160
PARTISAN REVIEW
are "propositions." For Europe, above
all
for France--her painting
still
holds first place in the world-what is needed
is
an integration
in accordance with ever living molds; she needs help in bringing
about another
succ~ful
delivery. You will notice that something of
the sort has already taken place when, for the first time, painters may
see facing one another in a museum a Raphael and a Rembrandt. The
result has not been a conciliation, an eclecticism, which would not
make much sense: it has been romanticism. The art still to be born
will be as different from what gave it birth as Delacroix
is
from
Rembrandt, Raphael and Rubens. And I believe that the Atlantic
civilization will be just as different, and in the same way, from
all
that
it
is
to come out of. This goes even for the United States.
Does this point of view imply that French politics vis-a.-vis America
will have a fixed orientation?
Certainly not. Problems of civilization are posed in terms of
destiny. Problems of politics are quite different. Napoleon said that
destiny was politics; but he saw that this left quite some leeway.
Greece would surely not have benefited Mediterranean civilization
by being more subservient to Rome. Sassanian Persia played an
im–
mense role in the elaboration of Byzantine civilization, a role she as–
suredly would not have played had she made herself submit to Byzan–
tium. Rousseau, stubbornly asserting that he was a citizen of Geneva,
had more of an effect on France than if he had called himself a
Frenchman. Hitler more than anyone else would have hastened the
birth of the Atlantic civilization: that was not precisely what he was
aiming at. Like the ways of the Almighty, the ways of destiny are
intricate! Our greatest effectiveness can be insured by our greatest
determination to be free.
What will be France's role in literature?
As
you know, all prophecies, as soon as one tries to make them
specific, lead to the ridiculous.... But I have been struck by this :
the four French writers whose work is wholly posterior to 1916 and
who have the largest audience abroad: Bernanos, Giono, Montherlant
and myself, are all related to what might be called the heroic tradition
of France, the tradition of Corneille. In 1930, when I maintained that
this
tradition, in which I regard Pascal as a major link, was at least
