Charles Maurras
Encyclopedia
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras (ʃaʁl moʁas; 20 April 1868 – 16 November 1952) was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française
, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism
and "nationalisme integral"
. A major tenet of integral nationalism was put forth by Maurras as "A true nationalist places his country above everything". A political theorist, a major intellectual influence in early 20th-century Europe, his views anticipated some of the ideas of fascism.
family, and brought up by his mother and grand-mother in a Catholic and monarchist
environment. In his early teens he became deaf. Like many other French politicians, he was heavily affected by the defeat during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War
. After the 1871 Commune and the 1879 defeat of Marshall Mac-Mahon's Moral Order government, French society slowly found a consensus for the Republic
, symbolized by the rallying of the Orleanist
s to the Republic. In his youth, Maurras was a disciple of the poet Frédéric Mistral
and shared the federalist
thesis of the Provençal
Félibrige
movement. He published his first article, at 17 years-old, in the Annales de philosophie chrétienne review. He then collaborated to various reviews, including L’Événement, La Revue bleue, La Gazette de France or La Revue encyclopédique, where he praised Classicism
and attacked Romanticism
.
However, some time in his youth, Maurras lost his faith and became an agnostic over time. At the age of seventeen he came to Paris and started literary criticism
in 1887 in the Catholic and Orleanist Observateur. At this time, Maurras was influenced by Orleanism, as well as German philosophy
reviewed by Léon Ollé-Laprune
, an influence of Bergson, or by the philosopher Maurice Blondel
, one of the inspirations of Christian "modernists" who would later become his most bitter opponents. He came to know the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral
in 1888 and shared the federalist
thesis of Mistral's Félibrige
movement. The same year he met the nationalist writer Maurice Barrès
.
In 1890, Maurras approved Cardinal Lavigerie's call for the Rallying of Catholics to the Republic, marking his opposition not to the Republic in itself but to "sectarian Republicanism."
Beside this Orleanist affiliation, Maurras shared some traits with Bonapartism
. In December 1887, he demonstrated to the cry of "Down with the robbers!" during the decorations scandal which had involved Daniel Wilson, the son-in-law of the President Jules Grévy
. Despite this, he opposed at first the Boulangist movement. But in 1889, after a visit to Maurice Barrès
, Barrès voted for the Boulangist candidate ; despite his "anti-semitism of the heart" ("anti-sémitisme de coeur"), he decided to vote for a Jew.
In 1894–95 he briefly worked in Barrès' La Cocarde (The Cockade)'s newspaper, although he sometimes opposed Barrès on his views on the French Revolution. La Cocarde supported General Boulanger who almost toppled the Republic in the late 1880s.
During a trip to Athens
for the First Olympic Games in 1896, he came to criticize the Greek democratic system
of the polis
, which he considered doomed because of its internal divisions and its openness towards métèques (foreigners).
He became involved in politics at the time of the Dreyfus affair
, appearing at the forefront of the Anti-Dreyfusard side. He supported Colonel Henry
's forgery blaming Dreyfus
, as he considered that defending Dreyfus weakened the Army and the Justice system. According to Maurras, Dreyfus was to be sacrificed on the altar of national interest
. But when the Republican nationalist thinker Barrès accused Dreyfus of being guilty because of his Jewishness, Maurras went a step further, vilifying the "Jewish Republic". While Barrès' anti-Semitism found its roots both in the pseudo-scientific racist
contemporary theories and on Biblical exegesis, Maurras decried "scientific racism" in favor of a more radical "state anti-Semitism."
In 1899 he founded the Action Française
(AF) review, an offshoot of the newspaper created by Maurice Pujo
and Henri Vaugeois
the preceding year. Maurras quickly became influential in the movement, and converted Pujo and Vaugeois to monarchism, which became the movement's principal cause. With Léon Daudet
he edited the movement's review La Revue de l'Action Française, which in 1908 became a daily newspaper under the shorter title L'Action Française. The AF mixed integral nationalism
with reactionary
themes, shifting the nationalist ideology, beforehand supported by left-wing Republicans, to the right-side of the political field. It found a wide readership during the implementation of the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State. In 1899 he wrote a short notice in favour of monarchy, "Dictateur et roi" ("Dictator and King"), and then in 1900 his "Enquête sur la monarchie" (Investigations on Monarchy), published in the Legitimist mouthpiece La Gazette de France, which made him famous. Maurras also published thirteen articles in Le Figaro
in 1901 and 1902, as well as six articles between November 1902 and January 1903 in Edouard Drumont
's anti-Semitic newspaper, La Libre Parole.
Between 1905 and 1908, when the Camelots du Roy
monarchist league was founded, Maurras introduced the concept of political activism through extra-parliamentary leagues, theorizing the possibility of a coup d'état. Maurras also founded the Ligue d'Action Française in 1905, whose mission was to recruit members for the Action Française, with the aim of establishing the Duc de Guise
on the throne.
) against the German Empire
. During the war, the Jewish businessman Emile Ullman was forced to resign from the board of directors of the Comptoir d'Escompte after Maurras accused him of being a German agent. He then criticized the Treaty of Versailles
for not being harsh enough on the Germans and condemned Aristide Briand
's policy of cooperation with Germany.
In 1925 he called for the murder of Abraham Schrameck, the Interior Minister of Paul Painlevé
's Cartel des Gauches
's (Left-Wing Cartel) government, who had ordered the disarming of the Far right leagues
. For this death threat, he was sentenced to a year on parole. He also threatened to death the President of the Council Léon Blum
, leader of the Popular Front
, in the Action Française of 15 May 1936, underscoring his Jewish origins (he once called him an "old semitic camel".) This other death threat earned him eight months of prison, from 29 October 1936 to 6 July 1937. Fearing Communism, he joined the pacifist
s' camp and praised the Munich Agreement
in 1938, which the President of the Council Édouard Daladier
had signed without any illusions. He also wrote in Action Française:
During 1930s – especially after the 6 February 1934 crisis
—many of Action Française members turned to fascism, such as Robert Brasillach
, Lucien Rebatet
, Abel Bonnard
, Paul Chack, Claude Jeantet
, etc. Most of them belonged to the staff of the fascist newspaper Je suis partout
.
Influencing António de Oliveira Salazar
's Estado Novo regime in Portugal, Maurras also supported Francisco Franco
and, until spring 1939, Benito Mussolini
's Fascist regime
. Opposing Adolf Hitler
because of his germanophobia, Maurras himself criticized the racist policies of Nazism
in 1936, and requested an integral translation of Mein Kampf
– some of its passages had been censored in the French edition.
After his failure against Charles Jonnart
in 1924 to be elected to the French Academy, he succeeded in entering the ranks of the "Immortals" on 9 June 1938, replacing Henri-Robert
, winning by 20 votes against 12 to Fernand Gregh
. He was received in the Academy on 8 June 1939 by Henry Bordeaux
.
and Maurice Pujo
praised General Charles de Gaulle
, Maurras quickly came to acclaim the fall of the Third Republic
, replaced by Marshal Philippe Pétain
's Vichy France
, as a "divine surprise". Vichy's reactionary program of a Révolution Nationale
(National Revolution) was fully approved of by the leader of the Action Française, who inspired large parts of it. The monarchist newspaper was forbidden in the Occupied Zone and under Vichy censorship in the Southern Zone from November 1942. In La Seule France (1941) Maurras argued for a policy of France d'abord ("France First"), whereby France would restore itself politically and morally under Pétain, resolving the root causes in his eyes of France's defeat in 1940, before dealing with the issue of the foreign occupation. This position was contrasted to the attitude of the Gaullists, who fled France and continued only a military struggle. Maurras savaged the pre-war French governments for taking an increasingly bellicose position vis a vis Germany at precisely the same time that these governments were weakening France, militarily, socially and politically, thereby making France's downfall in 1940 all but inevitable. Maurras also criticized the 1940 Statute on Jews
for being too moderate. At the same time he continued to express elements of his longstanding germanophobia by arguing in La Seule France that Frenchmen must not be drawn to the German model and by hosting anti-German conferences and he opposed both the "dissidents
" in London and the collaborators in Paris and Vichy (such as Lucien Rebatet
, Robert Brasillach
, Pierre Laval
, or Marcel Déat
). In 1943, the Germans planned to arrest Charles Maurras.
An admirer (before the war) of Charles de Gaulle
, who himself had been influenced by Maurras' integralism
, he then harshly criticized the General in exile. He later claimed he believed that Pétain was playing a "double game", working for an Allied
victory in secret.
Maurras was arrested in September 1944 with Maurice Pujo
, and indicted by High Court of Lyon for "complicity with the enemy" on the basis of articles published by Maurras since the war. At the issue of the trial, during which there were many irregularities in the proceedings (such as false dating or truncated quotations), Maurras was sentenced to life imprisonment and deprivation of civil liberties. He was automatically expelled from the Académie Française (a measure included in the 26 December 1944 ordinance). His response to his conviction was to exclaim "C'est la revanche de Dreyfus!" (It's Dreyfus's revenge!) Meanwhile the Académie Française
declared his seat vacant instead of expelling him, as it had done for Pétain, sparing him the fate of Abel Hermant
and Abel Bonnard
. They waited until his death to elect his successor, Antoine de Lévis-Mirepoix, who was himself close to the Action Française and collaborated with Pierre Boutang
's La Nation Française
monarchist review.
Imprisoned in Riom
and then Clairvaux
, Maurras was released in March 1952 to enter a hospital, assisted by the writer Henry Bordeaux
, who repeatedly asked President of the Council Vincent Auriol
to pardon Maurras. He was transferred to a clinic in Tours
, where he soon died. Although weakened he collaborated with Aspects de la France, which had replaced the outlawed Action Française review in 1947. In his last days, he returned to the Catholic faith of his childhood.
.
") and a belief in an ordered society based on a strong leadership. These were the bases of his support for both a French monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church. Yet he had no personal loyalty to the house of Bourbon-Orléans
, and was a convinced agnostic for nearly all of his adult life.
His work particularly marked the French right, including its far-right component, as he succeeded in theorizing for all of the various right-wing families an aggressive political strategy, which contrasted with the Legitimists' apathy for political action. He managed to bring together the paradox of a reactionary
thought which would actively change history, a form of Counter-revolution opposed to simple conservatism. According to the historian Alain-Gérard Slama, Maurras' efficiency was to bring together the various right-wing families of France (Legitimism, Orleanism and Bonapartism
) and to give them a theory of political action as well as a positive ideology, Integralism, whereas the right-wings were usually characterized by their sole opposition to the left-wings. His "integral nationalism" rejected all democratic principles which he judged contrary to "natural inequality", criticizing all evolution since the 1789 French Revolution
and advocated the return to a hereditary monarchy.
Like many people in Europe at the time, he was haunted by the idea of "decadence
", partly inspired by his reading of Taine
and Renan
, and admired classicism
. He felt that France had lost its grandeur during the Revolution of 1789
, a grandeur inherited from its origins as a province of the Roman Empire
and forged by, as he put it, "forty kings who in a thousand years made France." The French Revolution, he wrote in the Observateur Français, was negative and destructive.
He traced this decline further back, to the Enlightenment
and the Reformation
; he described the source of the evil as "Swiss ideas", a reference to the adopted nation of Calvin
and the birth nation of Rousseau
. Maurras further blamed France's decline on "Anti-France", which he defined as the "four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons and foreigners" (his actual word for the latter being the xenophobic term of métèques). Indeed, to him the first three were all "internal foreigners."
Antisemitism and anti-Protestantism
were common themes in his writings. He believed that the Reformation
, the Enlightenment
, and the eventual outcome of the French Revolution
had all contributed to individuals putting themselves before the nation, with consequent negative effects on the latter, and that democracy and liberalism were only making matters worse.
Although Maurras advocated the return of monarchy, in many ways Maurras did not fit into the French monarchist tradition at all. His support for the monarchy and for Catholicism was explicitly pragmatic, as he felt that a state religion was the only way of maintaining public order. By contrast with Maurice Barrès
, a theorist of a kind of Romantic nationalism
based on the Ego, Maurras claimed to base his views on reason rather than on sentiment, loyalty and faith.
Paradoxically, he admired the positivist
philosopher Auguste Comte
, like many of the Third Republic
leaders he detested, in which he found a counter-balance to German idealism
. Whereas the Legitimist monarchists declined to engage in political action, retreating into an intransigently conservative Catholicism and an indifference to a modern world they saw as irredeemably wicked and apostate, Maurras was prepared to engage in political action, both orthodox and unorthodox (the Action Française's Camelots du Roi league frequently engaged in street violence with left-wing opponents, as well as Marc Sangnier
's Le Sillon
). His slogan was the phrase "La politique d'abord!" ("Politics first!"). Other influences included Frédéric Le Play, English empiricists, who allowed him to reconcile Cartesian rationalism with empiricism, and La Tour du Pin.
Maurras' religious views were likewise less than orthodox. He supported the political Catholic Church both because it was intimately bound up with French history and because its hierarchical structure and clerical elite mirrored his image of an ideal society. He considered the Church to be the mortar which held France together, and the chain linking all Frenchmen together. However, he distrusted the Gospels, written, as he put it, "by four obscure Jews", but admired the Catholic Church for having allegedly concealed much of the Bible's "dangerous teachings". Maurras' interpretation of the Gospels and his integralist teachings were fiercely criticised by many Catholic clergy. However, towards the end of his life Maurras eventually converted from agnosticism to Catholicism.
Notwithstanding his religious unorthodoxy, Maurras gained a large following among French monarchists and Catholics, including the Assumptionists
and the Orleanist
pretender to the French throne, the count of Paris
. Nonetheless, his agnosticism worried parts of the Catholic hierarchy and in 1926, Pope Pius XI
placed some of Maurras's writings on the Index of Forbidden Books
and condemned the Action Française movement as a whole. Seven of Maurras' books has already been placed on this list in 1914 and a dossier on Maurras had been submitted to Pius X. However, unlike Pius XI, he took no action on this dossier. It should be noted that it was not just his agnosticicm which worried the Catholic hierarchy but that by insisting upon politiques d'abord he questioned the primacy of the spiritual and thus the teaching authority of the Church and the authority of the Pope himself. That this was the heart of the matter is shown by Jacques Maritain
's book Primauté du Spirituel. Maritain was associated with L’Action Française and knew Maurras. While his unease with the movement pre-dates the 1926 crisis, it was this which occasioned his split from Maurras and L’Action Française. This papal condemnation was a great shock to many of his followers, who included a not inconsiderable number of French clergy, and caused great damage to the Action Française. It was lifted however in 1939, a year after Maurras was elected to the Académie française.
Maurras was evidently a leading exponent of what Allan Bloom
called (in his The Closing of the American Mind) the "conservatism of Throne and Altar", and an intellectual descendant of Joseph de Maistre
, one of the prime thinkers of the Counter-Revolution.
, Far Right movements, Latin Conservatism
, and integral nationalism
. He and the Action Française have influenced many people and movements including General Francisco Franco
, José Antonio Primo de Rivera
, António Sardinha
, Leon Degrelle
, and autonomist movements in Europe. The Christian Democrat Jacques Maritain
was also close to Maurras before the papal condemnation of the AF in 1927, and criticized democracy in one of his early writing, Une opinion sur Charles Maurras ou le devoir des catholiques. Furthermore, Maurrassism also influenced many writings from members of the Organisation de l'armée secrète who theorized "counter-revolutionary warfare". In Spain, the Acción Española
took not only its far right monarchism but also its name from Maurras's movement.
The influence extended to Latin America, such as in Mexico where Jesús Guiza y Acevedo, was nicknamed "the little Maurras", as well as the historian Carlos Pereyra
or the Venezuelan author Vanenilla Lanz, who wrote a book titled Cesarismo democratico (Democratic Caesarism). Others figures influenced include the Brazilian Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
. Maurras' thought also influenced Catholic fundamentalist supporters of the Brazilian dictatorship (1964–85) as well as the Cursillos de la Cristiandad (Christian Courses), similar to the Cité Catholique
group, which were founded in 1950 by the bishop of Ciudad Real
, Mgr. Hervé. The Argentine militarist Juan Carlos Onganía
, who overthrew Arturo Illia in a military putsch in 1969, as well as Alejandro Agustín Lanusse
, who succeeded Onganía after another coup, had participated in the Cursillos de la Cristiandad, as did also the Dominican militarists Antonio Imbert Barrera
and Elías Wessin y Wessin
, chief of staff of the military and an opponent of the restoration of the 1963 Constitution after Rafael Trujillo's overthrow. In Argentina his influence was also felt amongst the nationalist writers of the 1920s and 1930s such as Rodolfo Irazusta
and Juan Carulla
.
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism
National Catholicism
National Catholicism was part of the ideological identity of Francoism, the dictatorial regime with which Francisco Franco governed Spain between 1936 and 1975...
and "nationalisme integral"
Integral Nationalism
Integral nationalism is one of five types of nationalism defined by Carlton Hayes in his 1928 book The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism....
. A major tenet of integral nationalism was put forth by Maurras as "A true nationalist places his country above everything". A political theorist, a major intellectual influence in early 20th-century Europe, his views anticipated some of the ideas of fascism.
Before World War I
Maurras was born in an old ProvençalProvence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
family, and brought up by his mother and grand-mother in a Catholic and monarchist
Monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...
environment. In his early teens he became deaf. Like many other French politicians, he was heavily affected by the defeat during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
. After the 1871 Commune and the 1879 defeat of Marshall Mac-Mahon's Moral Order government, French society slowly found a consensus for the Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
, symbolized by the rallying of the Orleanist
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
s to the Republic. In his youth, Maurras was a disciple of the poet Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral was a French writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language. Mistral won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1904 and was a founding member of Félibrige and a member of l'Académie de Marseille...
and shared the federalist
Federalist
The term federalist describes several political beliefs around the world. Also, it may refer to the concept of federalism or the type of government called a federation...
thesis of the Provençal
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
Félibrige
Félibrige
The Félibrige is a literary and cultural association founded by Frédéric Mistral and other Provençal writers to defend and promote Occitan language and literature...
movement. He published his first article, at 17 years-old, in the Annales de philosophie chrétienne review. He then collaborated to various reviews, including L’Événement, La Revue bleue, La Gazette de France or La Revue encyclopédique, where he praised Classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
and attacked Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
.
However, some time in his youth, Maurras lost his faith and became an agnostic over time. At the age of seventeen he came to Paris and started literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
in 1887 in the Catholic and Orleanist Observateur. At this time, Maurras was influenced by Orleanism, as well as German philosophy
German philosophy
German philosophy, here taken to mean either philosophy in the German language or philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Leibniz through Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger...
reviewed by Léon Ollé-Laprune
Léon Ollé-Laprune
Léon Ollé-Laprune was a French Catholic philosopher.-Life:Under the influence of the philosopher Elme Marie Caro and of Père Gratry's book Les Sources, Ollé-Laprune, after exceptionally brilliant studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure , devoted himself to philosophy...
, an influence of Bergson, or by the philosopher Maurice Blondel
Maurice Blondel
Maurice Blondel was a French philosopher.Blondel developed a "philosophy of action” that integrated classical Neoplatonic thought with modern Pragmatism in the context of a Christian philosophy of religion...
, one of the inspirations of Christian "modernists" who would later become his most bitter opponents. He came to know the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral was a French writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language. Mistral won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1904 and was a founding member of Félibrige and a member of l'Académie de Marseille...
in 1888 and shared the federalist
Federalist
The term federalist describes several political beliefs around the world. Also, it may refer to the concept of federalism or the type of government called a federation...
thesis of Mistral's Félibrige
Félibrige
The Félibrige is a literary and cultural association founded by Frédéric Mistral and other Provençal writers to defend and promote Occitan language and literature...
movement. The same year he met the nationalist writer Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès was a French novelist, journalist, and socialist politician and agitator known for his nationalist and antisemitic views....
.
In 1890, Maurras approved Cardinal Lavigerie's call for the Rallying of Catholics to the Republic, marking his opposition not to the Republic in itself but to "sectarian Republicanism."
Beside this Orleanist affiliation, Maurras shared some traits with Bonapartism
Bonapartism
Bonapartism is often defined as a political expression in the vocabulary of Marxism and Leninism, deriving from the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Karl Marx was a student of Jacobinism and the French Revolution as well as a contemporary critic of the Second Republic and Second Empire...
. In December 1887, he demonstrated to the cry of "Down with the robbers!" during the decorations scandal which had involved Daniel Wilson, the son-in-law of the President Jules Grévy
Jules Grévy
François Paul Jules Grévy was a President of the French Third Republic and one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans faction. Given that his predecessors were monarchists who tried without success to restore the French monarchy, Grévy is seen as the first real republican President of...
. Despite this, he opposed at first the Boulangist movement. But in 1889, after a visit to Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès was a French novelist, journalist, and socialist politician and agitator known for his nationalist and antisemitic views....
, Barrès voted for the Boulangist candidate ; despite his "anti-semitism of the heart" ("anti-sémitisme de coeur"), he decided to vote for a Jew.
In 1894–95 he briefly worked in Barrès' La Cocarde (The Cockade)'s newspaper, although he sometimes opposed Barrès on his views on the French Revolution. La Cocarde supported General Boulanger who almost toppled the Republic in the late 1880s.
During a trip to Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
for the First Olympic Games in 1896, he came to criticize the Greek democratic system
Greek democracy
During the Classical era of Ancient Greece many city-states had forms of government based on democracy, in which the free , native adult males citizens of the city took a major and direct part in the management of the affairs of state, such as declaring war, voting supplies, dispatching diplomatic...
of the polis
Polis
Polis , plural poleis , literally means city in Greek. It could also mean citizenship and body of citizens. In modern historiography "polis" is normally used to indicate the ancient Greek city-states, like Classical Athens and its contemporaries, so polis is often translated as "city-state."The...
, which he considered doomed because of its internal divisions and its openness towards métèques (foreigners).
He became involved in politics at the time of the Dreyfus affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
, appearing at the forefront of the Anti-Dreyfusard side. He supported Colonel Henry
Hubert-Joseph Henry
Hubert-Joseph Henry , French Lieutenant-Colonel in 1897 involved in the Dreyfus affair. Arrested for having forged evidence against Alfred Dreyfus, he was found dead in his prison cell...
's forgery blaming Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
, as he considered that defending Dreyfus weakened the Army and the Justice system. According to Maurras, Dreyfus was to be sacrificed on the altar of national interest
National interest
The national interest, often referred to by the French expression raison d'État , is a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, military, or cultural. The concept is an important one in international relations where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist...
. But when the Republican nationalist thinker Barrès accused Dreyfus of being guilty because of his Jewishness, Maurras went a step further, vilifying the "Jewish Republic". While Barrès' anti-Semitism found its roots both in the pseudo-scientific racist
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
contemporary theories and on Biblical exegesis, Maurras decried "scientific racism" in favor of a more radical "state anti-Semitism."
In 1899 he founded the Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
(AF) review, an offshoot of the newspaper created by Maurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo was a French journalist and co-founder, with Henri Vaugeois in 1898, of the Comité d'Action Française, which subsequently became the nationalist and monarchist Action Française movement.His son, Pierre Pujo led Action Française until his death on 10 November 2007....
and Henri Vaugeois
Henri Vaugeois
Henri Vaugeois was a French far right politician and one of the founders of Action Française.Born in L'Aigle, Orne, Vaugeois settled in Coulommiers where he taught philosophy. Initially a republican liberal, Vaugeois even flirted with Marxism in his youth...
the preceding year. Maurras quickly became influential in the movement, and converted Pujo and Vaugeois to monarchism, which became the movement's principal cause. With Léon Daudet
Léon Daudet
Léon Daudet was a French journalist, writer, an active monarchist, and a member of the Académie Goncourt.-Move to the right:...
he edited the movement's review La Revue de l'Action Française, which in 1908 became a daily newspaper under the shorter title L'Action Française. The AF mixed integral nationalism
Integral Nationalism
Integral nationalism is one of five types of nationalism defined by Carlton Hayes in his 1928 book The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism....
with reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
themes, shifting the nationalist ideology, beforehand supported by left-wing Republicans, to the right-side of the political field. It found a wide readership during the implementation of the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State. In 1899 he wrote a short notice in favour of monarchy, "Dictateur et roi" ("Dictator and King"), and then in 1900 his "Enquête sur la monarchie" (Investigations on Monarchy), published in the Legitimist mouthpiece La Gazette de France, which made him famous. Maurras also published thirteen articles in Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
in 1901 and 1902, as well as six articles between November 1902 and January 1903 in Edouard Drumont
Edouard Drumont
Édouard Adolphe Drumont was a French journalist and writer. He founded the Antisemitic League of France in 1889, and was the founder and editor of the newspaper La Libre Parole.- Early life :...
's anti-Semitic newspaper, La Libre Parole.
Between 1905 and 1908, when the Camelots du Roy
Camelots du Roy
The Camelots du Roi were the youth organization of the Royalist Action française French integralist movement. Created on 16 November 1908, it was closely influenced by Charles Maurras' integralism doctrine of nationalism, and was quite popular between the two World Wars...
monarchist league was founded, Maurras introduced the concept of political activism through extra-parliamentary leagues, theorizing the possibility of a coup d'état. Maurras also founded the Ligue d'Action Française in 1905, whose mission was to recruit members for the Action Française, with the aim of establishing the Duc de Guise
Jean d'Orléans, duc de Guise
Jean Pierre Clément Marie d'Orléans, Duke of Guise , was the son of Robert, Duke of Chartres , grandson of Ferdinand-Philippe and great-grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of the French...
on the throne.
From World War I to the end of the 1930s
Maurras then supported France's entry into World War I (even to the extent of supporting the thoroughly republican Georges ClemenceauGeorges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...
) against the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
. During the war, the Jewish businessman Emile Ullman was forced to resign from the board of directors of the Comptoir d'Escompte after Maurras accused him of being a German agent. He then criticized the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
for not being harsh enough on the Germans and condemned Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize.- Early life :...
's policy of cooperation with Germany.
In 1925 he called for the murder of Abraham Schrameck, the Interior Minister of Paul Painlevé
Paul Painlevé
Paul Painlevé was a French mathematician and politician. He served twice as Prime Minister of the Third Republic: 12 September – 13 November 1917 and 17 April – 22 November 1925.-Early life:Painlevé was born in Paris....
's Cartel des Gauches
Cartel des Gauches
The Cartel des gauches was the name of the governmental alliance between the Radical-Socialist Party and the socialist French Section of the Workers' International after World War I , which lasted until the end of the Popular Front . The Cartel des gauches twice won general elections, in 1924 and...
's (Left-Wing Cartel) government, who had ordered the disarming of the Far right leagues
Far right leagues
The Far right leagues were several French far right movements opposed to parliamentarism, which mainly dedicated themselves to military parades, street brawls, demonstrations and riots. The term ligue was often used in the 1930s to distinguish these political movements from parliamentary parties...
. For this death threat, he was sentenced to a year on parole. He also threatened to death the President of the Council Léon Blum
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
, leader of the Popular Front
Popular Front (France)
The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
, in the Action Française of 15 May 1936, underscoring his Jewish origins (he once called him an "old semitic camel".) This other death threat earned him eight months of prison, from 29 October 1936 to 6 July 1937. Fearing Communism, he joined the pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
s' camp and praised the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
in 1938, which the President of the Council Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier was a French Radical politician and the Prime Minister of France at the start of the Second World War.-Career:Daladier was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. Later, he would become known to many as "the bull of Vaucluse" because of his thick neck and large shoulders and determined...
had signed without any illusions. He also wrote in Action Française:
"There are certain conservatives in France who fill us with disgust. Why? Because of their stupidity. What kind of stupidity? Hitlerism. These French "conservatives" crawl on their bellies before Hitler. These former nationalists cringe before him. A few zealots wallow in dirt, in their own dirt, with endless Heils. The wealthier they are, the more they own, the more important it is to make them understand that if Hitler invaded us he would skin them much more thoroughly than Blum, ThorezMaurice Thorezthumb|A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947....
and StalinJoseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
combined. This "conservative" error is suicidal. We must appeal to our friends not to let themselves be befogged. We must tell them: Be on your guard! What is now at stake is not anti-democracy or anti-Semitism. France above all!"
During 1930s – especially after the 6 February 1934 crisis
6 February 1934 crisis
The 6 February 1934 crisis refers to an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris organized by far-right leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the seat of the French National Assembly...
—many of Action Française members turned to fascism, such as Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...
, Lucien Rebatet
Lucien Rebatet
Lucien Rebatet was a French author, journalist and intellectual, an exponent of fascism and virulent antisemite.-Early life:...
, Abel Bonnard
Abel Bonnard
Abel Bonnard was a French poet, novelist and politician.-Biography:Born in Poitiers, Vienne, his early education was in Marseilles with secondary studies at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris...
, Paul Chack, Claude Jeantet
Claude Jeantet
Claude Jeantet was a French journalist and far right politician.-Biography:Jeantet was born at Pomponne, Seine-et-Marne, the son of poet Félix Jeantet and brother of fellow extreme rightist Gabriel Jeantet....
, etc. Most of them belonged to the staff of the fascist newspaper Je suis partout
Je suis partout
Je suis partout was a French newspaper founded by Jean Fayard, first published on 29 November 1930. It was placed under the direction of Pierre Gaxotte until 1939...
.
Influencing António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
's Estado Novo regime in Portugal, Maurras also supported Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
and, until spring 1939, Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's Fascist regime
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
. Opposing Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
because of his germanophobia, Maurras himself criticized the racist policies of Nazism
Racial policy of Nazi Germany
The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy...
in 1936, and requested an integral translation of Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
– some of its passages had been censored in the French edition.
After his failure against Charles Jonnart
Charles Jonnart
Charles Célestin Auguste Jonnart was a French politician.Born into a bourgeois family in Fléchin, Pas-de-Calais, Charles Jonnart was educated at Saint-Omer, then in Paris. Interested in the Algeria that he had visited as a young man, he was appointed in 1881 by Léon Gambetta to the office of...
in 1924 to be elected to the French Academy, he succeeded in entering the ranks of the "Immortals" on 9 June 1938, replacing Henri-Robert
Henri-Robert
Henri-Robert was a French lawyer, historian, and member of the Académie française in 1923.Born an illegitimate child, Robert was admitted to the bar in 1885 and rose to become a celebrated criminal defense laywer. He defended a young woman named Gabrielle Bompard in a sensational 1889 murder...
, winning by 20 votes against 12 to Fernand Gregh
Fernand Gregh
Fernand Gregh was a French poet and literary critic....
. He was received in the Academy on 8 June 1939 by Henry Bordeaux
Henry Bordeaux
Henri Bordeaux was a French writer and lawyer.Bordeaux came from a family of lawyers of Savoy. His grandfather was a magistrate and his father served on the Chambéry bar. During his early life, he relocated between Savoy and Paris and the tensions between provincial and city life influenced his...
.
Vichy regime, arrest and death
Although in June 1940 articles in Action Française signed by Maurras, Léon DaudetLéon Daudet
Léon Daudet was a French journalist, writer, an active monarchist, and a member of the Académie Goncourt.-Move to the right:...
and Maurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo was a French journalist and co-founder, with Henri Vaugeois in 1898, of the Comité d'Action Française, which subsequently became the nationalist and monarchist Action Française movement.His son, Pierre Pujo led Action Française until his death on 10 November 2007....
praised General Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
, Maurras quickly came to acclaim the fall of the Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
, replaced by Marshal Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
's Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
, as a "divine surprise". Vichy's reactionary program of a Révolution Nationale
Révolution nationale
The Révolution nationale was the official ideological name under which the Vichy regime established by Marshal Philippe Pétain in July 1940 presented its program...
(National Revolution) was fully approved of by the leader of the Action Française, who inspired large parts of it. The monarchist newspaper was forbidden in the Occupied Zone and under Vichy censorship in the Southern Zone from November 1942. In La Seule France (1941) Maurras argued for a policy of France d'abord ("France First"), whereby France would restore itself politically and morally under Pétain, resolving the root causes in his eyes of France's defeat in 1940, before dealing with the issue of the foreign occupation. This position was contrasted to the attitude of the Gaullists, who fled France and continued only a military struggle. Maurras savaged the pre-war French governments for taking an increasingly bellicose position vis a vis Germany at precisely the same time that these governments were weakening France, militarily, socially and politically, thereby making France's downfall in 1940 all but inevitable. Maurras also criticized the 1940 Statute on Jews
Statute on Jews
The Statute on Jews was discriminatory legislation against French Jews passed on October 3, 1940 by the Vichy Regime, grouping them as a lower class and depriving them of citizenship before rounding them up at Drancy internment camp then taking them to be exterminated in concentration camps...
for being too moderate. At the same time he continued to express elements of his longstanding germanophobia by arguing in La Seule France that Frenchmen must not be drawn to the German model and by hosting anti-German conferences and he opposed both the "dissidents
Free French Forces
The Free French Forces were French partisans in World War II who decided to continue fighting against the forces of the Axis powers after the surrender of France and subsequent German occupation and, in the case of Vichy France, collaboration with the Germans.-Definition:In many sources, Free...
" in London and the collaborators in Paris and Vichy (such as Lucien Rebatet
Lucien Rebatet
Lucien Rebatet was a French author, journalist and intellectual, an exponent of fascism and virulent antisemite.-Early life:...
, Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...
, Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval was a French politician. He was four times President of the council of ministers of the Third Republic, twice consecutively. Following France's Armistice with Germany in 1940, he served twice in the Vichy Regime as head of government, signing orders permitting the deportation of...
, or Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat
Marcel Déat was a French Socialist until 1933, when he initiated a spin-off from the French Section of the Workers' International along with other right-wing 'Neosocialists'. He then founded the collaborationist National Popular Rally during the Vichy regime...
). In 1943, the Germans planned to arrest Charles Maurras.
An admirer (before the war) of Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
, who himself had been influenced by Maurras' integralism
Integralism
Integralism, or Integral nationalism, is an ideology according to which a nation is an organic unity. Integralism defends social differentiation and hierarchy with co-operation between social classes, transcending conflict between social and economic groups...
, he then harshly criticized the General in exile. He later claimed he believed that Pétain was playing a "double game", working for an Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
victory in secret.
Maurras was arrested in September 1944 with Maurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo
Maurice Pujo was a French journalist and co-founder, with Henri Vaugeois in 1898, of the Comité d'Action Française, which subsequently became the nationalist and monarchist Action Française movement.His son, Pierre Pujo led Action Française until his death on 10 November 2007....
, and indicted by High Court of Lyon for "complicity with the enemy" on the basis of articles published by Maurras since the war. At the issue of the trial, during which there were many irregularities in the proceedings (such as false dating or truncated quotations), Maurras was sentenced to life imprisonment and deprivation of civil liberties. He was automatically expelled from the Académie Française (a measure included in the 26 December 1944 ordinance). His response to his conviction was to exclaim "C'est la revanche de Dreyfus!" (It's Dreyfus's revenge!) Meanwhile the Académie Française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
declared his seat vacant instead of expelling him, as it had done for Pétain, sparing him the fate of Abel Hermant
Abel Hermant
Abel Hermant was a French novelist, playwright, essayist and writer, and member of the Académie Française.-Biography:Hermant was born in Paris, the son of an architect....
and Abel Bonnard
Abel Bonnard
Abel Bonnard was a French poet, novelist and politician.-Biography:Born in Poitiers, Vienne, his early education was in Marseilles with secondary studies at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris...
. They waited until his death to elect his successor, Antoine de Lévis-Mirepoix, who was himself close to the Action Française and collaborated with Pierre Boutang
Pierre Boutang
Pierre Boutang was a French philosopher, poet and translator. He was also a political journalist, associated with the currents of Maurrasianism and Royalism.- Biography :...
's La Nation Française
La Nation française
La Nation française was a French monarchist weekly influenced by Charles Maurras, the founder of the Action française movement...
monarchist review.
Imprisoned in Riom
Riom
Riom is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-History:Until the French Revolution, Riom was the capital of the province of Auvergne, and the seat of the dukes of Auvergne. The city was of Gaulish origin, the Roman Ricomagus...
and then Clairvaux
Clairvaux
Clairvaux can mean the following:*Clairvaux, a former commune in France, now part of Ville-sous-la-Ferté. It is the home of**Clairvaux Abbey in France**Clairvaux Prison, France, on the site of the abbey*Saint Bernard of Clairvaux...
, Maurras was released in March 1952 to enter a hospital, assisted by the writer Henry Bordeaux
Henry Bordeaux
Henri Bordeaux was a French writer and lawyer.Bordeaux came from a family of lawyers of Savoy. His grandfather was a magistrate and his father served on the Chambéry bar. During his early life, he relocated between Savoy and Paris and the tensions between provincial and city life influenced his...
, who repeatedly asked President of the Council Vincent Auriol
Vincent Auriol
Vincent Jules Auriol was a French politician who served as the first President of the Fourth Republic from 1947 to 1954. He also served as interim President of the Provisional Government from November to December 1946, making him one of only three people who were heads of state of the French...
to pardon Maurras. He was transferred to a clinic in Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
, where he soon died. Although weakened he collaborated with Aspects de la France, which had replaced the outlawed Action Française review in 1947. In his last days, he returned to the Catholic faith of his childhood.
Maurras and Félibrige
See the main article : FélibrigeFélibrige
The Félibrige is a literary and cultural association founded by Frédéric Mistral and other Provençal writers to defend and promote Occitan language and literature...
.
Maurras' political thought
Central to Maurras' political ideas were an intense nationalism (what he described as "integral nationalismIntegralism
Integralism, or Integral nationalism, is an ideology according to which a nation is an organic unity. Integralism defends social differentiation and hierarchy with co-operation between social classes, transcending conflict between social and economic groups...
") and a belief in an ordered society based on a strong leadership. These were the bases of his support for both a French monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church. Yet he had no personal loyalty to the house of Bourbon-Orléans
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
, and was a convinced agnostic for nearly all of his adult life.
His work particularly marked the French right, including its far-right component, as he succeeded in theorizing for all of the various right-wing families an aggressive political strategy, which contrasted with the Legitimists' apathy for political action. He managed to bring together the paradox of a reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
thought which would actively change history, a form of Counter-revolution opposed to simple conservatism. According to the historian Alain-Gérard Slama, Maurras' efficiency was to bring together the various right-wing families of France (Legitimism, Orleanism and Bonapartism
Bonapartism
Bonapartism is often defined as a political expression in the vocabulary of Marxism and Leninism, deriving from the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Karl Marx was a student of Jacobinism and the French Revolution as well as a contemporary critic of the Second Republic and Second Empire...
) and to give them a theory of political action as well as a positive ideology, Integralism, whereas the right-wings were usually characterized by their sole opposition to the left-wings. His "integral nationalism" rejected all democratic principles which he judged contrary to "natural inequality", criticizing all evolution since the 1789 French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and advocated the return to a hereditary monarchy.
Like many people in Europe at the time, he was haunted by the idea of "decadence
Decadence
Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...
", partly inspired by his reading of Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
and Renan
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan was a French expert of Middle East ancient languages and civilizations, philosopher and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany...
, and admired classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
. He felt that France had lost its grandeur during the Revolution of 1789
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, a grandeur inherited from its origins as a province of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
and forged by, as he put it, "forty kings who in a thousand years made France." The French Revolution, he wrote in the Observateur Français, was negative and destructive.
He traced this decline further back, to the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
and the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
; he described the source of the evil as "Swiss ideas", a reference to the adopted nation of Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
and the birth nation of Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
. Maurras further blamed France's decline on "Anti-France", which he defined as the "four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons and foreigners" (his actual word for the latter being the xenophobic term of métèques). Indeed, to him the first three were all "internal foreigners."
Antisemitism and anti-Protestantism
Anti-Protestantism
Anti-Protestantism is an institutional, ideological or emotional bias, hatred or distrust and against some or all forms and divisions of Protestantism and its followers.- History :...
were common themes in his writings. He believed that the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, and the eventual outcome of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
had all contributed to individuals putting themselves before the nation, with consequent negative effects on the latter, and that democracy and liberalism were only making matters worse.
Although Maurras advocated the return of monarchy, in many ways Maurras did not fit into the French monarchist tradition at all. His support for the monarchy and for Catholicism was explicitly pragmatic, as he felt that a state religion was the only way of maintaining public order. By contrast with Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès was a French novelist, journalist, and socialist politician and agitator known for his nationalist and antisemitic views....
, a theorist of a kind of Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
based on the Ego, Maurras claimed to base his views on reason rather than on sentiment, loyalty and faith.
Paradoxically, he admired the positivist
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
philosopher Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...
, like many of the Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
leaders he detested, in which he found a counter-balance to German idealism
German idealism
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment...
. Whereas the Legitimist monarchists declined to engage in political action, retreating into an intransigently conservative Catholicism and an indifference to a modern world they saw as irredeemably wicked and apostate, Maurras was prepared to engage in political action, both orthodox and unorthodox (the Action Française's Camelots du Roi league frequently engaged in street violence with left-wing opponents, as well as Marc Sangnier
Marc Sangnier
Marc Sangnier was a French Roman Catholic thinker and politician, who in 1894 founded le Sillon , a liberal Catholic movement. He aimed to bring Catholicism into a greater conformity with French Republican ideals and to provide an alternative to anticlerical labour movements...
's Le Sillon
Le Sillon
Le Sillon was a French political and religious movement founded by Marc Sangnier which existed from 1894 to 1910...
). His slogan was the phrase "La politique d'abord!" ("Politics first!"). Other influences included Frédéric Le Play, English empiricists, who allowed him to reconcile Cartesian rationalism with empiricism, and La Tour du Pin.
Maurras' religious views were likewise less than orthodox. He supported the political Catholic Church both because it was intimately bound up with French history and because its hierarchical structure and clerical elite mirrored his image of an ideal society. He considered the Church to be the mortar which held France together, and the chain linking all Frenchmen together. However, he distrusted the Gospels, written, as he put it, "by four obscure Jews", but admired the Catholic Church for having allegedly concealed much of the Bible's "dangerous teachings". Maurras' interpretation of the Gospels and his integralist teachings were fiercely criticised by many Catholic clergy. However, towards the end of his life Maurras eventually converted from agnosticism to Catholicism.
Notwithstanding his religious unorthodoxy, Maurras gained a large following among French monarchists and Catholics, including the Assumptionists
Assumptionists
The Augustinians of the Assumption constitute a congregation of Catholic religious , founded in Nîmes, southern France, by Fr. Emmanuel d'Alzon in 1845, initially approved by Rome in 1857 and definitively approved in 1864 . The current Rule of Life of the congregation draws its inspiration from...
and the Orleanist
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
pretender to the French throne, the count of Paris
Philippe, Comte de Paris
Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris was the grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of the French. He was a claimant to the French throne from 1848 until his death.-Early life:...
. Nonetheless, his agnosticism worried parts of the Catholic hierarchy and in 1926, Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
placed some of Maurras's writings on the Index of Forbidden Books
Index Librorum Prohibitorum
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of publications prohibited by the Catholic Church. A first version was promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, and a revised and somewhat relaxed form was authorized at the Council of Trent...
and condemned the Action Française movement as a whole. Seven of Maurras' books has already been placed on this list in 1914 and a dossier on Maurras had been submitted to Pius X. However, unlike Pius XI, he took no action on this dossier. It should be noted that it was not just his agnosticicm which worried the Catholic hierarchy but that by insisting upon politiques d'abord he questioned the primacy of the spiritual and thus the teaching authority of the Church and the authority of the Pope himself. That this was the heart of the matter is shown by Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
's book Primauté du Spirituel. Maritain was associated with L’Action Française and knew Maurras. While his unease with the movement pre-dates the 1926 crisis, it was this which occasioned his split from Maurras and L’Action Française. This papal condemnation was a great shock to many of his followers, who included a not inconsiderable number of French clergy, and caused great damage to the Action Française. It was lifted however in 1939, a year after Maurras was elected to the Académie française.
Maurras was evidently a leading exponent of what Allan Bloom
Allan Bloom
Allan David Bloom was an American philosopher, classicist, and academic. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell University, the University of Toronto, Yale University, École Normale Supérieure of Paris, and the University...
called (in his The Closing of the American Mind) the "conservatism of Throne and Altar", and an intellectual descendant of Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre was a French-speaking Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat. He defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical State in the period immediately following the French Revolution...
, one of the prime thinkers of the Counter-Revolution.
The legacy of Maurras
Maurras is the main intellectual influence of National CatholicismNational Catholicism
National Catholicism was part of the ideological identity of Francoism, the dictatorial regime with which Francisco Franco governed Spain between 1936 and 1975...
, Far Right movements, Latin Conservatism
Latin Conservatism
Latin Conservatism is a political ideology in southern Europe expressed by noted Savoyard thinker Joseph de Maistre and which reached its peak in Spain under Francisco Franco, though many elements of Latin Conservatism were already advocated in the 17th century by Padre Antonio Vieira and some...
, and integral nationalism
Integral Nationalism
Integral nationalism is one of five types of nationalism defined by Carlton Hayes in his 1928 book The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism....
. He and the Action Française have influenced many people and movements including General Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
, José Antonio Primo de Rivera
José Antonio Primo de Rivera
José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 1st Duke of Primo de Rivera, 3rd Marquis of Estella , was a Spanish lawyer, nobleman, politician, and founder of the Falange Española...
, António Sardinha
António Sardinha
António Sardinha was a Portuguese writer and the main intellectual behind the Integralismo Lusitano movement. He espoused as a strongly conservative world view which has been characterised as an early fascism.-Early politics:Sardinha graduated in law from the University of Coimbra in 1911...
, Leon Degrelle
Léon Degrelle
Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism and later joined the Waffen SS which were front-line troops in the fight against the Soviet Union...
, and autonomist movements in Europe. The Christian Democrat Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
was also close to Maurras before the papal condemnation of the AF in 1927, and criticized democracy in one of his early writing, Une opinion sur Charles Maurras ou le devoir des catholiques. Furthermore, Maurrassism also influenced many writings from members of the Organisation de l'armée secrète who theorized "counter-revolutionary warfare". In Spain, the Acción Española
Acción Española
Acción Española or AE was a Spanish far right Alfonsist monarchist organisation active before and during the Spanish Civil War, and a political magazine of the same name, published by the former...
took not only its far right monarchism but also its name from Maurras's movement.
The influence extended to Latin America, such as in Mexico where Jesús Guiza y Acevedo, was nicknamed "the little Maurras", as well as the historian Carlos Pereyra
Carlos Pereyra
Carlos Alberto Pereyra is an Argentine boxer who competed in the 1932 Summer Olympics.He was born in Córdoba.In 1932 he was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the bantamweight class after losing his fight to Joseph Lang.-External links:...
or the Venezuelan author Vanenilla Lanz, who wrote a book titled Cesarismo democratico (Democratic Caesarism). Others figures influenced include the Brazilian Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Plinio Correa de Oliveira was a Brazilian intellectual, politician and Catholic activist....
. Maurras' thought also influenced Catholic fundamentalist supporters of the Brazilian dictatorship (1964–85) as well as the Cursillos de la Cristiandad (Christian Courses), similar to the Cité Catholique
Cité catholique
The Cité Catholique is a Traditionalist Catholic organisation created in 1946 by Jean Ousset, originally a follower of Charles Maurras and Jean Masson , not to be confused with Jacques Desoubrie, who also used the pseudonym Jean Masson...
group, which were founded in 1950 by the bishop of Ciudad Real
Ciudad Real
Ciudad Real is a city in Castile-La Mancha, Spain, with a population of c. 74,000. It is the capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It has a stop on the AVE high-speed rail line and has begun to grow as a long-distance commuter suburb of Madrid, located 115 miles to the north. A high capacity...
, Mgr. Hervé. The Argentine militarist Juan Carlos Onganía
Juan Carlos Onganía
Juan Carlos Onganía Carballo was de facto president of Argentina from 29 June 1966 to 8 June 1970. He rose to power as military dictator after toppling, in a coup d’état self-named Revolución Argentina , the democratically elected president Arturo Illia .-Economic and social...
, who overthrew Arturo Illia in a military putsch in 1969, as well as Alejandro Agustín Lanusse
Alejandro Agustín Lanusse
Alejandro Agustín Lanusse Gelly was the 38th president of the Argentine Republic between March 22, 1971 and May 25, 1973, during the penultimate military dictatorship.- Career :...
, who succeeded Onganía after another coup, had participated in the Cursillos de la Cristiandad, as did also the Dominican militarists Antonio Imbert Barrera
Antonio Imbert Barrera
Antonio Imbert Barrera was president of the Dominican Republic from May 7, 1965 until August 30, 1965. His predecessor in the post was Pedro Bartolomé Benoit; his successor, Héctor García Godoy. .His first important position was as governor of Puerto Plata in 1940...
and Elías Wessin y Wessin
Elías Wessin y Wessin
Elías Wessin y Wessin was a Dominican politician and Dominican Air Force general. Wessin led the military coup which ousted the government of Dominican President Juan Bosch in 1963, replacing it with a triumvirate...
, chief of staff of the military and an opponent of the restoration of the 1963 Constitution after Rafael Trujillo's overthrow. In Argentina his influence was also felt amongst the nationalist writers of the 1920s and 1930s such as Rodolfo Irazusta
Rodolfo Irazusta
Rodolfo Irazusta was an Argentine writer and politician who was one of the leading lights of the nationalist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. He collaborated closely with his younger brother Julio Irazusta throughout his career....
and Juan Carulla
Juan Carulla
Juan Emiliano Carulla was an Argentine physician and nationalist politician.In his early years Carulla was a supporter of anarchism but this was to change after a trip to Europe during the First World War...
.
Works
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Maurice Pujo Maurice Pujo was a French journalist and co-founder, with Henri Vaugeois in 1898, of the Comité d'Action Française, which subsequently became the nationalist and monarchist Action Française movement.His son, Pierre Pujo led Action Française until his death on 10 November 2007.... ) Xavier Vallat Xavier Vallat , French politician, was Commissioner-General for Jewish Questions in the wartime Vichy collaborationist government, and was sentenced after World War II to ten years in prison for his part in the persecution of French Jews.- Until World War II :Vallat was born in the department of... (1950–1952) (published posthumously) |
External links
- Maurras.net online library : works of Charles Maurras (in French).
- Charles Maurras, Shaper of an Age by Thomas Molnar.
- Dreyfus Rehabilitated