Maurras and hobbes
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Drieu la Rochelle, Pierre 1893-1945
PERSONAL:
Born January 3, 1893, in Paris, France; died March 16, 1945, in Paris, France, of suicide by drug overdose and gas inhalation; married Colette Jéramee, 1917; divorced, 1921. Education: Attended the Ecole des Sciences Politiques.
CAREER:
Writer, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, and poet. Military service: Served in World War I in 1914; became sergeant and platoon leader; decorated for leading a bayonet charge at Charleroi in 1914.
WRITINGS:
Fond de Cantine, Editions de la Nouvelle Review Francaise (Paris, France), 1920.
Etat Civil, Editions de la Nouvelle Review Francaise (Paris, France), 1921, reprinted, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1977.
Mesure de la France, B. Grasset (Paris, France), 1922, reprinted, 1964.
Plainte contre Inconnu, Editions de la Nouvelle Review Francaise (Paris, France), 1924.
L'Homme Couvert des Femmes, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1925.
Le Jeune Europeen, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1927, reprinted, with preface by Dominique Desanti, 1978.
Bleche, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1928,
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Faust, 1945 – The rise and fall of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle
This essay was written as the introduction to the first volume of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle’s masterpiece Gilles, and appears there. I am uploading it because I feel it’s still relevant, perhaps moreso now than then, and will continue to be so. You can order a copy here.
Towards the end of the war, when it was clear that they had lost, and that all further fighting was merely a formality, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle decided to kill himself. On the 11th of August, 1944 he took a lethal dose of luminal, closed his eyes, and waited to die.
It had been a long time since he had arrived in Paris. Born and raised in Normandy, wounded thrice in the Great War, he had come to Paris like so many provincial upstarts to seek fame, fortune, and especially women. He had found all of these things in spades, and immediately set to making a name for himself. What’s more, he had talent and knew how to style himself, who to keep acquainted with, what opinions to have. Critics celebrated his books, women loved him. By
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Drieu la Rochelle, Pierre (1893–1945)
French writer.
Along with Robert Brasillach (1909–1945) and Louis-Ferdinand Céline (pseudonym of Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, 1894–1961), Pierre Drieu la Rochelle is undoubtedly the French writer who best exemplifies certain French intellectuals' swerve toward fascism, anti-Semitism, and collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. Of the three, moreover, it was he who was the most prominent literary figure at the time, even though he could not lay claim to the talent and the posterity of a Céline, instead describing himself as an "uneven writer."
Drieu la Rochelle was born into a middle-class Paris family originally from Normandy. His hated father, although he practiced the honorable profession of lawyer, had nonetheless drawn his family into debt. Drieu's family and early environment in Normandy were central in his works, especially at the beginning of his literary career. État civil (1921; Civil status), Le Jeune Européen (1927; European youth), and above all Rêveuse Bourgeoisie (1937; Daydreams of the bourgeoisie) treat in
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