Leon Bloy

Leon Bloy (Périgueux, July 11th 1846 - Borough-the-Queen, November 3rd 1917) is a Romancier and Essayiste French.

It is the second of the seven boys of Jean-Baptiste Bloy, civil servant freemason of the Bridges and Chaussées, and Anne-Marie Carreau, a burning catholic.

Its studies with the college of Périgueux are poor: withdrawn of the establishment in class of 4^e, it continues its formation under the direction of his father, who directs it towards architecture. Bloy starts to write a diary, is tested with the literature by composing a tragedy, Lucrèce , and moves away from the religion. In 1864, his/her father finds an employment in Paris to him. He enters as clerk to the office of the principal architect of the railway Company of Orleans. Poor employee, Bloy dreams to become painter and is registered at the School of the Art schools. He writes his first articles, without however managing to make them publish, and attends the mediums of the revolutionary socialism and the anticlericalism.

In December 1868, it makes the meeting of Jules Barbey d' Aurevilly, who lives opposite at his place, street Rousselet. It is the occasion for him of a deep intellectual conversion, which brings back it to the religion Catholique and brings it closer to the currents traditionalists.

In 1870, it is built-in the regiment of the “Mobiles of the Dordogne”, takes share with the operations of the army of the Loire and is pointed out by its bravery. Demobilized, it returns to Périgueux in April 1871.

It goes back to Paris in 1873, where, on the recommendation of Barbey d' Aurevilly, it enters to “the Universe”, the catholic famous daily newspaper directed by Louis Veuillot. Very quickly, because of its religious intransigence and its violence, it is scrambled with Veuillot and leaves the newspaper as of June 1874. It is then engaged as copyist at the Management of the Recording, while being the voluntary secretary of Barbey d' Aurevilly.

In 1875, it tries without success to make publish its first text, the Jellyfish Astruc , in homage to its guard, then, without more success, the Signet ring of dead the , study poético-mystic on Marie-Antoinette. It binds with Paul Le Bourget and Jean Richepin, which it in vain tries to convert, and obtains a stable job with the Company of the Railroads of North.

Its life rocks again in 1877. It loses his parents, carries out a retirement with the Large Trap door of Soligny (first of a series of vain attempts at monastic life), and meets Anne-Marie Roulé, occasional prostitute whom it collects and converts in 1878. Quickly, passion that live Bloy and the young woman drives in a mystical adventure, accompanied by visions, apocalyptic presentiments - and of an absolute misery since Bloy resigned of its post office to the Company of the Railroads of North.

It is in this context passably exalté that Bloy meets the Tardif abbot of Moidrey, which initiates it with interpretation symbolic system during a stay in Salette, before dying abruptly. The writer will say EC priest later that it held of him “the best” of than it had intellectually, i.e. the idea of a “universal symbolism” that Bloy was going to apply to the history, the contemporary events and its own life. As of this time, he writes the Symbolism of the Appearance (posthumous, 1925).

At the beginning of 1882, Anne-Marie starts to give signs of madness; it is finally interned in June at the hospital of Holy-Anne. Bloy is reached with deepest of itself: “I entered the literary life (…) following an inexpressible catastrophe which had precipitated me of a purely contemplative existence”, will write it later.

In fact, it is in February 1884 that it publishes its first work, the Revealing one of the Earth . The work is devoted to Christophe Colomb, and Barbey d' Aurevilly sign its foreword. In May a collection of articles follows: Matter of a contractor of demolitions . None of the two books has least success. In parallel, Bloy binds with Huysmans then with Villiers of Isle-Adam, scrambles with the team of the review “the black Cat”, in which he collaborated since 1882, and undertakes the publication of a weekly lampoon, “the Stake”, which will have five numbers.

It is at that time also that it starts the drafting of a first largely autobiographical novel, Desperate the . The drama lived by the two main characters, Caïn Marchenoir and Veronique Railwayman, is in fact the transposition of that of Bloy with Anne-Marie, a relation where the sensuality is erased little by little by mysticism. Work is completed in 1886, but the fearing editor of possible lawsuits, its publication takes place only in January 1887, and without much echo.

Bloy begins nevertheless a new novel, Desperate the , first outline of the Poor Woman . But it must stop and be devoted, to live, with a series of articles for the review “Gil Blas” (December 1888 - February 1889).

The death of Barbey d' Aurevilly in April 1889 then that of Villiers of Isle-Adam in August affect it deeply, while its friendship with Huysmans fissures. She will not survive the publication of Là-Bas (1891) where Bloy is found caricatured.

At the end of 1889, it meets Jeanne Molbech, girl of a Danish poet. The young woman converts in Catholicism in March of the following year, and Bloy the wife in May. The couple leaves for Denmark at the beginning of 1891. Bloy is made lecturer then. His/her daughter, Veronique is born in April in Copenhagen (André in 1894, Pierre in 1895 and Madeleine in 1897 will follow). In September, the Bloy family is of return to Paris.

Bloy is annoyed there then with the majority of his/her former friends, and starts to hold its diary. In 1892, it publishes Safety by the Jews , written in response with Jewish France of the anti-semite Edouard Drumont; but its material situation remains precarious, and it must move in suburbs, in Antony. It then takes again its collaboration with “Gil Blas”, initially for a series of tables, anecdotes and military accounts inspired by its experiment of the Guerre of 1870, then for a series of cruel tales. The first will form Sueur of Blood (1893); the seconds will become the désobligeantes Histoires (1894).

The year 1895 is particularly painful for Bloy. Driven out drafting of “Gil Blas” following one énième polemic and thus reduced to misery, it loses its two sons André and Pierre while his wife falls ill. It then takes again to the drafting of the Poor Woman . The novel is finally published in 1897: like Desperate the , it is an autobiographical transposition, and a commercial failure.

In 1898, it publishes first part of its Newspaper, under the title of the Ungrateful Mendiant , but it is still a failure. Bloy again leaves France for Denmark, where it resides of 1899 to 1900.

On its return, it settles in the Parisian east, with Lagny-sur-Marne, which it renames “the Pig-on-Marne”. Consequently, its life merges with its work, punctuated by new removals: to Montmartre in 1904, where it becomes acquainted with the painter Georges Rouault, binds with the couple Maritain and the type-setter Georges Auric, then with Borough-the-Queen in 1911.

Bloy continues the publication of its Newspaper: My Newspaper (1904); Four years of captivity in the Pig-on-Marne (1905); Unsaleable the (1909); the Old man of the Mountain (1911); the Pilgrim of the Absolute (1914).

It publishes in collection the articles which it wrote since 1888, under the title Belluaires and Porchers (1905).

It composes of the tests which are halfway between the meditation and the lampoon, such as the Son of Louis XVI (1900), I show myself (1900) where the criticism of Zola mingles with reflections on the Dreyfus Business and the French policy, the first series of the Interpretation of the Commonplaces (1902), inventory where are analyzed with expressions done everything by which expresses the middle-class silly thing, or Last Columns of the Church (1903), study devoted to the catholic writers “installed” like Coppée, Le Bourget or Huysmans.

It continues in this vein with the Byzantine epopee (1906), That which cries (1908), on the appearance of the Virgin to the two shepherds of Salette, the Blood of Poor the (1909), the Heart of Napoleon (1912), and the second series of the Interpretation of the Commonplaces (1912).

Deeply marked by the bursting of the First World War, it still writes Jeanne d' Arc and Germany (1915), With the threshold of the Apocalypse (1916), the meditations of a recluse in 1916 and In Darkness (posthumous, 1918). The November 3rd 1917, it dies out with Borough-the-Queen surrounded as of his.

Of his work, one retains especially the polemical violence, which mainly explains its failure, but which gives to its style a single glare, force and a drolery. For as much, the inspiration of Bloy is before any nun, marked by the search for an absolute hidden beyond historical appearances. All, according to Bloy, is symbol: taking again the word of Saint Paul, it does not cease affirming that “we see all things in a mirror”, and that it is precisely the mission of the writer who to question this “large mirror with the enigmas”.

Works

Romance:

Desperate the (1887), republication in 2005 by the Editions Underbahn with a foreword of Maurice G. Dantec (ISBN 0-9774224-0-2)
the poor Woman (1897), new edition 1999, the Carousel

Tales:

Sweat of blood (1893)
désobligeantes Stories (1894)

Tests:

the Jellyfish-Astruc 1875,17p. Mercure de France republication, October 1902
the revealing one of the sphere , foreword of Barbey d' Aurevilly, Paris, A.Sauton, 1884
Matter of a contractor of demolitions (1884)
a brelan of excommunicated , ED. Savine (1889)
Christophe Colomb in front of the pigs (1890)
safety by the Jews , Paris A. Demay (1892), republished Into 10/18 (1983)
the signet ring of dead the (1896)
I show myself (1899)
the son of Louis XVI , Mercure de France (1900)
Exégèse of the commonplaces (1902) republication Rivages Pocket
Belluaires and pig-keepers (1905)
That which cries , Mercure de France (1908)
funeral of the naturalism , 1891, ED. Modern With the Beautiful letters
the Byzantine epopee and Gustave Schlumberger , (1906), ED. new review
Life of Melanie written by it even (1912)
the blood of poor the , Paris, Juvent (1909)
On the tomb of Huysmans , 1912, coll of the " Curiosities littéraires"
the symbolism of the appearance , the draper, (1925) (posthumous)
Leon Bloy in front of the pigs (1894)
last columns of the Church (1903)
That which cries (1908)
the heart of Napoleon (1912)
Méditations in darkness (1918)

Periodic:

the Stake (5 volumes of which not published)

Newspaper:

Version altered by the author with the publication:

the ungrateful Beggar
My Newspaper
Four years of captivity in the Pig-on-Marne
Unsaleable the (republication Robert Laffont, coll “Books”, Newspaper I 1892-1907 , ISBN 2221070674)
the Old man of the Mountain
the Pilgrim of the Absolute
With the threshold of the Apocalypse
the Door of Humble the (republication Robert Laffont, “Books”, Newspaper II 1907-1917 , ISBN 2221090977)

not altered Version:

new Newspaper I (1892-1895) , Editions the Age of Man, 1989, ISBN 2825107204
new Newspaper II (1896-1902) , Editions the Age of Man, 2000, ISBN 2825109991
new Newspaper III , Editions the Age of Man, 2006, ISBN 2825118532

The majority of works of Bloy are republished today.

External bonds

Full text of '' Desperate the '' and '' My newspaper ''

Text of Rémy de Gourmont on " Safety by Juifs" of Leon Bloy

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