Andre Gide

Biography

Childhood

André Gide is born on November 22nd, 1869 in Paris. He is the son of Paul Gide, law professor with the faculty of Paris, and Juliette Rondeaux, and nephew of the economist Charles Gide. The first, originating in Uzès, goes down from an austere Protestant family. The second is the middle-class rich person girl rouennais, in the past catholics and converts with Protestantism since some generations. The childhood of Gide is marked by an alternation between stays in Normandy - with Rouen, in the Rondeaux family, and with Castling, maternal property - and of the stays in his/her paternal grandmother, with Uzès, of which he likes the landscapes passionately. It will attach much importance to these contradictory influences, even if it means to exaggerate their antithetic character.

In Paris, Gide live successively street of Médicis then street of Tournon (as from 1875), near the Jardin of Luxembourg. Not far from them settles Anna Shackleton, pious Écossaise formerly placed near the Rondeaux family like controlling and teacher of Juliette, who bound with it of a indéfectible friendship. Anna Shackleton, by its softness, its gaîté and its intelligence, plays a big role near the Gide young person. Evoked in the Narrow Door and If the grain does not die , its death, in 1884, marks it deeply and painfully.

The young Andre starts since 1876 the training of the piano, which will be for him the companion of a whole life. Achieved pianist, it will however regret not having known rather early of excellent professors who had made of him a true musician. In 1877, it integrates the Alsatian École, starting a discontinuous schooling. Indeed, it is returned soon for three months after being itself let go to its “bad habits” during the courses. Shortly after its return classifies of it - “cured” by the threats of castration of a doctor and the sadness of his parents - the disease moves away from there again. In spite of objurgations medical and parental, the masturbation - that it names “vice” and that it does not practice without a strong taste of sin and sad defeat - will take again later its place among its practices, which will make him write at 23 years, that it lived until this “completely virgin and dépravé” age.

The death of his/her father, on October 28th, 1880, draws aside it a little more than one normal schooling. Already marked by the death of a small cousin, Emile Widmer, which causes at his place a deep crisis of anguish, baptized according to Goethe of the German name of Schaudern , André loses, with the death of Paul Gide, a happy and tender relation, which leaves it only vis-a-vis his/her mother: “And I felt suddenly very wrapped by this love, which from now on was closed again on me. ”. Juliette Gide, often presented like a rigorous mother and castratrice, does not test of it less for her child a major love, just like that which Gide carries to him. She will have always in heart to accompany it in her intellectual advance - free to carry contradiction there - and will show a flexibility of spirit quite higher than that which one could await from a Rondeaux young girl. It does not remain about it less than its choking love, its “solicitude unceasingly with the aguets” often exceeded his/her son.

During the year 1881, Juliette Gide initially takes it along in Normandy - it knows there a second Schaudern (“I am not similar with the others! I am not similar with the others! ”) - where she entrusts her instruction to a tutor little inspired; then it leads it to Montpellier, near the uncle Charles Gide. Persecuted by its school-fellows, Gide escapes the college thanks to a more or less simulated nervous disease. After a series of cures, it reinstates the Alsatian École in 1882, before migraines do not drive out it. An alternation of stays between Paris and Rouen follows, where the young Andre is entrusted to professors particular to the variable effectiveness.

Vocations

During one of its stays with Rouen, the autumn 1882, it surprises secret sorrow that his/her Madeleine cousin maintains in connection with the adulterous relations her mother. In its emotion, he discovers “the new East with life”. There is born a long and tortuous relation. Gide is fascinated by the young girl, by her conscience of the evil, its rigid direction and conformist of what it is necessary to do, a sum of differences which attracts it. It builds little by little his cousin a perfect image with which it falls in love, in a purely intellectual way and nevertheless impassioned.

As from 1883, it follows during two years of the private lessons at Mr. Bauer. Near this one he discovers, inter alia, the Journal of Amiel, which will encourage it soon to hold its own diary. His/her cousin Albert Démarest, by his benevolent and opened attention, also plays a big role near him, obtaining for example his reticent mother the access to the paternal library.

Between 1885 and 1888, the young Andre saw one period of religious exaltation - described “as state seraphic” - that it divides with his cousin thanks to a nourished correspondence and common readings. He draws abundantly from the Bible, the authors Greek, and practical asceticism. In 1885, it makes knowledge with the Castling of François de Witt-Guizot, whom it associates a time with his mysticism. The following year, it is Pasteur Élie Allégret, tutor of a summer, which becomes his/her friend.

In 1887, it reinstates the Alsatian École in rhetoric and meets there Pierre Louÿs, with which it engages in an impassioned friendship, which revolves around the literature and of their common will to write. The following year, while preparing with the baccalaureat of philosophy (with the College Henri-Iv), he discovers Schopenhauer. After the baccalaureat (1889), it starts to attend the literary living rooms, meeting many writers. Its first collection, the Books of Andre Walter , thanks to which it hopes to obtain the first literary success and the hand of his cousin, meets the favor of criticism, failing to draw the attention of the public. The Cahiers enable him to meet Barrès (that of the Culte of ego , not that of the Déracinés , to which it will be opposed) and Mallarmé, with the contact of which its religious mysticism is transformed into esthetic mysticism. Whereas is born with Paul Valéry a durable friendship, its relations with Pierre Louÿs - which shows it, like his cousin, of self-centredness - start to worsen. As for Madeleine, she refuses to marry it and moves away timidly from him. Then begin a long fight to overcome its resistance and to convince the family, it so opposed to this union. As a whole, this period of assiduous and vain frequentation of the living rooms - a “obscure selve” - depresses.

Temptation to live

In 1891, to have written shortly after the Treated of the Narcisse , it meets Oscar Wilde. The man frightens it as much as it fascine. For Gide which starts to be detached from Andre Walter, of his ascetic ideal, the rejection of the life, Wilde is the example even of another way.

In spring 1892, a voyage in Germany, without his/her mother, is the occasion to look further into its knowledge of Goethe. Gide then starts to think that “it is a duty which to be done happy”. In the Roman Elegies , it discovers the legitimacy of the pleasure - contrary to the puritanism which it always knew - and it results from this for him a “temptation to live”. It is also the beginning of the tensions with his/her mother. This one however decides to support his/her son in the conquest of Madeleine, against the remainder of the family Rondeaux and the young girl itself, which firmly remains opposite with a union with his/her cousin.

During the summer 1892, he writes the Voyage of Urien . At its exit, the book is ignored by the critic, and the encouragements of the close relations are provided little. With the autumn, after a short passage in barracks - badly lived - and five draft boards, Gide is reformed. The following year is remembered by the birth of a new friendship - exclusively epistolary initially - with Francis James, which Eugene Rouart presented to him.

It is however another friendship, that of Paul Laurens, who will play a decisive part. The young painter, within the framework of a grant, must travel during one year and invites it to join him. This tour, reported in If the grain does not die , will be for Gide the occasion of a moral and sexual stamping which it called of its wishes. They leave in October 1893 for a voyage nine months, in Tunisia, Algérie and Italy. From the beginning, Gide is sick and its state worsens as two young people go down towards the south from the Tunisia. It is however in this context, with Sousse, which he discovers the pleasure with a young boy, Ali. Paul and André settle then with Biskra in Algérie, where their initiation continues, in the arms of the Mériem young person. The sudden intrusion of Juliette Gide, worries for the health of his/her son, comes to break their intimacy, before the voyage does not begin again without it, in April 1894. Syracuse, briefly seen, the discovery of Rome succeeds - that Gide, always morbid, appreciates little - and of Florence. Whereas Paul Laurens returns to France, Gide continues towards the Suisse to consult Doctor Andreae there. This one diagnoses a primarily nervous disease and faith in its health gives again to him. After a passage by Castling, it turns over in Suisse and settles with Brévine, which will be used as decoration with the pastoral Symphonie . It completes there Paludes while thinking of the terrestrial Nourritures .

The marriage

The year 1895 begin with a second voyage in Algérie. Gide again meets Wilde, flanked of Lord Alfred Douglas (“Bosie”), and knows another decisive night in company of a young musician. The correspondence with his/her mother shows an increasingly vehement opposition. However, on its return in France, the meeting again are serene. Madeleine, whom it re-examines at the same time, approaches him finally. The abrupt death of Juliette Gide, on May 31st, 1895 - synonym for his/her son at the same time of pain and release - seems to precipitate the things. Engagement takes place in June, the marriage, which will never be consumed, in October. A honeymoon seven months follows when André, from now on in full health, feels unceasingly braked by a morbid wife. In Swiss, it works with the terrestrial Nourritures , started with Biskra. He also writes a postface with Paludes , which makes work a foreword with the Nourritures , Paludes enclosing in a satirical way the period Symbolist, and the Nourritures opening a new way. Gide will keep the practice to regard its works as stakes on its way, written by reaction the ones with the others and which one can include/understand only in one overall picture.

The voyage of the young grooms continues in Italy then, again, in Algérie, with Biskra, where Gide receive the visit of James and Rouart. From return in France, in spring 1896, Gide learns that he was elected mayor of Castling. If he exercises his mandate conscientiously, he refuses to engage in policy, just as he refuses to enlist in a literary school. During the summer, he writes El Hadj (published in the review of the Centaure ) and completes the Nourritures . Published in 1897, the book receives an eulogistic reception but also criticisms so much on the bottom (Francis James and others reproach him its individualism and its indecent joy) that on the form, critics paining to include/understand the structure of work, except notable for Henri Ghéon. Between the two men is tied a major friendship which will last until the conversion of Ghéon to Catholicism in 1916.

Theater and chronicles

During the winter 1898, Gide starts to be interested in the Affaire Dreyfus. It signs the petition of support with Zola, but refuses to break the dialog with those which, in its entourage, take the opposite party. Without compromising, he endeavors to include/understand, if not to convince, his adversaries. A ten weeks stay in Rome - that he appreciates finally - is marked by the discovery of Nietzsche. It finds at the philosopher his most secret thoughts: “The great recognition that I keep to him, it is to have opened a royal road where I did not have, perhaps, traced that a path”. He works with Saül . Counterpoint with the Foods , work must translate the danger of a too great provision with the reception, the risk of dissolution of the personality. Once the completed part, Gide vainly is obstinated to put it in scene, which explains its late publication (1903). Year 1898 also results in an activity of critic and chronicler increasingly supported, in particular in the Hermitage , re-examined which it does not direct all while playing a preeminent part there. It speaks there about Nietzsche, spoken there funeral in praise of Mallarmé, answers it the Déracinés of Barrès… It is however in the White Revue that it publishes Philoctète . A little later the exit of the Prométhée badly connected , misunderstood by criticism, passes unperceived.

To spring 1899, Gide binds with the husbands van Rysselberghe. The Books of the Small Lady (Maria van Rysselberghe), started in 1918, without the knowledge of the writer, and continued until his death, constitute for the biographers an invaluable testimony. The following year, Gide starts a regular collaboration with the White Review . Lastly, in 1901, he manages to make assemble one of his parts. But the first of the King Caudaule (written in 1899) is a disaster. The part is éreintée by criticism. Gide takes the party of snober then the general public and the theater.

Of Immoraliste with the narrow Door

In 1902, Immoraliste obtains more success but the author, too quickly assimilated by the critic to the character of Michel, feels misunderstood. According to him, Michel is only one virtuality of itself, of which it is purged while writing. After Immoraliste , it knows a bad patch which is prolonged until the publication of the narrow Door in 1909. Meanwhile, he pains to write, hardly publishing but Prétextes (collection of criticisms, in 1903), Amyntas (in 1906, without any critical repercussion) and the Retour of the prodigal son (1907). He also publishes a homage to Wilde, in 1902: the battle thus engaged to preserve the memory of the writer against the underhand attacks of Bosie will continue in If the grain does not die .

During these a few years, new friendships are tied or deepen (with Jacques Copeau, Jean Schlumberger, Charles of the Boss). Others are demolished gradually, with James in particular, converted by Paul Claudel, even if the dissensions between the two friends precede this conversion. Gide also is undertaken by Claudel, which describes itself of “Zealot” and “fanatic”. This last fails however, because Gide is less tempted to convert than to live the experiment of the faith through Claudel, by empathy. It is also during this period, after having sold Castling in 1900, qu' it makes build its house with Auteuil, house which it considers uninhabitable, that Madeleine takes immediately seizes up about it, but in which it will live twenty-two years (1906-1928).

The end of the decade is marked by a return to the writing, with the narrow Door , and by the creation of the Nouvelle French Review . the narrow Door is the first book of Gide to bring back some subsidies to him. Criticism does not dry up praises but once more, it feels misunderstood. Just as one had compared it to Michel, one compares it from now on to Alissa, whereas its effort of empathy towards its heroin is of nothing an approval. The ironic and critical dimension of work passes largely unperceived.

As for the NRF , if Gide is not officially the director, he is at least the leader, surrounded by Jean Schlumberger, Jacques Copeau… In 1911, the group joins Gaston Gallimard to lean a publisher with the review. Isabelle will be one of the first titles of the catalog.

Corydon

It is with this period that Gide starts to write Corydon , test socratic which tends to fight the prejudices towards the Homosexualité and the Pédérastie. Its decision to write made following the Renard lawsuit, which sees a marked man of murder, less because of the loads which weigh against him that of its “unnamable manners”. The friends to whom Gide submits the outline of the treaty are frightened by the scandal and the reflection which it could have on its public life and deprived, so much and so that Gide initially makes print only the first two chapters, anonymously and of small number, in 1910. It will supplement its work in 1917-18, to publish it under its name only in 1924.

1913 are marked by the birth of a news great friendship, linking Gide with Roger Martin of Gard, after the publication of Jean Barois by Gallimard. Faithful and critical friend stripped of flattering indulgence, Roger Martin of Gard will remain in the close guard of Gide until the death of this last.

The following year, publication of the Hollow of the Vatican , conceived as “a book confusing, full with holes, of lacks, but also of recreations, bizarrery and partial successes” is a failure. The book dissatisfied in particular Claudel which detects accents there pederastic. After having summoned Gide to be explained, he refuses from now on any collaboration with him. Gradually évincé of the effective direction of the NRF , left with Jacques River and Gaston Gallimard, Gide is désœuvré when the First World War starts. After a first nationalist movement, it develops a reflection on the possible complementarity between France and the Germany, vision with a future of cultural Europe, which it will defend as of the end of the war (meetings with Walter Rathenau and). Clashing with reality, it is committed in a Franco-Belgian hearth and becomes exhausted there.

1916 are the year of a new temptation to convert with Catholicism. The crisis is caused by the conversion of Ghéon. For Gide, the problem is less monk than moral: it balances between a paganism which enables him to continue in the joy and a religion which gives him weapons to fight its sin. Its reflection results in the writing of Numquid and you . With final, conversion does not take place, by rejection of the ecclesiastical institution, refusal to substitute an institutional truth for a personal truth and to give up its free examination. The dogmatism of the catholics who surround it, such Paul Claudel, also draws aside it from this way. To continue its advance, it begins the drafting of If the grain does not die .

The following year is quite different. In May, Gide starts a connection with the young person Marc Allégret. Whereas desire and love always had walked on separated, the heart and the body vibrate this time in unison. While it takes again Corydon , Henri Ghéon moves away definitively. In 1918, it is Madeleine who is detached from him. While he travels to England with Marc, a chance comes to confirm the doubts that it still succeeded in concealing. It burns the letters of her husband and is folded up at it, in Cuverville. Gide, that this destruction leaves inconsolable ( “I suffer as if it had killed our child” ), becomes the impotent spectator of the slow etiolation of that which always constitutes the axis of its life. This drama leaves him a new freedom however: that to publish Corydon and its memories.

Glory and its ransom

Within a NRF divided (the publisher leant with the review becomes the Gallimard Bookstore), Gide keeps the function guardian symbolic system of figure. Author, it is also charged to unearth new talents and to make possible the co-operation between old and newcomers (Aragon, Breton, Montherlant). In the Twenties, its reputation does not cease growing. One listens to this voice which speaks to transform the spirits without evoking revolution. One also recognizes, with enthusiasm or consternation, his role of guide of youth. He preserve the impression to be famous without to be read nor included/understood.

Its influence is worth virulent catholic line attacks to him (Henri Massis, Henri Béraud). One reproaches him his values, his intellectualism, the seizure of NRF on the French literature and even his language. Gide, firmly supported by Roger Martin of Gard, is defended little but defended NRF . Several intellectuals of right-hand side (Leon Daudet, François Mauriac), which admires it in spite of their divergences, refuse to take part in this denigration campaign, without to defend it. Gide besides will give to its enemies what to nourish their attacks, by finally publishing Corydon , which had been the object into 1920 only of one limited pulling, intended for the close relations. All his/her friends tried to dissuade it, even, once again, to convert it. He prefers to bring into play his situation, reminding the painful case of Wilde, which justifies its will to fall the mask. Finally, the publication (1924) falls into the indifference, at the same time because the book is bad, too conclusive, and because the opinion, if prompt with raising other taboos, is not yet ready to face that one. The scandal will come two years later, with If the grain does not die .

Paternity in Congo

Meanwhile the life of Gide was upset by another event: birth of Catherine (April 1923) the fact father, with the complicity of Elisabeth van Rysselberghe, girl of Maria, with whom it had written: “I badly resign myself to see you without child and of not to have myself”. Catherine Gide will be officially recognized by her father only after the death of Madeleine, with whom this birth is carefully hidden. Gide also deals with the establishment of Marc Allégret. It thus composes a family except standard, which settles with him street Vaneau, when it sells the Montmorency villa in 1928. In this new residence, a room is dedicated to Madeleine and her absent presence, which weighs on him. the Counterfeiters , published in 1925, is the first book which is not written according to it. In spite of the modernity of the only work which he regards as a novel, Gide fears to be dated, suffers from apathy. Its voyage to the Congo, with Marc Allégret, is the occasion of a new dash.

During this eleven months tour, Gide finds the pleasure of exoticism and the taste of the natural history. But what was not to be that a voyage of esthète takes in spite of him another turning, vis-a-vis the reality of colonialism. He revolts initially against the practical application of the colonial ideal, denouncing administrative errors and inexperience. Then its investigations lead it to perceive the perversity of the entire system, the voluntary inexistence of the administration which leaves all freedoms to the companies. He also understands that the Parisian leaders are not unaware of anything of these practices and guarantee them. He then gives his testimony to Blum, which publishes it in Popular the ( Voyage to Congo will be published by the NRF in 1927). The marked line and companies deny with the Gide writer competence to analyze colonialism. However administrative surveys corroborate its assertions. A debate with the National Assembly is completed on many governmental promises. Gide fears that the opinion does not fall asleep again but he refuses to take on the colonial question a position of principle. The time of the political commitment did not come.

Engagement and disillusion

Conversions with Catholicism multiply around Gide (Jacques Copeau, Charles Of the Boss). Many watches for its rendering. Their desire to see falling the impregnable citadel is all the more acute as Gide has undeniable Christian roots and that it advances on the same ground as them, that of morals and the spirit. Wearied attacks like attempts at seduction, Gide retorts by publishing the Nouvelles terrestrial Foods (1935).

In spite of the composition of this Gospel of the joy, he suffers in the Thirties from certain breathlessness, which touches the writing as well as the loves or the voyages, for which he feels from now on more curiosity than of fever. Under the influence of two newcomers, Pierre Herbart - future general Vigan, which marries Elisabeth van Rysselberghe in 1931 - - and Bernard Groethuysen, it is interested in Communism, being filled with enthusiasm for the Russian experiment in which it sees a hope, a laboratory of the new man, whom he calls - on the moral, psychological and spiritual level - of its wishes.

While taking this route, Gide also yields to temptation to leave esthetic purism and to make use of the influence acquired with its defending body. Its standpoint is hardly included/understood by its close relations. Roger Martin of Gard badly agrees to see ending in a “act of faith” a life occupied to fight the dogmas. Moreover, if Gide puts its glory well in danger, it brings to the cause only the guarantee of its name and really does not feel in its place in the political meetings. In this business, it engages only its person - quite conscious of being instrumentalized - and not her feather, refusing for example to adhere to the Association revolutionary writers and artists: it cannot be solved to compromise the autonomy of the literary field, which it always defended.

Many of its new allies look with distrust this high bourgeoisie who comes to them, finding, following the example Jean Guéhenno, which “the thoughts of Mr. Gide too often seem to cost him nothing. Mr. Gide did not suffer enough” ( Europe , February 15th, 1933). Quickly, whereas it agrees to chair all that one asks him to chair, its regimbe spirit against orthodoxy. It develops for itself a vision of the Communism which reconciles egalitarianism and individualism, evoking in its newspaper “a communist religion” which frightens it. It is particularly active in various actions antifascists. In 1936, the Soviet authorities invite it in the USSR. Accompanied by some close relations (Jef Last, Pierre Herbart, Louis Guilloux, Eugene Dabit), it agrees to leave. Its illusions fall: instead of the new man, it finds only the Totalitarisme. It accepts bitter disappointment gradually that divide its comparses. Then it decides to publish its testimony, Retour of the USSR . The PCF, Aragon at the head, and the Soviet authorities initially try to prevent the publication then from choking the business by silence. In reaction to the lawsuits of Moscow, Gide returns to the load with Retouches on my return of the USSR]] , where it is not satisfied any more to announce observation, but draws up an indictment against Stalinism. “That the people of the workers understand that he is deceived by the Communists, as those are it today by Moscow”. It is then a new outburst against him. One treats it of fascist, one pushes it towards the line, of which he refuses to join the rows. The hour of disengagement sounded. The new man is not in the USSR, the policy did not bring to him until it waited. While supporting the cause of the Spanish republicans (it supports in particular the calumniated militants of the working Parti of Marxist unification), it recovers quickly from its disillusion (without pouring in the heinous anticommunism or the bad conscience) and tests replonger in the literature. He regrets to have “désappris to live”, him which “knew so well”.

This political mourning succeeds a more intimate mourning, that of Madeleine, dead on April 17th, 1938. After having cursed her husband, this one had ended up accepting the remote but essential role that it did not cease playing near him, as well as the love so particular that Gide dedicated to him. Love whose he confesses the strangeness and the difficulties in And nunc manet in you , whose first pulling is reserved to the close friends.

Gide leaves to research its lost serenity. The historical context is unfavorable. The end of the Guerre of Spain - “heroism ridiculed, betrayed faith and triumphing cheating” - fills up its “heart of dislike, indignation, rancour and despair”. Old age removes also certain pleasures to him: the piano which its hands do not traverse also any more flexibly; the voyages for which it does not feel any more enthusiasm that it could make so well divide; the desire which dies out.

The second world war

It takes only a few days for Gide to pass from approval to the reprobation of the marshal Pétain. Quickly, it is shown to have contributed to the defeat because of its influence on youth. The newspapers of collaboration make its lawsuit. The Germans take again in hand the NRF , from now on directed by Drieu La Rochelle. Gide refuses to join the management committee. It gives a text to the first number then, in front of the orientation taken by the review, abstains from any other publication, following the example Mauriac. In spite of the friendly or unfriendly pressures, it publishes in Le Figaro its will to give up NRF . He also refuses a place of academician.

With the atmosphere of Paris, he prefers an exile gilded and serene on the Riviera, occasionally publishing articles of literary criticism in Le Figaro . As from 1942, the attacks directed against him (and well of others) intensify, without it being able to be defended, due to censure. Only, it embarks for Tunis. During the occupation of the city, it notes with fear the effects of the Antisémitisme. More than of other deprivations, he suffers from his insulation. Then it leaves Tunis released for Algiers, where it meets the general De Gaulle. It accepts the direction (nominal) of the Arch , a literary review directed against NRF .

After the Release, it chooses not to return directly to Paris. It fears the purification, not for itself or its close relations, none being compromised, but for the dangerous unanimity which is created at this time and which it considers totalitarian. Its nuances and its doubts are worth to him new attacks of Aragon. It leaves Jean Paulhan, Mauriac and Herbart to take its defense. On its return, in May 1946, he pains to find his place in a surpolitized literary world, him which always wanted a literature autonomous. Whereas Sartre uses readily its notoriety with fine policies, Gide refuses to assume his, seeking to flee its obligations. To be expressed, he prefers the publication of Thésée to the platforms.

End

After 1947, he does not write almost any more. While affirming high and strong that he does not disavow anything - including Corydon , its book more engaged and less successful -, the scandalous writer which he was accepts the homages of the preserving institutions (Oxford, Nobel Prize of literature in 1947), evidence according to him which he was right to accept the “virtue of the small number” which ends early or late up carrying it. He also reaffirms the role of the detached intellectual of the topicality. It is by the literature that it was drawn up against the prejudices of its time and its influence is less indebted with its political commitments than with its Article Sartre decides to follow another way: without ceasing being an arts person, it makes the good share with the political commitment. One moving meets filmed gathers the two men for a kind of passage of witness: Gide leaves with Sartre the load of “capital contemporary” and the aureole of hatred which accompanies it.

Its main concern is from now on the publication of its last works, in particular its Journal (first volume in 1939, second in 1950, with some cuts each time) which it does not want to leave with the load of its family and spiritual descent. In July 1950, it begins a last book, Ainsi is it or the plays are made , in which it endeavors to let run its feather. “I even believe that, to the article of death, I will say myself: hold! he dies”. Despotic patient surrounded by his faithful, it forwards himself to a calm death, stripped of anguish and without the religious start which still some watched for. Deceased on February 19th, 1951, one buries it at Madeleine, in Cuverville, a few days later. Its work is put at the Index by the the Vatican in 1952.

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