492
VICTOR BROMBERT
the "French truth" (one can see Benda's grimace of pain!).
The intellectual is an "enemy of society"
(Scenes et doctrines).
"We must watch the Universite," writes Barres in
Mes
Cahiers.
"It contributes to the destruction of French prin–
ciples." Such a warning, coming from a cultured writer, may
surprise. Even more surprising, however, is the impassioned
battle cry emitted during a talk to a student group: "Will you
let us be devoured by these people? Lay your hands on your
libraries; to arms, comrades!" That feelings such as these
were quite widespread is proven by Andre Beaunier's satirical
novel
Les Dupont-Leterrier
(1900). In order to mock this very
brand of militant anti-intellectualism, Beaunier has his Major
Joseph say: "The intellectuals! It was already they who be–
trayed Constantinople to the Greeks--to some dirty little
Greeks
!"
Of course, Beaunier's satire has its limitations:
Brunetiere, Barres, Gebhart, Meline and the editorial writers of
Le Temps
have little in common with a Major Joseph. Never–
theless, each in his own way expresses what is at the time a
cliche, namely that the "Intellectuals" have all "lost the national
mentality."
Needless to add that what to some is scandalously anti–
patriotic, others interpret as a praiseworthy cosmopolitanism
or a generous internationalism. Barres calls all intellectuals
deracines
(uprooted). Lucien Herr, in the
Revue Blanche,
rejoins that they are
desinteresses
(selfless).
Deracines
or
des–
interesses,
uprooted or unbiased- the argument implies nothing
less than a difference of perspective. To the ones, the intellectual
is the sworn enemy of the collective discipline, the enemy of
the established social order. (Did not an article in
Le Te'mps
-14 February, 1898-calmly assert that French intellectuals
were discontented trouble makers?) To the others, this supposed
subversive force is but the proof of their moral dynamism, of
the integrity of their critical stand and of their competence to
serve as liaison agents between one culture and another.
