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PARTISAN REVIEW
writer, scenarist, and instigator? Sartre had presence; his entrance
into the dining hall was inevitably greeted by a resounding "Sartre!"
followed, after a few seconds of suspense, by a new outburst: "et
Nizan!" Conversely, this community of young men provided him
with friends and a public, which made him happy . After two years of
intense cramming and competition - first in
hypokhiigne
and then in
khiigne-
the Ecole Normale brought him a feeling of freedom, and
euphoric lightness that might be sufficient explanation for
everything that happened there .
During these years of uncertainty, in a country that is going to
celebrate the anniversary of the Great War with a long roll of the
drums, and where Poincare is again hailed as the strong man, the
man sent by Providence, Normaliens read and explore, trying to
find, in the instability of the French government, footholds from
which to build a political identity. The "Jean J aures circle" brings
together socialist students, organizes meetings, discussions, and
debates often with famous political personalities. The school's gate
admits, one after the other, Leon Blum, Marcel Cachin, and Marc
Sangnier-an ex-Polytechnicien who, by alphabetical chance, ap–
peared next to Jean-Baptiste Sartre in the 1895 graduation photo .
On November 25, 1924, the group of socialist students will attend a
totally unexpected demonstration during the conveyance of Jaures's
ashes to the Pantheon: Herriot delivers the address and then in–
troduces some Normaliens to several political figures, including
Leon Blum. The mastermind behind all these events is Lucien Herr,
the school librarian who , although he retires inJune 1925, will leave
a very strong mark on the members of the circle as both a socialist
and a "Dreyfusard." Some of the socialist students of those times,
such as Georges Lefranc or Raymond Aron, later support the Coali–
tion of the Left, independently of their ties with the French Socialist
Party. Later, at the National Assembly, Aron witnesses as a spec–
tator the budgetary debates between Herriot and Poincare
throughout 1926. "Wild withjoy" at the victory of the coalition, Aron
enjoys demonstrating through the streets of Paris, particularly when
it is against the students from the right-wing Action Francaise. Aron
reads
L'Oeuvre, Le Quotidien, Le Temps,
papers that contribute to his
political identity, and he dreams of an eventual Franco-German
reconciliation.
14
As for Sartre, he shares neither the rebellious
14. Raymond Aron,
L e Spectateur engage
and
Memoires
(Paris: Julliard, 1981 and
1983).
