Martyn Cornick

Catalyst for intellectual engagement: the serialization of Julien Benda's La Trahison des clercs in the Nouvelle Revue Française, 1927-1932

It is almost impossible in France, for artists today, to divest themselves of political preoccupations. [...] ] The young French reviews today are preoccupied with ideas first and art second. It is difficult for them, even when they are willing, to avoid a definite orientation towards politics. They are the natural voices of a generation which is prevented by actual events from indulging in detached speculation.’

French Intellectuals, Neutralism and the Search for Peace in the Cold War

When the Gulf War broke out in January 1991, opinion polls showed that some two-thirds of the French public supported the allies’ intervention on behalf of the Kuwaitis; yet the press also reported several instances of vociferous opposition to French involvement in the war. In particular, at a press conference held on 24 January 1991, the writer Gilles Perrault made an impassioned plea against the war, calling even for French troops to desert. Such seditious remarks drew condemnation from several political quarters, but Perrault’s action struck a chord, for a few days later an announcement, entitled ‘Avec Gilles Perrault’, signed by 100 intellectuals, artists or writers supporting his stance, was placed in the press. At another level of debate, in a forthright exchange of views on France’s role on the international stage and the wisdom or otherwise of intervening in the war, Regis Debray crossed swords with Jean Daniel and Jacques Julliard in the Nouvel Observateur.2 In the political history of France, such occurrences are nothing new. Since the Dreyfus Affair intellectuals have frequently intervened in debates about international relations and French status abroad, particularly when the issues of war and peace are at stake. Because of their proximity to governing and political classes, historically French intellectuals constitute an influential conduit of public opinion,

A century of the Nouvelle Revue Française: A new French Renaissance?

The publication of the Album de la Pléiade is an annual literary event. Every year, during the second fortnight in May, it is offered gratis to those who can buy three volumes of the Pléiade collection, the elegant leather-bound tomes which confer literary apotheosis on those published in the series. This year’s Album is a rare delight. It marks nearly a century of Gallimard’s Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF), the imprint that applied originally to the monthly review of that name launched in 1908 under Eugène Montfort. But that was a false start. Once Montfort had been removed, the second ‘number one’ of the NRF appeared in February 1909. The review was the collective enterprise of six writers, André Gide, Jean Schlumberger, André Ruyters, Jacques Copeau, Henri Ghéon and Michel Arnauld (pen-name of Marcel Drouin). Later, Gaston Gallimard joined the happy band to set up their publishing venture, and Jacques Rivière was engaged to contribute to the review’s editorial effort. After the interval brought about by the First World War, the NRF reappeared in 1919, with Jean Paulhan joining the ailing Rivière in 1920 as secretary. When the latter died prematurely of typhoid fever in 1925, Paulhan took over as editor, with Gaston Gallimard as nominal director. Thus began the ‘golden age’ (Régis Debray) of the NRF—that is, review and publishing house—an adventure relived in this Album with admirable clarity and concision by François Nourissier. The NRF was founded at an intellectually effervescent time. Yet what did the ‘Circuit’, or ‘les Six’, hope to achieve? Nourissier quotes Schlumberger’s opening text from February 1909:

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Scandals in France

Mollier, J.‐Y., Le scandale de Panama (Fayard, 1991), 564pp., 150F., ISBN 2 213 02674 2 Guillcminault, G., Le roman vrai de la IIIe et de la IVe Republique, 1870–1958. 2 vols: Premiere partie 1870–1918 and Deuxieme partie 1919–1958 (Robert Laffont, Collection ‘Bouquins’, 1991), 1257pp. and 1209pp., 130F. each, ISBN 2 211 06713 4 and 2 221 06714 2