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PARTISAN REVIEW
thumb-nail sketch by heart, around 1925, how could I have sus–
pected, a mere high-school boy from the provinces, that the work
which amused me grew out of the resentments of an imposter
unmasked?*
*
*
* *
With glory and fame begins the public career of that man,
navel of the world, who also calls himself Jules Romains.
In this new role the author of
Le Vin Blanc,
the pal of
Les
Copains,
became the friend of the smart set in Europe: MM. Bon–
net, von Ribbentrop, Henri de Man, Abetz. Two corruptors, two
corrupted. In this new role, M. Jules Romains, after 1934, con–
tinued to place his confidence in the man who, bending before the
threats of a
small
fascist revolt, only returned to govern France
with the permission and support of those who had consigned him
to the firing-squad-the Croix de Feu, and so-called Patriotic
Youth: Daladier. In this new character, M. Jules Romains, after
'38, continued to campaign for the man who, knowing he was mak–
ing a mistake, nevertheless signed at Munich: Daladier, a Mac–
Mahon
manquet
Such were his friendships and such his judgment
when M. Jules Romains became a public figure. Is it not there–
fore reasonable for him to be proud of
his
titles,
those
titles?
All this would be a trifle, but from the day Jules Romains
meddled with politics, he ceased to understand that very thing
which he understood so well when he was only a writer. But art
has a strange revenge: it is the same man who, wishing to save
France, offers the
Plan du 9 ]uillet;
it is the same man who, wish–
ing to save Europe, writes
Le Couple France-Allemagne;
it is the
same man who, wishing to save the world, writes
The Seven Mys–
teries;
it is the same man who, as a playwright, reconstructed
beforehand, in his
Dictator,
the events which many years later
were followed by the electoral victory of Leon Blum. Drawing
only on the resources of his creative imagination, Romains deduced
to the minutest details the strikes of '36, the pitfalls of power, even
to Daladier (Denis) persecuting Marceau Pivert (Fereol), even to
*Romains confessed to Dr. Paul Vasse that his attack on doctors may have had as
its direct cause the rebuff given to his "paroptical vision." See Paul Vasse,
I
ules
Ro11Ulins and the Doctors. Essay on the Origins of Knock,
Paris, Vigot.
tWhile a blind crowd applauded the "peacemaker" on his return from the trap,
Daladier is said to have aaid, with weariness and disgust, "Ah les cons!" ("The
dumbbella!") See J.P. Maxence,
Hutory of Ten Years,
Paris, NRF, 1939, p. 351, n. 1.
