Description
BERNANOS (Georges). Set of 6 pieces, one autograph signed and 5 autographs. 1932. 4 incomplete. Drawing lessons from the political impotence of Charles Maurras' Action française, Georges Bernanos joined Le Figaro (headed by perfumer René Coty): he felt that this newspaper could offer a privileged means of dissemination for the intellectual movement he intended to create around his own political ideas. However, in the run-up to the legislative elections of May 1932, he was caught up in the controversy between L'Action française and Le Figaro, an episode that marked the first break between him and Charles Maurras. On the other hand, Georges Bernanos never really had a free hand at Le Figaro, and he understood that René Coty wanted to gather collaborations on a broad spectrum of opinions beyond what he himself found acceptable - so he withdrew his collaboration. - Autograph draft of a letter to a "dear friend". S.l., [1932]. " ... I have contented myself with publicly confessing to a lonely and unhappy man upon whom the regime is at this very moment exercising atrocious blackmail... To what was only a warning, Charles Maurras replied with a farewell. I replied with another. I OWE LITTLE TO MAURRAS. I WAS A ROYALIST BEFORE I EVER KNEW HIS NAME. I saw him four times in my life. And however unpleasant it may be to recall it, I believe that any of the French Catholics who, on the sole guarantee of the word of such a master, of his intellectual probity, of his honor, ran the risk you know, is no longer, with regard to him, indebted to anything [the Pope had banished L'Action française from Catholicism in 1926]... Covertly, but very intelligibly, Maurras accuses me of having sold out to François Coty..." (4 pp. in-12, erasures and corrections, end incomplete). - Another autograph draft of the same letter as above, with variants (2 pp. in-12, one erasure with correction, incomplete at end). - Autograph manuscript. Article published under the title "LE CREPUSCULE DES VIEUX" in Le Figaro, November 10, 1932: "AUCUN HOMME DE NOTRE GENERATION, POURVU QU'IL SOIT CONSCIENT, NE PEUT DOUTER UNE SECONDE DE SA DISGRACE ESSENTIELLE, ET QU'IL A TROP VECU. IT'S A QUESTION OF SURVIVING, OF SURVIVING ONESELF, OF FACING UP TO IT. What can I say? Throw yourself forward. After so much disappointment, so much mourning, so many dead who are less dead than we are, we no longer need to understand. Understand what? THE SPIRITUAL POWERS THEMSELVES ARE FAILING. GOOD AND EVIL, TRUE AND FALSE, SEEK EACH OTHER OUT, CALL TO EACH OTHER AND WHISPER IN THE DARKNESS... The last of us, Péguy, the enfant terrible, the spoiled child of Notre-Dame, had the great good fortune to die lying on his back, facing God. Keep this image with you, young Frenchmen. It won't be replaced any time soon. Before long, very long, perhaps centuries, death will take us face down, like a man who, according to the famous precept, the only really intelligible maxim that the last war inspired, the only one that expresses its deep meaning, its profound, supernatural inanity, "does not seek to understand"... I'm not writing this for the wise. If there is one sight that can still bring tears to our eyes, it is the sight of the unfortunate afflicted by so-called general ideas... WHEN DEMOCRATIC ANARCHY... IN THE SURNATURAL MEANING OF THE WORD, WILL HAVE FINISHED LIQUEFYING THE BRAINS, when democracy will hold humanity by the bulb, will command all the social reflexes of our species, will have turned it into a colony of industrious animals, when the thinking insect no longer has any other superiority over its brothers with mandibles and antennae, and knows no other respite from its monotonous, frightening insect labor than vice and boredom, WE WILL SEE MAURRAS TEACHING POLITICS TO MEN WELL RESOLVED TO WALK ON FOUR LEGS AND EAT grass... " (4 pp. folio, first page stained, end incomplete). - Autograph draft of a letter [to François Coty]. S.l., [November or December 1932]. " ... I HAVE NEVER BEEN 'MAURRASSIAN'. To be convinced of what I am saying, all you have to do is know how to read, and read my books. After having, as you know, completely broken with the A[ction] F[rançaise] in 1919, I got closer to it, or to be more exact, I let it get closer to me (that is to say, I asked for articles or lectures, which I have always given sparingly...) out of protest against certain too obvious injustices of the 1926 condemnation. NEED I ADD THAT THE INSULTS AND DEROGATORY REMARKS I
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BERNANOS (Georges). Set of 6 pieces, one autograph signed and 5 autographs. 1932. 4 incomplete. Drawing lessons from the political impotence of Charles Maurras' Action française, Georges Bernanos joined Le Figaro (headed by perfumer René Coty): he felt that this newspaper could offer a privileged means of dissemination for the intellectual movement he intended to create around his own political ideas. However, in the run-up to the legislative elections of May 1932, he was caught up in the controversy between L'Action française and Le Figaro, an episode that marked the first break between him and Charles Maurras. On the other hand, Georges Bernanos never really had a free hand at Le Figaro, and he understood that René Coty wanted to gather collaborations on a broad spectrum of opinions beyond what he himself found acceptable - so he withdrew his collaboration. - Autograph draft of a letter to a "dear friend". S.l., [1932]. " ... I have contented myself with publicly confessing to a lonely and unhappy man upon whom the regime is at this very moment exercising atrocious blackmail... To what was only a warning, Charles Maurras replied with a farewell. I replied with another. I OWE LITTLE TO MAURRAS. I WAS A ROYALIST BEFORE I EVER KNEW HIS NAME. I saw him four times in my life. And however unpleasant it may be to recall it, I believe that any of the French Catholics who, on the sole guarantee of the word of such a master, of his intellectual probity, of his honor, ran the risk you know, is no longer, with regard to him, indebted to anything [the Pope had banished L'Action française from Catholicism in 1926]... Covertly, but very intelligibly, Maurras accuses me of having sold out to François Coty..." (4 pp. in-12, erasures and corrections, end incomplete). - Another autograph draft of the same letter as above, with variants (2 pp. in-12, one erasure with correction, incomplete at end). - Autograph manuscript. Article published under the title "LE CREPUSCULE DES VIEUX" in Le Figaro, November 10, 1932: "AUCUN HOMME DE NOTRE GENERATION, POURVU QU'IL SOIT CONSCIENT, NE PEUT DOUTER UNE SECONDE DE SA DISGRACE ESSENTIELLE, ET QU'IL A TROP VECU. IT'S A QUESTION OF SURVIVING, OF SURVIVING ONESELF, OF FACING UP TO IT. What can I say? Throw yourself forward. After so much disappointment, so much mourning, so many dead who are less dead than we are, we no longer need to understand. Understand what? THE SPIRITUAL POWERS THEMSELVES ARE FAILING. GOOD AND EVIL, TRUE AND FALSE, SEEK EACH OTHER OUT, CALL TO EACH OTHER AND WHISPER IN THE DARKNESS... The last of us, Péguy, the enfant terrible, the spoiled child of Notre-Dame, had the great good fortune to die lying on his back, facing God. Keep this image with you, young Frenchmen. It won't be replaced any time soon. Before long, very long, perhaps centuries, death will take us face down, like a man who, according to the famous precept, the only really intelligible maxim that the last war inspired, the only one that expresses its deep meaning, its profound, supernatural inanity, "does not seek to understand"... I'm not writing this for the wise. If there is one sight that can still bring tears to our eyes, it is the sight of the unfortunate afflicted by so-called general ideas... WHEN DEMOCRATIC ANARCHY... IN THE SURNATURAL MEANING OF THE WORD, WILL HAVE FINISHED LIQUEFYING THE BRAINS, when democracy will hold humanity by the bulb, will command all the social reflexes of our species, will have turned it into a colony of industrious animals, when the thinking insect no longer has any other superiority over its brothers with mandibles and antennae, and knows no other respite from its monotonous, frightening insect labor than vice and boredom, WE WILL SEE MAURRAS TEACHING POLITICS TO MEN WELL RESOLVED TO WALK ON FOUR LEGS AND EAT grass... " (4 pp. folio, first page stained, end incomplete). - Autograph draft of a letter [to François Coty]. S.l., [November or December 1932]. " ... I HAVE NEVER BEEN 'MAURRASSIAN'. To be convinced of what I am saying, all you have to do is know how to read, and read my books. After having, as you know, completely broken with the A[ction] F[rançaise] in 1919, I got closer to it, or to be more exact, I let it get closer to me (that is to say, I asked for articles or lectures, which I have always given sparingly...) out of protest against certain too obvious injustices of the 1926 condemnation. NEED I ADD THAT THE INSULTS AND DEROGATORY REMARKS I
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