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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The Action Française was neither a widespread nor a powerful nor a successful political movement, and its political objectives were anachronistic to the point of absurdity. Its intention to carry out a coup d'état could not be taken seriously when its leaders were so eager to find reasons for avoiding or postponing action.1 Critics of the movement rightly claimed, for this reason, that it did not deserve its name.2 Of course, the Action Francaise always claimed to have considerable political influence, but its very poor showing in the elections of 1919 and 1924,3 when what influence it had was probably at its height, only emphasized the movement's real complexion.
1 Obvious opportunities were in August 1914, in 1919 and in February 1934.
2 See for example chapter VI, ‘Au sein de “L'Inaction française”’ in Rebatet, Lucien, Les Décombres (Paris, 1942).Google Scholar
3 Despite the prestige of the movement in 1919, of the dozen seats aimed at only one, that contested by Léon Daudet, was won; in 1924 no Action Française candidate was elected, and votes cast for them were notably less than those cast previously for traditional royalists.
4 L'Action Française, 6 October 1910.
5 Maurras, Charles, Quand les Francois ne s'aimaient pas (Paris, 1926), p. 178.Google Scholar
5 Maurras, , La Contre-Révolution spontanée (Lyon, 1943), pp. 138–9;Google ScholarMaurras, , Gaulois, Germains, Latins (Paris, 1926), pp. 85–7.Google Scholar
5 Dimier, Louis, Vingt ans d' Action Française (Paris, 1926), p. 84.Google Scholar
8 Ibid. p. 186.
9 Non, I'Action Française n'a bien servi ni I' Eglise ni la France (Paris, n.d.), p. 94.Google Scholar The comte de Paris is said to have shared this opinion; see Dumont-Wilden, L., Le crépuscule des maîtres (Brussels, 1947), p. 173.Google Scholar
10 Valois, Georges, L'homme contre I' argent (Paris, 1928), p. 18.Google Scholar By this time Valois had broken with the movement.
11 See Roudiez, Leon S., Maurras jusqu' à l' Action Française (Paris, 1957), p. 195.Google Scholar
12 ‘Ce logicien, ce raisonneur est avant tout, un créateur de mythes’, wrote Robert Brasillach, Portraits (Paris, 1935), p. 30.Google Scholar See below for Brasillach's association with the Action Francaise.
13 Maurras, , Enquête sur la Monarchie (Paris, 1911), p. 146.Google Scholar
14 See, Dimier, op. cit. pp. 17, 70, 187.
15 Many leaders and members of the movement were of course sincere and practising Catholics, and some of these abandoned it after the papal condemnation of 1926–7.
16 Cahiers de la Nouvelle Journée, no. 10, (1927) p. 76.
17 See Wilson, Stephen, ‘History and Traditionalism: Maurras and the Action Française’, Journal of the History of Ideas, XXIX, no. 3 (07–09, 1968).Google Scholar
18 Maurras, , Au signe de Flore (Paris, 1931), pp. 101,Google Scholar 117 and 162.
19 Thibaudet, , ‘Refléxions’, La Nouvelle Revue Française (01–06, 1931), p. 104.Google Scholar Thidaudet's Les idées de Charles Maurras (Paris, 1919)Google Scholar is sympathetic but detached; and still the best book on Maurras.
20 Maurras, , La démocratie religieuse (Paris, 1921), p. 545.Google Scholar
21 Maurras, Enquête sur la Monarchie, introduction.
22 E.g. Maurras, La Contre-Révolution spontanée, p. 98.
23 Vallat, Xavier, Charles Maurras, Numéro d'crou 8321 (Paris, 1953), p. 64.Google Scholar
24 Maurras, Au signe de Flore, préface; de Roux, M., Charles Maurras et le nationalisme de l' Action Française (Paris, 1927), pp. 30–1 and 80–4.Google Scholar
25 Vallat, op. cit. p. 129.
26 Ibid. p. 199.
27 Girardet, R., ‘L'heritage de 1' Action Française’, Revue Française de Science Politique, VII, no. 4 (1957).Google Scholar Girardet himself passed through the Action Française.
28 Beau de Loménie, E., Maurras et son système (Bourg, 1953), p. 73.Google Scholar
29 Maulnier, Thierry, La Table Ronde (01 1953),Google Scholar cited by Barko, I.P., l' Esthétique littéraire de Charles Maurras (Geneva 1961), p. 219.Google Scholar
30 de Catalogne, Gérard, Notre Révolution (Montreal, 1941–1944), I, 158.Google Scholar
31 Longnon, Jean, ‘ L'histoire et la vie', Revue critique des idées et des livres (03–04 1924).Google Scholar Barrès’s influence on the early Action Française was considerable, though to some extent that of Maurras worked against it—see Wilson, op. cit.
32 Dubech, Lucien, Pourquoi je suis royaliste (Paris, 1928), pp. 28–31.Google Scholar See Wilson, Stephen, The Historians of the Action Française, unpublished thesis (Cambridge, 1966).Google Scholar
32 Maurras, , Pages littéraires choisies (Paris, 1922), p. 139;Google ScholarLes Conditions de la Victoire (Paris, 1916–1918), II, pp. 58–9.Google Scholar
34 Weber, Eugen, Action Française (Stanford, 1962), pp. 183–4.Google Scholar Any student of the Action Française must express his debts to this volume.
35 Revue critique des idées et des livres (July 1919).
36 True wrote in his Apologie pour l' Action Française (Paris, 1926), p. 11:Google Scholar ‘Quelles que soient une admiration et une gratitude croissantes pour les hommes de l'Action Française, nous n'appartenons point à leur groupement…’
37 His Cathérine de Médicis (Paris, 1940)Google Scholar recently earned tribute from Sutherland, N.M., Catherine de Medici and the Anden Régime (London, 1966), 36,Google Scholar for helping to present a more historical picture of Catherine, though the author says quite wrongly that his book lacks notes, references and bibliography.
38 The Revue du Siècle had as its own semi-political organizations, a Bureau politique internationale, a Comité de Défense des classes moyennes and a Comité de Défense des intérêts régionaux.
39 Revue Universelle (1 April 1920).
40 Le Procès de Charles Maurras (Paris, 1946), p. 77.Google Scholar
41 For their association with the Action Française, see below.
42 Guiraud was later editor of La Croix, which gave the Action Française temporary support. He was also professor of history at t he University of Besançon, and his Histoire partiale, histoire vraie (Paris, 1911–1917),Google Scholar 4 vols, and his history textbooks played an important part in the campaign against‘ official’ republican historiography and history teaching, led by the Action Francaise.
43 Dom Jean-Martial Besse has a claim to fame as the man who converted Huysmans to Catholicism; see Daoust, Joseph, Les débuts bénédictins de J-K. Huysmans (Abbaye de St. Wandrille, 1950).Google Scholar
44 Many also belonged to local academies and provincial history societies; for example, the marquis de Roux was president of the Société des Antiquaires de l'Ouest; Louis Dimier, after his break with the Action Française, became a member of the Académie de Savoie and President of the Société des Antiquaires de France.
45 Maurras dedicated part of Jeanne d'Arc, Louis XIV, Napoléon (Paris, 1937)Google Scholar to Lévis-Mirepoix, , ‘Pour ses livres royaux’; these included Francois Ier (Paris, 1931)Google Scholar and Philippe le Bel (Paris, 1936).Google Scholar Lévis-Mirepoix was fittingly elected to Mauras's chair in the Academy in January 1953.
46 E.g. Daudet, Léon, Panorama de la Troisième République (Paris, 1936);Google Scholar and Bellessort, André, Le Collège et le Monde (1941).Google Scholar
47 This collection was directed by Marcel Boulenger and P. Bessand-Massenet, and included works by Bellessort, Louis Madelin, and Jean Lucas-Dubreton.
48 Other Hachette collections in which Action Francaise writers were prominent were Récits d'autrefois, which included works by Lucas-Dubreton and Bainville, and Hier et Aujourd'hui, which included works by Funck-Brentano, Bainville and Bertrand.
49 Maurras, Quand les François ne s'aimaient pas, p. xiii; Maurras, , Gazette de France (12 12 1901),Google Scholar cited by Buthman, W.C., The Rise of Integral Nationalism in France (New York, 1939), p. 252.Google Scholar
50 Maurras's deafness may have had something to do with this attitude: ‘Maurras est un sourd, comme l'Angleterre est une ile…’ wrote Gide, Andre, Journal (Paris, 1948), p. 753.Google Scholar
51 See Digeon, Claude, La crise allemande de la pensée française (Paris, 1959), pp. 472–3.Google Scholar
52 Fullerton, W. Morton, Preface, , Bainville, , L'Angleterre et 'Empire britannique (Paris, 1938);Google Scholar Mme la Générate Noguès, unpublished MS.
53 Maurras, , Jacques Bainville et Paul Bourget (Paris, 1937), p. 56;Google Scholar and a letter from Daniel Halévy to Marcel Guérin, 19 August 1916, Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Marcel Guérin, NAF 24,839, fo. 336.
54 See Valois, L'homme contre I'argent, p. 28; Rebatet, op. cit. pp. 53 and 114; and Drault, Jean, Drumont, La France Juive et La Libre Parole (Paris, 1935), p. 298.Google Scholar
55 Livre de poche still publish two Bainville, two Gaxotte and one Louis Bertrand today.
56 E.g. Bainville, , La Fortune de la France (Paris, 1937), pp. 97–8Google Scholar and passim.
57 See Lecomte, Georges, Ma traversée (Paris, 1949), pp. 576–92.Google Scholar
58 Given the Action Française's traditionalist cult of the family Léon Daudet's own divorce and that of his sister were ironic to say the least.
59 Alphonse Daudet and Edmond de Goncourt who had a great influence on Léon were not, of course, free of antisemitism.
60 Léon Daudet had written for Mme Adam's Nouvelle Revue, for Le Figaro, and for Arthur Meyer's Le Gaulois among others.
61 See Daudet, Léon, Le Poignard dans le dos. Notes sur l'affaire Malvy (Paris, 1918).Google Scholar
62 Testimonies to Daudet's charitable nature abound. See for example: Bainville, , Doit-on le dire? (Paris, 1939), p. 207;Google ScholarWiriath, Marcel, Silhouettes (Paris, 1949), pp. 25–8;Google ScholarRosny, J-H. (aîné), Mémoires de la vie littéraire (Paris, 1927), pp. 45–9;Google Scholar and Valois, op. cit. pp. 22 and 160–3; Valois's lasting sympathy for Daudet was in marked contrast to his persistent denigration of all his other former colleagues at the Action Française.
63 Massis, Henri, Maurras et notre temps (Paris, 1961), p. 233.Google Scholar
64 Germain, André, Les Croisées modernes (Paris, 1958), p. 15.Google Scholar
65 In 1948 Maurras referred to Gaxotte as ‘un garçon remarquable et qui m'est toujours fidèle'. Vallat, op. cit. p. 35.
66 Auriant, , Mercure de France (15 08 1939).Google Scholar
67 Dimier was a Savoyard and expressed his debts to his ‘petite patrie’ in a Histoire de Savoie (Paris, 1913).Google Scholar
68 Le Nationalisme littéraire et ses méfaits chez les Frartçais.
69 Ezban, Selitn, Les débuts littéraires de Pierre Lasserre, Publications of the Modern Language Society of America (12 1947).Google Scholar
70 The expression is Lasserre’s; see Mise au point, pp. 26–34.
71 La Jeunesse d'Ernest Renan, Histoire de la arise religieuse au XIX e siècle (Paris, 1924–1932),Google Scholar 3 vols.
72 Beau de Loménie, op. cit. p. 77.
73 Brasillach, R., Notre Avant-Guerre (Paris, 1941), p. 218.Google Scholar
74 Bellessort, , Les Intellectuels etl'avètement de la Troisième République (Paris, 1931), pp. 238–9.Google Scholar
75 Bellessort, , Le Collège et le Monde (Paris 1941).pp. 158–60.Google Scholar
76 Chaumeix, Andre, ‘AndéS Bellessort’, Revue des Deux Mondes (15 02 1942).Google Scholar
77 Various writers, for example Brasillach, Drieu La Rochelle and Rebatet, also evolved from the Action Francaise to ‘ fascism’, but this movement was by no means a general rule.
78 See Bertrand, Louis, Le Sens de I'Ennemi (Paris, 1917).Google Scholar It is interesting to see how far French nationalism was linked with the Eastern frontier in terms of personalities. Barrès, Bertrand, Gaxotte, Funck-Brentano—and also Lyautey and Poincaré—all came from the East.
79 Bertrand, , Devant l'Islam (Paris, 1926), pp. 72–3;Google ScholarBertrand, ,‘ L'eternel champ de bataille’, Revue des Deux Mondes (15 08 1915).Google Scholar
80 See Bertrand, , ‘Les minutes heureuses’, Revue des Deux Mondes (15 11 1937);Google Scholar and BN, Papiers Brunetiere, v, NAF 25,031, fos. 520–1.
81 See Bertrand, , Le centénaire du Cardinal Lavigerie á la Sorbonne', Revue des Deux Mondes (1 12 1925);Google Scholar and Bertrand, ‘Pour le centenaire de Flaubert, Discours á la Nation Africiane’, Ibid. (1 December 1921).
82 Bertrand, , ‘La Riviéra que j'ai connu’, Revue Universelle (1 03 1931).Google Scholar
83 Bertrand, , ‘ Vers l'unité latine’, Revue des Deux Mondes (15 09 1916).Google Scholar
84 Maurras, , Louis XIV ou I'Homme-Roi (Paris, 1939).Google Scholar
85 See Bertrand, , Devant l'Islam; Bertrand, Idées et Portraits (Paris, 1927),Google Scholar introduction; and Maurras, ‘ Le système de Gobineau’, Gaulois, Germains, Latins, pp. 29–30.
86 Bertrand, , ‘ Vers l'unité latine’, Revue des Deux Mondes (15 09 1916);Google Scholar Bertrand, Le sens de I'ennemi, préface and pp. 34–40.
87 For example, in October 1932 he attended a conference on European reconstruction arranged by the Italian Academy and under the auspices of the Duce. Bertrand, , ‘ Vieillir', Revue des Deux Mondes (15 09 1933).Google Scholar
88 Bertrand, , Hitler (Paris, 1936).Google Scholar In the same year Bertrand, then directeur of the French Academy, delivered a paper at Hans Keller's Nazi-inspired Nationalist International. Bertrand, , L'Internationale—ennemie des nations (Zürich, 1936).Google Scholar
89 Bertrand's publications in these various fields included: L'invasion (Paris, 1907);Google ScholarSaint Augustin (Paris, 1913);Google ScholarHistoire d'Espagne (Paris, 1932);Google Scholar and Les Villes d'Or (Paris, 1921).Google Scholar
90 Bertrand, , ‘Sur un livre de Paul Adam’, Revue des Deux Mondes (1 07 1922).Google Scholar
91 Johannet, Renè, Vie et mort de Péguy (Paris, 1950), pp. 254–7.Google Scholar
92 See Halévy, Daniel, Pays Parisiens (Paris, 1932), pp. 155–204;Google Scholar and Apologie pour notre passé, Cahiers de la Quinzaine, 10e cahier, 11e série (April 1910).
93 Johannet, op. cit., pp. 169–70.
94 Halévy published his first article on Nietzsche in 1891, and several others around the turn of the century. See HaléVy, , Nietzsche (Paris, 1944),Google Scholar préface; and Bianquis, G., Nietzsche en France (Paris, 1929).Google Scholar
95 See Halévy, , La vie de Proudhon (Paris, 1948);Google Scholar and Le mariage de Proudhon (Paris, 1955).Google Scholar
96 Halévy demonstrated this dissatisfaction by unconventional dress and behaviour. Wiriath wrote of him in 1949: ‘II porte une rédingote d'avant 1900, paraît dépaysé dans le présent’, Silhouettes, pp. 36–7. See also Geyl, Pieter, Encounters in History (London, 1963),Google Scholar pp. 183 ff.
97 Halévy, Apologie pour notre passé, pp. 86–90.
98 Halévy, , Courrier de Paris (Paris, 1932), pp. 303–13.Google Scholar
99 His friend Proust wrote to rebuke him for this, seeing it as a betrayal of what they had fought for in the Dreyfus affair. Proust-Rivière, , Correspondance (Paris, 1955), p. 51.Google Scholar
100 Vallat, op. cit. p. 87.
101 Halévy, Courrier de Paris, pp. 1–17.
102 Gueérin, Daniel, Front Populaire, Révolution manqueé (Paris, 1963), p. 49.Google Scholar See also Fidus, , ‘Daniel Haleévy’, Revue des Deux Mondes (15 06 1936),Google Scholar which confirms this testimony.
103 See Haleévy, , Trois épreuves (Paris, 1942);Google Scholar and La France de l'Esprit (1943).
104 Cormier, Chanoine Aristide, La vie intérieure de Charles Maurras (Paris, 1955), p. 160.Google Scholar
105 E.g. Haleé;vy, , Décadence de la Liberté (Paris, 1931).Google Scholar
106 Besse, J.-M., Les Rapports de I'Eglise et de I'Etat dans l'ancienne France (Paris, 1907), pp. 7–9.Google Scholar
107 Halévy, , La république des dues (Paris, 1937), pp. 201–2.Google Scholar
108 After a fairly distinguished career as a politician and ambassador, Benoist announced his adhesion to the Action Française in 1928. His best-known book was Le machiavélisme (1907–37), 3 vols.
109 Roux, op. cit. p. 264; Massis, op. cit. pp. 112–24.
110 Vaugeois, who died during the Great War, founded the Action Française with Maurice Pujo, though Maurras soon assumed predominance; Moreau was also an early member and leader.
111 As Dimier said: ‘Bon nombre de royalistes, qui ne pouvaient pas nous souffrir, nous regardèrent comme on regarde la peinture cubiste au Salon.’ Vingt ans d'Action Française, p. 70. Léon de Montesquiou was one of the few members of the old aristocracy to take a leading part in the Action Française.
112 See Valois, , D'un siècle à l'autre (Paris, 1921), p. 104;Google ScholarMaurras, , Oeuvres Capitales (Paris, 1954), I, 37.Google Scholar
113 Vallat, op. cit. p. 221.
114 This is not to say that the Action Française did not specialize in polemic and abuse: ‘Nous n'insultions pas. Nous diffamions ouvertement, catégoriquement…’. Maurras, , Pour un jeune Français (Paris, 1949), p. 114.Google Scholar But the attitude of the Action Française had nuances even here, as Daudet, , who excelled in journalistic abuse, explained: ‘J'ai horreur de cabotinage, mais je crois qu'il n'y a rien à faire, en politique antidémocratique, sans coups de tonnerre et actes vilement représentatifs.’ Au temps de Judas (Paris, 1920), p. 167.Google Scholar
