Jules Destrée

Jules Destrée (Marcinelle August 21st 1863 - Brussels January 2nd 1936) is a Belgian politician , doctor in right. Humanistic middle-class man, the consecutive lawsuits with the strikes of 1886 will determine his engagement with POB, the ancestor of the socialist party.

One retains of him his famous Lettre with the King , written in 1912, text founder of the awakening of the Walloon identity .

After the First World War, Jules Destrée enters within Large Belgium , a Belgian nationalist movement which becomes the Comité of National policy but Destrée receives the order of the Belgian Working Party to leave this group.

Letter with the King on the separation of Wallonia and the Flanders

It is about a Open letter written by Jules Destrée in 1912 and addressed to the king of the Belgians Albert I {{er}}.

Context

It is in 1911, at the time of the Exposition of Charleroi of 1911, the exposure of old arts of the Hainaut, that Jules Destrée becomes aware of Walloon specificity . Consequently, it will express its claims for the autonomy of Wallonia. In November, in front of the Young Bar of Brussels, it makes a conference on the subject, already evoking the political minorisation of Wallonia: “We are overcome, and overcome controlled against our mentality. ”

This famous letter will be published in the Revue of Belgium of August 15th 1912 and in the Journal of Charleroi of August 24th 1912, then shown by the Gazette of Charleroi and, with Liege, by the Express train (which had launched in June a large Walloon nationalist campaign), then, in serial, by the Meuse .

Of this long text, one retains two sentences:

“And now that introduced here me is near You, thanks to this kind of confession, let to me tell You the truth, the large one and horrifying truth: " There are no Belgians, but Walloons and of Flamands." ”
“Lord (...) You reign out of two people. There is in Belgium, of the Walloons and the Flemings; there are no Belgians. ”

The approval of Albert Ier

The recipient of this letter informed his secretary, Jules Ingenbleek, that it approved the analysis of it: I read the letter of Destrée which, without question, is a literary man of great talent. All that he says is absolutely true, but he is not less true than administrative separation would be an evil involving more disadvantages and dangers of any kind that the current location.

The writer, the man of culture

In Beacons for the history of our letters , Marc Quaghebeur estimates that the Lettre with the King of Destrée is worth more than for the famous sentence: “To the Walloon identity, Jules Destrée devoted his best tests, endeavouring to solve the enigma of the Master of Flémalle, restoring with Rogier of Pasture his origins tournaisiennes and his name. ”

As Minister for sciences and Arts, Jules Destrée founded the royal Académie of language and literature Frenchwomen of Belgium. Paul Valéry paid the most vibrating homage to him.

Quotations

Art requires an absolute freedom. Very forced sterilizes it! The State has only duties with respect to art; it does not have rights , 1896.

External bond

Jules Destrée, anti-semitism and Belgium: Open letter with all those which hawk myths worn down on the Walloons and their history

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