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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
It is not commonly known that Pierre Lasserre, author of the notorious Romantisme français and long associated with Charles Maurras as leader of the dogmatic, authoritarian reaction against the romantic and liberal philosophies of the nineteenth century, died a liberal. That Lasserre in 1930 was on the threshold of a new life, that he was struggling desperately against time to bring forth the fruit of an intellect that had been slow in ripening, is a conclusion which may readily suggest itself to one who is familiar with the last stages of the critic's thought.
1 Ernest Renan. Essai de biographie psychologique, by Gabriel Séailles (Paris, 1894). The review appeared in La Revue Philosophique (Dec., 1895). Reprinted under the title “L'idée d'humanité” in Mes Routes (1924).
2 Maurice Martin du Gard, in an essay on Lasserre that appeared in Vérités du Moment (Paris, 1928), p. 95, writes: “Dreyfusard quant à la stricte question judiciaire, il est anti-dreyfusard sur les questions générales qui se greffent monstrueusement sur l'affaire.” Such a distinction is beside the point, if not downright absurd.
3 Ibid., p. 97.
4 Les Nouvelles Littéraires (June 21, 1930).
5 Op. cit., p. 99.
6 Cited by M. Martin du Gard, op. cit., p. 101.
7 Op. cit., p. 101.
8 P. v.
9 Reprinted in Cinquante Ans de Pensée Française (Paris, 1922).
10 Ibid., p. iii.
11 Before the end of 1921, for example, he had altogether stopped writing for La Revue Universelle.
12 P. 171.
13 Pp. 95–96.
14 Cited by M. Martin du Gard in Les Nouvelles Littéraires (Nov. 15, 1930).
15 Lasserre had not, of course, foreseen the triumph of the Nazis. Had he lived to witness the destruction of everything that he identified with the true German spirit, he undoubtedly would have been among the first to denounce Hitlerism. He might have pointed out, also, that a more liberal attitude by the French toward post-war Germany might have prevented its rise.
16 Cf. preface of Des Romantiques à Nous (Paris, 1927).
17 This was in January, 1930, during the last course of lectures he delivered at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Pratiques.
18 Le Romantisme français (Paris, 1919), pp. 446–450.
19 Des Romantiques à nous, p. 29.
20 Ibid., pp. 120–121.
21 Ibid., pp. 121–122.
22 Faust en France et autres études, p. 81. The essay was written in 1923.
23 Paris, L'Artisan du Livre, 1931.
24 “Les idées de 1789,” August 4, 1928.
25 Another article, “Le Destin de Bergson,” appeared in the Nouvelles Littéraires (Dec. 30, 1930) shortly after his death. It contains nothing of special interest for this study and was not included in Mise au point.
26 P. Lasserre, Trente Années de Vie Littéraire (Paris, 1929), preface by André Bellessort, p. vi.
27 M. Martin du Gard. Nouvelles Littéraires (November 15, 1930).
28 This article was written before the riots of Feb., 1934, when the class struggle reared its head so unmistakeably in France and made political liberalism practically untenable by any thinking individual. Considering the development of Lasserre's thought it is hard to imagine that he would have sided with his former friends of the Action française.