41/156) Société des gens de lettres (AN, fonds français, 1446, March 1933) Société nationale des entreprises de presse: direction juridique (1945) (AN, Fontainebleau, 7AR, section 6, boxes 28–29) Société nationale des entreprises de presse: jurisprudence (1945) (AN, Fontainebleau, 7AR, section 6, boxes 32, 35, 36) Société nationale des entreprises de presse: service des liquidations (La Gerbe) (1945) (AN, Fontainebleau, 7AR, section 9, box 93) Subventions à des organismes de presse 1941–1944 (AN, F41/120)

Theses and dissertations

308

Brice, Catherine, ‘Le Groupe Collaboration: 1940–1944’ (unpublished licence dissertation, University of Paris, 1978) Chadwick, Kay, ‘A Critical Study of the Lettres des années de guerre 1914–1918 by Alphonse de Châteaubriant’ (unpublished Master’s dissertation, University of Hull, 1985) Hornisch, Stanislas, ‘Monsieur des Lourdines : roman par Alphonse de Châteaubriant’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Frankfurt, 1930) Jackson, Maria, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant: A Study of his Life and his Major Works’ (unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Virginia, 1959) Maisonneuve, Daniel, ‘La Brière d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant’ (unpublished diplôme d’études supérieures dissertation, University of Rennes, n.d.) Munkel, Rhabana, ‘Les Valeurs folkloriques du roman La Brière ’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Frankfurt, 1930) Potvin, Jenny, ‘Alphonse de Châteaubriant’ (unpublished licence dissertation, University of Louvain, 1956) Rimé, Marie-Anne, ‘Le Décor extérieur dans l’œuvre romanesque d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Louvain, 1969) Verdonk, Maria, ‘La Réponse du Seigneur ’, unpublished dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 1970) Walker, Robert, ‘Le Vocabulaire d’Alphonse de Châteaubriant’, (unpublished Master’s dissertation, University of Leeds, 1936)

309

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Index

Bold type is used for continuous treatment of an entry. Several mentions of an entry within a range of pages is indicated by, for example, 179–81. Titles of books, journals, newspapers, documents and films are italicised.

A Abelard, Peter 141 Abetz, Otto 19, 112, 112n16, 150, 160, 188 Action 197 Action catholique spécialisée 75, 79, 87, 115–16, 233, 237 Action française movement 36–37, 42, 52, 75–76, 79 Action française 111n15, 118 Aeterni patris (1879) 24, 39, 43, 73 Albin Michel publishing house 257 Allies, Western First World War 54, 60 Second World War 208–09, 212 Alsace-Lorraine 120, 125, 177 America, United States of 168, 169–70, 175, 177, 180, 189–90, 208–09, 211– 12, 220–21 collaborationist responses to 169 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and England/USA Ancien Régime 21, 29, 32, 35, 37, 45, 74, 93 Annales d’histoire révisionniste 269 Anselm, Saint 82, 84, 230 Anti-89, L’ 251

anti-Semitism 25 collaborationist responses to 182–83 in the French press 182–83 and Vichy 162, 182, 183n55 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and anti-Semitism; Dreyfus Affair; Jews; Le Juif et la France Apocalypticism 40, 90–91, 116, 168, 190–91 Aquinas, Thomas (see Thomas, Saint) Arbeitsfront (labour front) 125–26 aristocracy 45, 55, 56–61, 67, 128 Aristotelianism, Christianised 74–75, 82 Aristotle 230–31 Armistice (1918) 54 Armistice (1940) 149, 154, 165, 189 Aron, Robert 261–62, 266, 278 Arthur, King 100–01 Au Pilori 183 Aube, L’ 115, 204n21 Augier, Marc 150, 153 Augustine, Saint 82, 84, 229, 232 Augustinianism 74, 82, 88, 102, 229, 231 Aurore, L’ 203, 204n21 Austria, annexation of (1938) 147 Aymé, Marcel, La Vouivre 151 Uranus 262

Azéma, Jean-Pierre 272n45, 277

267–68,

271,

B Bachelot-Villeneuve, Marguerite 26 Bacon, Roger 140–42 Baden-Baden 193 Bamberg 123, 131 Barbey d’Aurevilly, Jules 39 Barbie, Klaus 264, 270–72 Barbusse, Henri, Le Feu 49, 52, 54–55 Clartés 60 Bardèche, Maurice 109n8, 110n10, 243n4, 253n19 Barrès, Maurice 45, 65–66 integral nationalism 31–37, 52–53 Les Déracinés 33 Baruch, Marc-Olivier 277 battlefields, First World War 48, 258 Baudrillart, Mgr 98, 164–65, 172 Bayreuth 123, 131 Bédarida, François 272n45 Belfort 195 Benedict XV 75 Berdiaev, Nikolai 83n15 Esprit de Dostoïevski, L’ 86n18 Un nouveau Moyen Age 75 Bergson, Henri 97, 98n30 Berlin 112, 123, 127n36, 136, 143–44, 155, 201, 209 Bernanos, Georges 36n24, 52, 76 Bernard, Saint 82, 140, 229, 231 Berry, Georges 197n10 Bertrand, Louis 17n14 Hitler 112n17, 122 Beuchot, Pierre, Hôtel du Parc 271n44 Billy, André 96 Bloc des Gauches 25

312

blood purge (1934) 129 Bloy, Léon 39–41, 45 Blum, Léon 114, 114n20, 115n21, 115n22 Bolshevism French Catholic responses to 121– 22, 135, 164–65 collaborationist responses to 165, 182, 191, 214 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Bolshevism/Communism; Communism Bonaventure, Saint 82, 84, 140–41, 230 Bonnard, Abel 153, 188 Bonnet, Georges 147 book burning (1933) 128 Borne, Étienne 77 Boulanger crisis (1886–89) 31 bourgeoisie 51–52, 54 Bourget, Paul 39 Bousquet, René 275, 277 Brasillach, Robert 15, 18, 106, 108–10, 109n8, 110n12, 112n17, 120, 144, 151, 182n52, 188, 196, 196n2, 250– 52, 253n19 Notre avant-guerre 107, 108, 120–21 Les Captifs 109 Association des amis de Robert Brasillach 243n4, 251 Breker, Arno 158 Bridoux, General 195 Brière region 26, 61 Brinon, Fernand de 18, 112, 124–25, 148n4, 152, 188, 195, 198–99, 201, 215 Britain (see England) Brittany 26, 28–29, 53, 61, 70, 81 Bucard, Marcel 107, 199 C

Caesar 137 Cahiers franco-allemands 112n16 Caillot, Mgr 161n28 Camelots du Roi 107 Camus, Albert, Le Mythe de Sisyphe 228n34 Canzillon, Robert 248, 249n13 capitalism 33, 74, 118, 169 Carlyle, Thomas, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History 101 Cassar, Aimé (see Moellhausen, Eitel) Catastrophism (see Apocalypticism) Catholic Church, French in the nineteenth century 21–25, 73 separation from State 25 in the inter-war period 75, 98–99, 114–15 and Vichy 162 and collaboration 164–65 post-1945 developments 220–21, 233, 237–38 see also Catholicism, integral; Catholicism, intransigent; Catholics, French Catholic Church, German 121 Church–State relations 126–28, 172 opposition to National Socialism 130 Catholic Church, Roman 73, 220 on Communism 121–22 on National Socialism 122, 130 Catholic Revival 39–45, 56, 58, 82 Catholic Social Action (see Action catholique spécialisée) Catholicism, integral 24–25 Catholicism, intransigent 23–25, 30, 38– 40, 51, 61 Catholics, French

and their Church 23–25, 39–40, 220–21, 237–38 and nouvelle chrétienté 17, 73–79, 82–83, 87–90, 102, 118, 135, 220–21 political attitudes 36, 39 and Republicanism 23–25 and First World War 52, 56 and Popular Front 114–15, 122, 134 and National Socialism 121–22, 129–30, 163 Céline, Louis-Ferdinand 18, 158, 196n3, 252, 253n19 Club Célinien 251 Cercle européen 18, 185 Chabrol, Claude, L’Œil de Vichy 271 Chagrin et la pitié, Le 261, 264, 268, 270 Chaix, Marie, Les Lauriers du lac de Constance 243 Chanson de Roland, La 165 Charlemagne 131, 178–81, 191, 233 collaborationist responses to 178 and Hitler 181 see also Verdun, Treaty of Chastenet, Jacques 112n17 Châteaubriant, Alphonse de family background 26, 28 Catholic upbringing 27, 41–42 education 26–27 lapses from religious practice 41 military service 27 criticisms of the Catholic Church before 1945 40–43, 56–57, 71, 86–87, 99, 130, 136, 146, 171, 184 after 1945 229–39 on fellow Catholics 57, 97–98 and nouvelle chrétienté 17, 43, 71– 72, 79–95, 101–03, 106, 113, 128, 135, 137, 220–21, 235–37

313

and First World War 45–46, 47–61, 113, 155, 182–83, 189, 202, 210 and Germany First World War 47, 54–55, 60 after 1918 60, 72 visits Germany 111 in La Gerbe des forces 116, 123–46 defeat of France (1940) 147 during Occupation 149, 155–56, 160, 170–72, 173–77, 181, 185–86, 190, 193 in exile 195–96, 198–201 post-war distancing from 200– 01, 205–07, 209–13, 215, 217, 219–20 and Hitler 15, 30, 40, 116, 119, 123, 130, 134, 144, 160, 172, 174, 177, 214 meets Hitler 112 as ‘hero’ 60, 137, 179–80 spiritualises 17, 36, 45, 136–39, 141, 170, 181, 191 post-war rejection of 207 and National Socialism 15, 17, 38, 55, 81, 111, 113, 116, 119, 123, 125, 132, 166, 177, 193 spiritualises 17, 45, 50, 105–06, 122–23, 126–28, 130–39, 141–42, 144–46, 161, 167, 170–72, 191 post-war distancing from 200– 01, 205–07, 209–13, 215, 217, 219–20 and the National Socialists 42, 99n36, 101 as Christians 50, 126, 128–29, 133–34, 139, 171, 173, 191 as the new man 131, 136–37 as warrior-monks 17, 101–02, 137, 237

314

and collaboration 13–19, 54–55, 61, 66, 105–06, 113, 116, 144, 146, 147–93, 206, 209–14, 219 and Fascism 17, 114, 214 in 1930s 105–06, 109–11 in La Gerbe des forces 134–35 and nationalism 52–55, 107, 110, 125, 131, 144 after 1945 205–06, 210–11, 214, 223 see also integral nationalism and Bolshevism/Communism 55, 60, 71, 117–18, 122, 134–35, 164–70, 171–72, 181–82, 191 after 1945 201, 205, 213–15, 219 and England/USA war against 168–69, 175–77, 180, 190 after 1945 208–09, 211–12, 221 and anti-Semitism early indicators 33 during Occupation 166, 182–84, 191 post-war denial of 207 and Europeanism First World War 45, 52–55, 60– 61 inter-war period 64–66, 72, 105, 125, 128 Second World War 155–57, 163, 169–70, 173–77, 178–84, 185–86, 190–91 after 1945 201, 208–12, 214–15, 219, 223 and racial identity 61–66, 180–84 and racism 59–60, 61–66 religious justification of 142–44, 145–46, 246–47, 254 the ‘new Europeans’ 180–84 and Popular Front 115–18, 134

and Armistice in 1918 54 in 1940 148, 155 and Montoire 160–61 and Vichy 160, 162, 192 attitude to Laval 162, 172 attitude to Pétain 160–62 and Groupe Collaboration (see Groupe Collaboration) and La Gerbe (see Gerbe, La) escapes France 193 post-war exile 13, 193, 201 police investigation 197 trial and sentence 203–04, 217 post-war self-revision 200–01, 204– 20, 222–23, 229, 236–37 returns to the Church 238–39 death 241 posthumous rehabilitation 241–60 works Acte intérieur, L’ 256–57, 258 Baron de Puydreau, Le 29, 37, 67 Brière, La 26, 60, 61–72, 80, 91, 111, 113, 133, 144, 177, 179, 182, 244n6, 259; reviews of 64n15 Cahiers, 1906–1951 26–27, 39, 41, 60, 70, 79, 86–87, 101– 02, 196, 204, 222, 227n32, 244n5, 257 Fragments d’une confession 41, 58– 59, 244 Gerbe des forces, La 13, 50, 86, 106, 113–14, 116–18, 123–46, 147–48, 150, 153, 155–56, 161, 163–64, 166–68, 170, 172–73, 182, 200, 231, 246, 250, 253–56, 258; reviews of 118–19, 144–45 Instantanés aux Pays-Bas 26n12, 80

Itinéraire vers la lumière divine 222– 39, 244 Lettres des années de guerre, 1914– 1918 48–60, 64, 66, 83, 113, 209, 244 Lettre à la chrétienté mourante 80– 82, 83–91, 93, 96, 113, 115, 117, 137–38, 140, 224–25, 229–31, 244 Meute, La 28–29, 34–35, 37–38, 44, 80, 86, 93, 111, 137 Monsieur de Buysse 29, 37 Monsieur des Lourdines 29, 30–45, 53–54, 61–64, 66–69, 71, 81, 91, 111, 113, 126, 131–33, 144, 156, 179, 238, 244n6, 259; reviews of 40, 44 Pas ont chanté, Les 27, 41, 43n30 Procès posthume d’un visionnaire 204n22, 252–56, 258, 270 Réponse du Seigneur, La 80–82, 91–103, 111–13, 131, 137, 139, 164, 224, 244n6, 259; reviews of 95–99 Châteaubriant, Gaspard de 28, 29n18 Châteaubriant, Guy de (brother of Alphonse) 58 Châteaubriant, Guy de (son of Alphonse) 26, 185 Châteaubriant, Robert de 26, 204n22, 222n30, 241n1, 243 rehabilitates his father 243, 248–57 see also Canzillon, Robert; Wolf, Robert Chenu, Marie-Dominique 77 Chirac, Jacques 276–77 Christophersen, Thies 268 Chroniqueur de Paris 26 Churchill, Winston 169, 208, 211 Claude, Georges 153

315

Claudel, Paul 39, 41, 45 Clément, René, Les Maudits 262 Club Alphonse de Châteaubriant 247– 52, 270 creation 247 members 249–50 bulletin 248 Club de l’Horloge 247, 252 Club de la Presse 192 co-belligerence (see collaboration, military) Cold War 208, 213–15, 253 Colin, Paul, Allemagne (1918–1921) 111 Collaboration (see Groupe Collaboration, bulletin) collaboration 154–55, 160, 162–65 cultural 157, 187 economic 158–59, 185 military 172, 185, 187, 206 political 185–87 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and collaboration collaboration d’État 154 collaborationnisme 16, 154 collective versus individual 33–34, 63, 65, 81–83, 92, 102, 126, 139–40, 237 Comité d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale 261 Comité d’histoire de la guerre 261 Comité de défense de l’Occident, Le 251 Comité de libération française 198 Comité France–Allemagne 112n16, 152 Comité National des Écrivains 197 Comité pour l’épuration de la race française 18, 184 Commission d’histoire de l’Occupation et de la Libération de la France 261 Communism 55, 208

Catholic responses to 75, 114–15, 121–22, 164–65, 221 collaborationist responses to 165 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Bolshevism/Communism; Bolshevism; Divini redemptoris Conan, Eric 272n45 concentration camps 129, 222 Concordat (1801) 25 Concordat, Vatican–Reich (1933) 120, 122, 127 Constance, Lake 198 contemplation theory 45, 58, 89, 93–96, 99, 101–03, 139 Copeau, Jacques 86n18, 97–98 co-travail (see collaboration, economic) Coty, François 107 Council of Europe 209 Cour de Justice 13, 196n2, 203 Cousteau, Pierre-Antoine 112n17, 120 Cri du peuple, Le 18, 161 crimes against humanity 270–73, 274– 75, 277 see also prescription Croix de Feu 79, 107 Croix, La 98, 122 Cromwell, Oliver 59–60 crusade 114n19, 178 First World War as 56 Second World War as 102, 105, 136, 164–65, 191 crusaders 59, 137, 166 see also warrior-monks Curtis, Jean-Louis, Les Forêts de la nuit 262 Curtius, Ernst Robert 111 D Daladier, Édouard 107, 147

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Darlan, François 18 Darnand, Joseph 14n3, 18, 187, 195, 198–99 Darquier de Pellepoix, Louis 188 Darwinianism 65 Daye, Pierre 120 Déat, Marcel 14n3, 18, 154, 160, 186– 88, 195, 198–99 Déclaration commune sur la situation politique (1944) 192 De Beauvoir, Simone, Le Deuxième Sexe 227n32 De Gaulle, Charles 195, 213, 215, 260– 63 dégradation nationale 13, 203–04, 216 Délégation gouvernementale française pour la défense des intérêts français en Allemagne 195 Deloncle, Eugène 187 democracy 21, 51, 71, 108, 116–17, 132–33, 158, 168, 180 deportations 262, 272–73, 277 déracinement 33–34, 132 Desclaux, Henri 278 Deutsch–Französische Gesellschaft (see Comité France–Allemagne) Deutsch–Französische Monatshefte (see Cahiers franco-allemands) Deutschland–Frankreich 158 Divini redemptoris (1937) 122, 247 Dorgelès, Roland, Les Croix de bois 49 Doriot, Jacques 18, 119, 160, 165, 186– 88, 198–99 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 86n18 The Brothers Karamazov 85 Dreyfus Affair (1894–99) 25, 31–32, 41 Drieu la Rochelle, Pierre 14n3, 15, 18, 106, 108–10, 110n12, 119–20, 153, 158, 160–61, 188, 189, 196, 196n2 La Comédie de Charleroi 49–50, 52–53

Socialisme fasciste 109 Gilles 109 Drumont, Edouard, La France juive 25 Duhamel, Georges, Vie des martyrs, Civilisation 49 Dukes’ Republic (1873–77) 21 Dunkirk 168 Duras, Marguerite, La Douleur 223n31 Dürer, Albrecht 86n19, 158 woodcuts 86, 94 Dutoit, Mgr 164 Dutourd, Jean, Au bon beurre 262 E Écho de Paris, L’ 114 École d’anthropologie 183 elitism 40–41, 44–45, 55, 56–61, 72, 191, 225, 236–37 Emmanuelli, Henri 274n53 Empire of the Franks 178–79, 181, 191 encyclicals 41, 79 Aeterni patris (1879) 24, 39, 43, 73 Divini redemptoris (1937) 122, 247 Inter sollicitudines (1892) 24 Mit brennender Sorge (1937) 122, 130, 247 Pastor aeternus (1870) 39 Quadragesimo anno (1931) 75, 87, 114, 121 Quas primas (1925) 75 Rerum novarum (1891) 24, 75 Syllabus of Errors (1864) 23 Ubi arcano (1922) 75 England 60, 110, 164, 168–70, 175–77, 180, 190, 208–09, 211–12, 221 collaborationist Anglophobia 168, 175, 191

317

see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and England/USA Enlightenment 74 Époque, L’ 118, 204 Epting, Karl 19 épuration 215–20 of press and intellectuals 197 see also post-war trials Erbhof (land inheritance) 132–33 Esprit movement 221 Esprit 78, 97n28, 118, 121, 122, 145, 273n45 essentialism 82–84, 99, 102, 138, 140– 41, 224, 226–29, 230–31 Ethiopia 110 Études 98, 118, 121n31, 145 Europe 110 Europe Europeanism First World War 52–55 Second World War 165, 175–76 Council of Europe 209 European Community 209 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Europeanism Europe nouvelle, L’ 96 existentialism 226–29 exode (1940) 148 F Fascism 17n14, 36n23, 52, 106 explorers of 110–13, 120–21 in France 105–09, 114–15, 118–21 and collaboration 17n14, 105–06 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Fascism Faulhaber, Cardinal 130 Faurisson, Robert 268–69

318

federalism 161, 176–77, 178 see also Europe Fédération nationale catholique 75, 79 Ferro, Marc 253n19, 271n44, 272n45 Ferry, Jules 21, 26 and école de la République 22–23 feudal society 17, 29, 40, 81, 92–93, 132–33, 144 Fidanza, Jean de (see Bonaventure, Saint) Figaro, Le 196n2, 204n21 fin de siècle 31–32 First World War (1914–18) 45–46, 47– 61, 66, 71, 82, 90, 111, 113, 148, 155, 182–83, 189, 210, 244, 246, 275 see also crusade Flèche, La 112n17 Floch, Jean 148 Foch, Marshal 148 Fondation pour la mémoire 279 Fornairon, Ernest 152, 157 Fourth Republic (1945–58) 215, 219 France catholique, La 114 France seule, la 33, 53 France, La 196, 196n5, 198, 199–200 France-Dimanche 202 Francistes 107 Franco-Soviet treaty (1944) 213 Franc-Tireur, Le 202n17, 204n21 Freemasons 32, 171 Fresnes prison 275 Front national 247–49, 252 Front révolutionnaire national 18, 186 Führerprinzip (leadership principle) 132, 255 G Galahad 100 Gallicanism 43

Gambetta, Léon 21 Gandon, Yves 96 gentilshommes campagnards 26, 29 Gerbe, La 13, 18, 142, 147–93, 197, 231, 246 creation of 149–50, 152 financial matters 150–52, 193 tirage 149, 152n13 contributors 151, 153–54, 160–61, 164 cultural accent 158–59, 185 Châteaubriant’s role 147, 149–50, 153, 186 post-war report on 197 Gerbes françaises 159n23 German Embassy (Paris) 19, 149, 150, 151, 206 Germany declares war (1914) 47 occupies France (1940) 148 response to Vichy 160 collaborationist responses to 161, 175 economic demands on France 174 post-war division of 209, 212 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Germany; National Socialism; Olympic Games (1936) Gide, André 111 Gilson, Étienne 77, 97, 98n30 Giraudoux, Jean 111 Gobineau, Arthur de 143, 183 Essai sur les inégalités des races humaines 58–59 Gobineau, Serpeille de 183 Goebbels, Joseph 127n36, 150 Goethe, Johann von 111, 130 Goy, Jean 112n17 Grasset publishing house 148, 243, 244n6

Grimm brothers 130–31 Groupe Collaboration 18, 148, 149–53, 157–60, 169, 173, 179, 182–83, 185– 87, 198–99, 246 creation of 152 members and contributors 154, 164, 196 bulletin 149 conferences 153, 158 cultural accent 158 Châteaubriant’s role 147–49, 153, 185–86 Groupe Hibbelen 151 Groupement de recherche et d’études pour la civilisation occidentale 247 guerre sainte (see crusade) Guirard, Jean 122 H Harcourt, Robert d’ 17n14 L’Évangile de la force 121 Harris, André 261 Harwood, Richard 268 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 94 Heimat 144 Henriot, Philippe 18, 152, 188, 192, 282 Hermant, Abel 153 heroes 17, 32, 34–35, 90, 94, 99–103, 105, 109, 128, 131, 136, 145, 173, 179–81, 191, 230, 236–37 see also new man heterodoxy 43, 45, 95–99, 146, 229–40 Hiroshima 222 Historical Review Press 268 history duty of 278 in the courtroom 277–78 writing of 15, 241–81

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Hitler, Adolf 15, 30, 40, 132–33, 148, 179, 209, 211 Mein Kampf 124 becomes Chancellor 103, 112 meets French admirers 112 meets Pétain 159 death 201 see also Charlemagne; Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Hitler Hoffmann, ETA 130 Hoffmann, Stanley 266, 272n45 Holocaust 270, 280 Holy Grail 99–101 Homer 48 Humanité, L’ 60 Huysmans, Joris-Karl 39 A rebours 34 I Ici-Paris 202n17 Industrial Revolution 22 Institut allemand 19, 158, 185 Institut catholique 98, 164 Institut d’études des questions juives 18, 184 Institute for Historical Review 268 Insurgé, L’ 109 integral nationalism 31–37, 45, 52, 61– 64, 72 see also Barrès, Maurice; Maurras, Charles intellect versus intelligence 84–89, 102, 136, 139, 142, 168, 170–71, 224–26, 228–29, 230–34 Inter sollicitudines (1892) 24 Intransigeant, L’ 96, 112n17 Irving, David 278–79 Isorni, Jacques 250

320

J Jardin, Pascal, La Guerre à neuf ans 243 Je suis partout 109, 112n17, 118, 120, 163n32, 165n37, 182n52 Jeune Droite, La 78 Jeunes de l’Europe nouvelle 187 Jeunesses patriotes 107 Jews 17, 32–33, 171, 180, 184, 207 in France and Vichy 162, 182–83 see also anti-Semitism; Dreyfus Affair; Le Juif et la France in Germany blood purge (1934) 129 book burning (1933) 129 Nuremberg Laws (1935) 129 Joan of Arc 86n19, 168, 169n39, 191 John the Baptist 136, 137 Jospin, Lionel 274 Journal of Historical Review 268–69 Journal, Le 112 Journée nationale commémorative des persécutions racistes et antisémites commises sous Vichy 274 Jouvenel, Bertrand de 110, 112n17, 268 Judt, Tony 276 Juif et la France, Le (1941 exhibition) 18, 184 K Kérillis, Henri de 146 Kitzbühel 241 Knights the chevalier 94, 99–101, 137 of the Holy Grail 100–01 of Malta and Rhodes 100 of Saint John 100

Templar 99–100 Kraft durch Freude (strength through joy) 126 Kristallnacht (1938) 147 Kupferman, Fred 267

Loi de Séparation des Églises et de l’État (1905) 117 Louis IX 179 Louis XIV 29, 77 Louis XVIII 28, 35 Luchaire, Jean 196, 199

L M Lamande, André, Ton pays sera le mien 111 landings, Normandy (1944) 189, 191, 193, 216n25, 275 landings, North Africa (1942) 169, 176 Lanzmann, Claude, Shoah 270 Laval, Pierre 18, 187, 259 as Premier 18 dismissal 162, 189 reappointment 172, 189 at Sigmaringen 195 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Vichy Le Pen, Jean-Marie 247–48, 270 leadership (the chef) 34–36, 42–43, 44– 45, 66–70 leagues, Right-wing 36, 107, 109 Lebensraum (living space) 125 Lectures françaises 251 Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchevisme 18, 150, 163–65, 172, 187 Lemas, Lucien 112n17 Leo XIII 23–24, 39, 73 Lesdain, Jacques de 153, 196 Lévy, Claude 261, 267 Liberation 151, 190–92, 195, 212 Ligue de la patrie française 36, 37n25 Ligue des Droits de l’homme 248 Lindenberg, Daniel 271n44, 272n45 Lipstadt, Deborah 279

MacMahon, Marshal de 21 Malle, Louis, Lacombe, Lucien 268n36 Manifeste des chrétiens progressifs (1947) 221 Manifeste des intellectuels français pour la défense de l’Occident et la paix en Europe (1935) 110 Mann, Thomas 111 Marbœuf, René, Pétain 271n44 Marcel, Gabriel 96 Maritain, Jacques 75–79, 82–83, 88, 220–21, 233, 236 Antimoderne 76, 102 Humanisme intégral 76, 102, 121 La Primauté du spirituel 77, 102 Marrou, Henri-Irénée 77 Marrus, Michael 272n45 Marseillaise, La 23 Martin du Gard, Roger 158 Marxism 237 Massis, Henri 61n13, 98, 110 materialism 50–51, 71, 82–83, 102, 165– 69, 180, 224 Matin, Le 112 Mattéoli Mission 279 Maugendre, Louis-Alphonse biography of Châteaubriant 16, 245–47, 253–54 edits Châteaubriant’s letters 257–59 Maurras, Charles 45 integral nationalism 31–37, 52–53

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and Action française 36, 52, 75 May 1968 263 Mayol de Lupé, Mgr 164 Mazière, Christian de la 268 mémoire 263–65, 271–72, 276, 279 Mers el-Kébir 168 Michel, Henri 261 Middle Ages 40, 42, 44, 90, 99–100, 130–42, 178–79, 226, 234, 237 in inter-war Catholic thought 77–78 collaborationist responses to 178 Milice française 18, 187, 196, 264, 278 Mission de France 233, 237 Mit brennender Sorge (1937) 122, 130 Mitterrand, François 271, 273–76 modern world, criticism of 16, 23–24, 29–31, 34, 38–40, 50–53, 60–62, 70–71, 73–74, 81–82, 90–91, 102, 105, 108, 115–19, 133, 136, 140, 155–58, 161, 180, 215–16, 224–29, 229–39 in inter-war Catholic thought 73–74, 76–78, 80, 102, 118 in post-1945 Catholic thought 220– 21 Modiano, Patrick, La Place de l’Étoile 243 Moellhausen, Eitel 150 Mondadon, Louis de 98 Monde, Le 202, 275–76 Montandon, Georges 183 Montherlant, Henri de 151 Montoire 159–61, 164, 174, 189 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Montoire Moré, Marcel 90, 110 Moscow 134, 136, 144 Moulin, Jean 271 Mounier, Emmanuel 78–79, 97n28, 144–45, 221

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Manifeste au service du personnalisme 78, 121 Mouvement de libération nationale 197 Mouvement social révolutionnaire 187 Munich agreement (1938) 147 Mussolini, Benito 201 myths, debunking 261–65, 277 N Nantes 26, 47, 63, 148 University of 269 Napoleon 35, 179 National Front, British 268 National Hebdo 251 national responsibility 263–64, 273–75, 277, 279 National Revolution (see révolution nationale) National Socialism 49, 112, 125, 129 Catholic responses to 121–22, 129– 30, 164 collaborationist responses to 119–21 collapse of 193 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and National Socialism; Mit brennender Sorge Nazi Party 120, 127, 137 Neff, Georges 151, 197 negationism 241, 242, 243–60, 270, 281 New Christendom (see nouvelle chrétienté) new man 97, 117–18, 131, 155 New Right 247–48 New Testament 68, 87, 143n44 Nietzsche, Elizabeth 49n5 Nietzsche, Friedrich 48–49, 57, 90, 101, 170 Also sprach Zarathustra 49n4

claimed by the Nazis 49 see also Übermenschen No Holocaust movement 268 Noguères, Henri 248 nominalism 140–41, 168, 226, 231 nominalist–realist debate 82, 139–41, 145, 230–31 non-moi 32–34, 63–64, 72 North Africa 169, 176–77 Nouveaux Temps, Les 196, 268 nouvelle chrétienté 17, 43, 57, 73–103, 118, 220–21 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and nouvelle chrétienté Nozières, Violette 107 Nuremberg 112n17, 123 Nuremberg Congress 112 Nuremberg Laws (1935) 129 O Occupation 13, 19, 112, 144, 146, 147– 93, 196, 201, 207, 212, 217 division of France 148 total occupation (1942) 151n11, 177, 183n55, 189 post-war assessment of 242–43, 260–81 Ockham, William of 141 October Revolution (1917) 55 Œuvre, L’ 96, 161 Old Testament 56, 68, 85, 143n44 Olympic Games (1936) 112, 123 Ordre nouveau, L’ 78, 121 Ordre, L’ 118 organic community 30–38, 44, 128 Ory, Pascal 86, 110, 113n18, 165, 174n41, 176, 267 oubli 263–65

oubli de soi 58, 139, 145, 170 P Palais Berlitz 184 papal infallibility 39, 42–43 Papon, Maurice 270, 277–78 Paris 13, 18–19, 26, 30–31, 33, 38, 63, 98, 148–52, 154, 157–58, 164, 183– 84, 189, 195, 197, 203, 242, 248, 276–77 Parisien libéré, Le 204n21 Parti démocrate populaire 79 Parti populaire français 18, 119–20, 186 parti unique 154–55, 186 Passage, Henri du 145 Pastor aeternus (1870) 39 Paul, Saint 97, 128 Paxton, Robert 260, 266–67, 271, 272n45, 276–78 pays légal–pays réel 33, 62 Péan, Pierre 275 Péclet, Georges, Le Grand Cirque 262 Péguy, Charles 39, 41, 45, 53, 56–57, 158 Pépin le Bref 178 Percival 99 see also Siegfried Peschanski, Denis 271n44 Pétain, Philippe 18, 154, 162n29, 177, 252 seeks Armistice 148 becomes Head of State 149 meets Hitler 159 collaborationist responses to 160–61 Church responses to 161–62, 164 at Sigmaringen 195 surrender 201

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post-war responses to 253n19, 259, 271n44, 275 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Vichy; révolution nationale Peyrot, Franck 248, 250 Philippe Auguste 179 Pichard du Page, René 153 Pillon, Edmond 169n39 Pius IX 23, 39 Pius X 40, 42 Pius XI 75, 79, 121, 130, 247 Pius XII 220 Plato 82, 229–30 The Republic 85 Poincaré, Raymond 47 Poiré, Jean-Marie, Papy fait de la Résistance 270 Poitou 30 Poland 208 Pompidou, Georges 263–64 Popes Benedict XV 75 Leo XIII 23–24, 39, 73 Pius IX 23, 39 Pius X 40, 42 Pius XI 75, 79, 121, 130, 247 Pius XII 220 Popular Front (1936–38) 114–15, 122, 134, 161 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Popular Front Potsdam conference (1945) 208 prescription 263 see also crimes against humanity; Touvier, Paul Présence et priorité françaises 251 Présent 251 prêtres-ouvriers 221 Prix Goncourt 13, 30

324

Prix du Roman de l’Académie française, Grand 13 Propaganda-Stäffel 151 Psichari, Ernest 56 Q Quadragesimo anno (1931) 75, 87, 114, 121 Quas primas (1925) 75 R race 17, 58–60, 61, 128, 180–82 racial identity 61–66, 180–84 racism 61–66 religious justification of 142–44, 145–46, 246–47, 254 the ‘new Europeans’ 180–84 see also anti-Semitism; Bolshevists; Jews; Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and racism Radio-Paris 19, 185 Radio-Sigmaringen 196 Rahn, Rudolph 150 Ralliement (1892) 24, 40–41 rapprochement, Franco-German 111– 12 Rassemblement national populaire 187 realism (see nominalist–realist debate) reason versus illumination (see intellect versus intelligence) Rebatet, Lucien 18, 109n8, 110, 120, 269n37 rebirth 55, 69, 87–91 rechristianisation 39, 88, 134, 180–82, 184, 190–91, 236 regional themes 27–28, 29, 37, 40, 61, 80–81, 112

relève 185 Rémond, René 36n23, 276 Renan, Ernst, Vie de Jésus 43 Rennes 26, 30n19 Republicanism 21–23, 25 Republicans’ Republic (1879–85) 21 Rerum novarum (1891) 24, 75 Resistance 192, 201, 216–18, 262, 271– 72 Resistance France, myth of 260–65 Resnais, Alain, Nuit et brouillard 262 Restoration 29, 35 revisionism (see negationism) Revolution, French (1789) 21, 23, 30, 251 révolution nationale 108, 109n7, 154, 162n30 programme 160–63 collaborationist responses to 160– 61, 163 Revue bleue, La 26 Revue d’Allemagne, La 111 Revue de l’Anjou, La 26 Revue de Paris, La 26 Revue des poètes, La 26 Revue du Bas-Poitou, La 26 Revue européenne, La 111 Revue nantaise, La 26 Revue universelle, La 61n13, 80n13, 95, 98, 112n17 Ribbentrop, Joachim von 147, 150, 195 Richelieu 29 Rillieux-la-Pape 272–74 Riquet, René 198n10 Rivarol 202n17, 245, 251 Rocque, Colonel de la 107 Rocques, Henri 269 Rolland, Romain 29n17, 36, 39, 42, 48 Au-dessus de la mêlée 54–55 Jean-Christophe 257

correspondence with Châteaubriant 257–59 Romains, Jules 158 Rosenberg, Alfred 127–28 Der Mythus des 20 Jahrhunderts 127, 130, 250 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 43, 155 Rousso, Henry 253n19, 272n45, 277–78 Russia 18, 55, 134, 179, 182, 190–91, 208–09, 214–15 Germany invades 163 war against 163–69, 173–74, 185, 189 see also Bolshevism; Communism; Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchevisme S Saint-Cyr military college 27 sang et sol 64, 144 Sangnier, Marc 39, 42, 45 see also Sillon movement Sartre, Jean-Paul 13–14, 17n14, 105, 228 Huis clos 228n33 Qu’est-ce qu’un collaborateur? 14 Schiller, Johann von 130 Schumann, Robert 130 Schutzstaffelen (SS) 45, 101, 137 science 50–51, 82–84, 96, 141–42, 222, 224–25, 232–33 scientisme 22 Second World War (1939–44) 14, 17, 56, 105, 147–93, 201, 211, 216–20, 227 see also crusade secularism 22, 24–26, 39, 42, 75, 224, 234 Sept 115

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service du travail obligatoire 185 Siegfried 99n36, 131, 139 see also Percival Sigmaringen 193, 194–98 Sillon movement 39, 42 see also Marc Sangnier Solidarité française 107 Spanish Civil War (1936–39) 100–01, 114n19 spiritual aristocracy 57, 66–67 spiritual arrogance 66–70, 71, 136, 238 spiritual redemption 34, 68–69 spiritual regeneration 37–38, 38–45, 46, 48, 53, 57, 71, 77, 81, 89, 91, 100, 105, 108–09, 118, 136, 162, 183, 191, 226 spiritual revolution 78, 89, 163 spiritual vitality 43, 70–71 Stalin, Joseph 165–66, 169–70 Stalingrad 175, 185 statuts des Juifs (1940, 1941) 183 Stavisky Affair (1934) 107 summit conferences (see Potsdam, Teheran, Yalta) Syllabus of Errors (1864) 23

neo-Thomism 43, 74–75, 83, 102, 221, 229, 231–34 Thorez, Maurice 115 Touvier, Paul 270, 274, 277 post-war sentence 263 pardon 263–64 trials (1992, 1994) 272–73, 274–75 training schools, National-Socialist 132, 137 Travail, Famille, Patrie 161 trials, post-war 216, 218, 270–71, 272– 73, 274–75, 277–78 Truffaut, François, Le Dernier métro 270 U

T

Übermenschen (supermen) 48, 90, 101 Ubi arcano (1922) 75 Ultramontanism 39 Union des nations de l’Europe chrétienne 251 union sacrée 47 universals 82, 139–40, 230–31 see also nominalism Untergrainau 193, 196 V

Taittinger, Pierre 107 Teheran conference (1943) 208 Temps, Le 98, 112n17, 118, 120 terre et les morts, la 32–33 Terre nouvelle 115, 134 theosophy 96–97 Thérive, André 118, 144–45 Third Reich 129, 130–46, 158, 120–21, 195, 206 Third Republic (1870–1940) 16, 21–25, 26–27, 31, 39, 107 Thomas, Saint 73, 75, 82, 84, 88, 142

Valléry-Radot, Robert 96–97 Vatican II (1962–65) 73 Vélodrome d’Hiver round-up (1942) 183n56, 273–74, 276 Vendée 28, 61 Vendémiaire 118–19 Verdun, Treaty of (843) 179–80 Verrill, Richard (see Harwood, Richard) Vichy Regime (1940–44) 18, 101, 109n7, 148, 151n11, 152–54, 160, 162–64, 182–83, 189, 192, 195, 241, 266, 274–75, 277

326

and collaboration 154–55, 160, 162 and French Catholic Church 162 collaborationist responses to 162–63 collapse of 195 see also Châteaubriant, Alphonse de and Vichy; Jews; révolution nationale

Y Yalta conference (1945) 208–09 yellow star, wearing of 183

Vie catholique, La 98, 115 Vie intellectuelle, La 96, 115, 121n31 Vincent, José 98 W Wagner, Richard 130 Wall Street Crash (1929) 106 warrior-monks 100–02, 237 Weiland, Jean 152, 157, 196 Wolf, Alfred 241 Wolf, Robert 248

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Modern French Identities Edited by Peter Collier This series aims to publish monographs, editions or collections of papers based on recent research into modern French Literature. It welcomes contributions from academics, researchers and writers in British and Irish universities in particular. Modern French Identities focuses on the French and Francophone writing of the twentieth century, whose formal experiments and revisions of genre have combined to create an entirely new set of literary forms, from the thematic autobiographies of Michel Leiris and Bernard Noël to the magic realism of French Caribbean writers. The idea that identities are constructed rather than found, and that the self is an area to explore rather than a given pretext, runs through much of modern French literature, from Proust, Gide and Apollinaire to Kristeva, Barthes, Duras, Germain and Roubaud. This series reflects a concern to explore the late-century turmoil in ideas and values that is expressed in the works of theorists like Lacan, Irigaray and Bourdieu and to follow through the impact of current ideologies such as feminism and postmodernism on the literary and cultural interpretation and presentation of the self, whether in terms of psychoanalytic theory, gender, autobiography, cinema, fiction and poetry, or in newer forms like performance art. The series will publish studies of individual authors and artists, comparative studies, and interdisciplinary projects, including those where art and cinema intersect with literature.

Volume 1

Victoria Best & Peter Collier (eds.): Powerful Bodies Performance in French Cultural Studies 220 pages. 1999. ISBN 3-906762-56-4 / US-ISBN 0-8204-4239-9

Volume 2

Julia Waters: Intersexual Rivalry A ‘Reading in Pairs’ of Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet 228 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-906763-74-9 / US-ISBN 0-8204-4626-2

Volume 3

Sarah Cooper: Relating to Queer Theory Rereading Sexual Self-Definition with Irigaray, Kristeva, Wittig and Cixous 231 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-906764-46-X / US-ISBN 0-8204-4636-X

Volume 4

Julia Prest & Hannah Thompson (eds.): Corporeal Practices (Re)figuring the Body in French Studies 166 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-906764-53-2 / US-ISBN 0-8204-4639-4

Volume 5

Victoria Best: Critical Subjectivities Identity and Narrative in the Work of Colette and Marguerite Duras 243 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-906763-89-7 / US-ISBN 0-8204-4631-9

Volume 6

David Houston Jones: The Body Abject: Self and Text in Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett 213 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-906765-07-5 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5058-8

Volume 7

Robin MacKenzie: The Unconscious in Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu 270 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-906758-38-9 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5070-7

Volume 8

Rosemary Chapman: Siting the Quebec Novel The Representation of Space in Francophone Writing in Quebec 282 pages. 2000. ISBN 3-906758-85-0 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5090-1

Volume 9

Gill Rye: Reading for Change Interactions between Text and Identity in Contemporary French Women’s Writing (Baroche, Cixous, Constant) 223 pages. 2001. ISBN 3-906765-97-0 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5315-3

Volume 10

Jonathan Paul Murphy: Proust’s Art Painting, Sculpture and Writing in A la recherche du temps perdu 248 pages. 2001. ISBN 3-906766-17-9 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5319-6

Volume 11

Julia Dobson: Hélène Cixous and the Theatre. The Scene of Writing. 166 pages. 2002. ISBN 3-906766-20-9 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5322-6

Volume 12

Emily Butterworth & Kathryn Robson (eds.): Shifting Borders Theory and Identity in French Literature VIII + 208 pages. 2001. ISBN 3-906766-86-1 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5602-0

Volume 13 Victoria Korzeniowska: The Heroine as Social Redeemer in the Plays of Jean Giraudoux 144 pages. 2001. ISBN 3-906766-92-6 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5608-X Volume 14

Kay Chadwick: Alphonse de Châteaubriant: Catholic Collaborator 327 pages. 2002. ISBN 3-906766-94-2 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5610-1

Volume 15

Nina Bastin: Queneau’s Fictional Worlds 291 pages. 2002. ISBN 3-906768-32-5 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5620-9

Volume 16

Sarah Fishwick: The Body in the Work of Simone de Beauvoir 284 pages. 2002. ISBN 3-906768-33-3 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5621-7

Volume 17 Simon Kemp & Libby Saxton (eds.): Seeing Things. Vision, Perception and Interpretation in French Studies. 287 pages. 2002. ISBN 3-906768-46-5 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5858-9 Volume 18

Kamal Salhi (ed.): French in and out of France. Language Policies, Intercultural Antagonisms and Dialogue. 487 pages. 2002. ISBN 3-906768-47-3 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5859-7

Volume 19

Genevieve Shepherd: Simone de Beauvoir’s Fiction. A Psychoanalytic Rereading. 260 pages. (forthcoming) ISBN 3-906768-55-4 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5867-8

Volume 20

Lucille Cairns (ed.): Gay and Lesbian Cultures in France. 290 pages. 2002. ISBN 3-906769-66-6 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5903-8

Volume 21

Wendy Goolcharan-Kumeta: My Mother, My Country. Reconstructing the Female Self in Guadeloupean Women’s Writing. 236 pages. 2003. ISBN 3-906769-76-3 / US-ISBN 0-8204-5913-5

Volume 22

Patricia O’Flaherty: Henry de Montherlant (1895–1972). A Philosophy of Failure. Forthcoming. ISBN 3-03910-013-0 / US-ISBN 0-8204-6282-9

Volume 23 Katherine Ashley (ed.): Prix Goncourt: 1903-2003. Forthcoming. 2003. ISBN 3-03910-018-1 / US-ISBN 0-8204-6287-X Volume 24 Julia Horn & Lynsey Russell-Watts (eds): Possessions. Essays in French Literature, Cinema and Theory. 223 pages. 2003. ISBN 3-03910-005-X / US-ISBN 0-8204-5924-0