bourgeois and proletarian wider and more unbridgeable than in any other nation of the Western world. The link with the Commune has never been severed; in the 1930s (and still today), every Whitsun the leaders of France’s Left wing made a solemn pilgrimage to the Mur des Fédérés at Père Lachaise Cemetery, to commemorate the summary execution there on 28 May 1871 of 147 Communards. The Internationale was their marching song, but the wall was the shrine to which they marched.
The Verdun stream, on the other hand, drew its main impetus from the middle-class, conservative forces which had repressed the Commune. It believed in the fundamental, indestructible grandeur of France (a generation later, it might be rated as essentially Gaullist); it hankered after la gloire as embodied by the military triumphs of Louis XIV and Napoleon. While the heirs of the Commune marched to the Mur des Fédérés, it was to the tragic glories of Verdun that this second stream turned for its (even more immediate) inspiration. It felt that France should not renounce the benefit from all the blood gloriously shed in her numerous wars, especially in this last and most terrible; though it was torn when, like the Left wing, it reflected upon the realities on the reverse of the Verdun coin. Still clinging to many of the illusions left over from that Quatorze Juillet of 1919, it was sickened by France’s subsequent retreat from grandeur , sickened by the corrupt ineptness of her politicians. At the same time, it too had its memories of the Commune, which the new strength infused into the French Left by the Russian Revolution had revivified. The spectre of Bolshevism, teeth clamped upon a bloody knife, was constantly breathing down its neck.
By the 1930s, the most vocal and extreme of those Frenchmen borne along in the Verdun stream had banded themselves together in various Right-wing ‘leagues’. There were the Camelots du Roi , shock-troops of the monarchist, Catholic and anti-semitic Action Française of Charles Maurras, 6 which had led the assault on Stavisky and his highly placed ‘pals’ in the Radical Party. Then there were the Jeunesses Patriotes , nationalist and violently anti-Communist, who had assumed the mantle of the fire-eating Paul Déroulède’s Ligue des Patriotes founded to avenge the defeat of 1870. But now, with the grievance of Alsace-Lorraine eradicated, the patriotism of the Jeunesses was as defensive as that of any other section of the country for whom the Maginot Line had become a way of life, and their energies were directed largely towards the protection of private property against real or imagined threats of ‘Bolshevism’. In 1932, the Solidarité Française was created by funds from the perfumery fortune of François Coty, its members wearing a para-military uniform of black beret and blue shirt. Their motto was ‘ La France aux Français! ’ – ‘France forthe French’ – and a newspaper also founded by M. Coty, L’Ami du Peuple , bore at its masthead the slogan ‘With Hitler against Bolshevism’. In 1933 the Francistes were formed, adopting a uniform not dissimilar to that of the Nazi stormtroopers.
Less extreme politically, though still well right of centre, were various veterans’ associations, whose members came largely from the petite bourgeoisie. But the most activist and significant of the ‘Leagues’ was the Croix de Feu , originally founded in 1928 as an association of ex-soldiers decorated for bravery. Its leader, Colonel Casimir de la Rocque, who had served on the staffs of both Foch and Lyautey, was now dedicated to the purgation of all that was corrupt in the institutions of the Third Republic. Under his impulse the Croix de Feu assumed a distinct political orientation. ‘Honesty’ and ‘Order’ were its twin battle-cries, and though it could not strictly be described as Fascist – unlike some of the more right-wing leagues – it shared their admiration for the vigour and
The Verdun stream, on the other hand, drew its main impetus from the middle-class, conservative forces which had repressed the Commune. It believed in the fundamental, indestructible grandeur of France (a generation later, it might be rated as essentially Gaullist); it hankered after la gloire as embodied by the military triumphs of Louis XIV and Napoleon. While the heirs of the Commune marched to the Mur des Fédérés, it was to the tragic glories of Verdun that this second stream turned for its (even more immediate) inspiration. It felt that France should not renounce the benefit from all the blood gloriously shed in her numerous wars, especially in this last and most terrible; though it was torn when, like the Left wing, it reflected upon the realities on the reverse of the Verdun coin. Still clinging to many of the illusions left over from that Quatorze Juillet of 1919, it was sickened by France’s subsequent retreat from grandeur , sickened by the corrupt ineptness of her politicians. At the same time, it too had its memories of the Commune, which the new strength infused into the French Left by the Russian Revolution had revivified. The spectre of Bolshevism, teeth clamped upon a bloody knife, was constantly breathing down its neck.
By the 1930s, the most vocal and extreme of those Frenchmen borne along in the Verdun stream had banded themselves together in various Right-wing ‘leagues’. There were the Camelots du Roi , shock-troops of the monarchist, Catholic and anti-semitic Action Française of Charles Maurras, 6 which had led the assault on Stavisky and his highly placed ‘pals’ in the Radical Party. Then there were the Jeunesses Patriotes , nationalist and violently anti-Communist, who had assumed the mantle of the fire-eating Paul Déroulède’s Ligue des Patriotes founded to avenge the defeat of 1870. But now, with the grievance of Alsace-Lorraine eradicated, the patriotism of the Jeunesses was as defensive as that of any other section of the country for whom the Maginot Line had become a way of life, and their energies were directed largely towards the protection of private property against real or imagined threats of ‘Bolshevism’. In 1932, the Solidarité Française was created by funds from the perfumery fortune of François Coty, its members wearing a para-military uniform of black beret and blue shirt. Their motto was ‘ La France aux Français! ’ – ‘France forthe French’ – and a newspaper also founded by M. Coty, L’Ami du Peuple , bore at its masthead the slogan ‘With Hitler against Bolshevism’. In 1933 the Francistes were formed, adopting a uniform not dissimilar to that of the Nazi stormtroopers.
Less extreme politically, though still well right of centre, were various veterans’ associations, whose members came largely from the petite bourgeoisie. But the most activist and significant of the ‘Leagues’ was the Croix de Feu , originally founded in 1928 as an association of ex-soldiers decorated for bravery. Its leader, Colonel Casimir de la Rocque, who had served on the staffs of both Foch and Lyautey, was now dedicated to the purgation of all that was corrupt in the institutions of the Third Republic. Under his impulse the Croix de Feu assumed a distinct political orientation. ‘Honesty’ and ‘Order’ were its twin battle-cries, and though it could not strictly be described as Fascist – unlike some of the more right-wing leagues – it shared their admiration for the vigour and
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