Vol. 8 No. 4 1941 - page 263

JULES ROMAINS
263
the opportunist throwing into prison the incorruptible doctrinaire.
As soon as he was in a position to know the real events, M. Jules
Romains went blind. Then he created his
Plan,
his
Couple,
his
Seven Mysteries.
Finally, last outrage, once M. Jules Romains becomes
famous and experienced in politics, it is at the expense of his
literary work. It goes without saying that they do not disappear
all at once, those qualities that one admired in
Le Vin Blanc,
or
in
Mort de Quelqu'un:
the intelligence, humor, human feeling,
sense of style.
Musse ou l'Hypocrisie
is still a fine work;
Le Crime
de Qu.i.nette
a good detective story; even in the second-rate dramas
like
Boen
one finds an atmosphere, a style, or an idea; even in
Les
Hommes de Bonne Volante
("Men of Good Will"), even in the: last
volumes of this long rhapsody, one finds an exquisite page, either
true or beautiful-but one also finds in the works of the abbe de
Pure exquisite pages, true and beautiful; even in
Verdun,
which,
with his
Prelude,
is one of the flattest of all war books, even in
this magma where Petain appears like a
deus ex machina-any–
way like a pure spirit-where the officers of the General Staff
speak in a manner never heard among officers of the General
Staff, even in this mish-mash suddenly Jules Romains becomes
natural again-in the charming letter addressed to Wazemmes by
Mlle. Anne de Montbreuze du Cauchet.
Despite these vestiges, one must recognize that from the
trilogy of
Psyche
to the
Seven Mysteries
(without forgetting that
Visit to the Americans
which even a Maurois would have dis–
avowed) the work of Jules Romains shows only the disintegration
of an exceptional intelligence and talent. I have sometimes heard
this failure attributed to the vanity of the writer or else his avarice.
I know very well that Jules Romains recently refused to speak
before an
Alliance Francaise
meeting for the good reason that they
couldn't pay M. Farigoule ten times the usual fee. The avarice of
M. Jules Romains is not at all a state secret, despite his "deep
politics." But I esteem the author of
LeVin Blanc
enough to seek
elsewhere the cause of so painful a collapse.
If
I am not mistaken,
the
Petit Manuel de Deification
has something, or a great deal, to
do with it. Except for mystics, for whom the idea of predestina–
tion (or of original sin) compensates, through the humility which
these doctrines impose on man, for the superhuman pride which
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