Robert Zaretsky on the Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage

John Hellman. The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940-1945. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997. xxii + 326 pp. $85.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-7735-0973-3. Reviewed by Robert D. Zaretsky Published on H-France (June, 1998) Although it lasted just four years, the Vichy Coincidentally, the Vichy specialist's equiva‐ regime has proven to be, as the title of a recent lent to the Guide for the Perplexed has just cele‐ book by Henry Rousso and Eric Conan reminds brated its twenty-fifth anniversary. Robert Pax‐ us, "un passe qui ne passe pas." The current trial ton's Vichy France remains the standard work in of Maurice Papon, accused of complicity in crimes the feld of Vichy historiography: an enduring au‐ against humanity while serving as secretary gen‐ thority reflected in Paxton's role as expert witness eral of the prefecture of the Gironde, is the latest at the Papon trial, as well as a symposium held reminder of the enduring impact of this period. this September at Columbia University to cele‐ The issue of justice, already terribly complex due brate the work and the man. One of the book's to the nature of the crime and the half century many merits is its emphasis upon certain ideologi‐ that has since passed, has competed with the tat‐ cal, institutional, and administrative continuities tered, yet resilient, myths of Vichy. When the sec‐ which tied Vichy to both pre- and postwar France. retary of the Academie francaise, Maurice Druon, This was a theme pursued by a number of the condemns the trial as benefiting only Germany; symposium's participants, including John Hell‐ when the leader of the Gaullist party, Philippe man, professor of history at McGill University. Seguin, erupts that it is Gaullism and its epony‐ Hellman's topic was "communitarian non-con‐ mous founder who are the actual targets of the formism"--an interwar movement with roots in trial; when the current president of the Republic, the resurgence of Catholic thought and activity Jacques Chirac, fnds himself assailed by the polit‐ which tried to tack a "third way" between the ical left and right for insisting upon the responsi‐ shoals of communism and capitalism. The non‐ bility of the French state in the deportation of conformists privileged non-conformist ideals such Jews from French soil to Auschwitz, the non-spe‐ as anti-individualism, elitism, Europeanism, and cialist is understandably perplexed. expressed a certain disdain for democratic and re‐ publican practices and institutions. H-Net Reviews The paper was engaging, combative, shrewd, Jean Lacroix--were formed in the Ecole nationale and provocative (and occasionally a bit ram‐ de cadres. It is the story of this singular experi‐ bling)--the same qualities to be found in Hellman's ment which Hellman so ably recounts and ana‐ The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, lyzes. 1940-1945. The second edition of the book has just The experiment was, in a narrow sense, been reissued by McGill-Queen's University Press aborted: the school was established in late 1940 (the frst edition was published in 1993) and in‐ and was effectively shut down by the Vichy au‐ cludes a new preface and a new fnal chapter thorities two years later. But despite its short life, which reveals the ties that bind Francois Mit‐ the school's story is not quickly told--in part be‐ terand, Paul Touvier, and Jean Moulin--a trio cause it is steeped in several currents of French seeming to have little in common--to what Rousso, intellectual history, in part because the characters in another book, has called "the Vichy syndrome": involved are so colorful and complex, and in part namely, the ways in which the French have mythi‐ because the events tend to swing from the tragic cized, denied, politicized, and only recently ana‐ to opera bouffe. The central fgure, around whom lyzed this chapter in their nation's history. Before these individuals and events swirled, was Pierre discussing the contents and issues raised by this Dunoyer de Segonzac. Born into a traditionalist chapter, it is frst necessary to recapitulate the ar‐ Catholic family, Dunoyer de Segonzac was raised gument of the earlier work. in a milieu which scorned material and worldly Hellman contends that an important number success and cultivated the values of authority, loy‐ of interwar French intellectuals--a number far alty and discipline. He eventually became an greater than most historians have assumed--culti‐ army officer (taking a particular interest in tank vated and disseminated an anti-liberal and anti- warfare), frequented a number of lay and reli‐ democratic agenda. This agenda was nourished, gious Catholic circles, and was a great admirer of in large measure, by the Catholic intellectual re‐ Marshal Louis Hubert Lyautey. In many of these naissance of the early twentieth century, embod‐ respects, his career--as Hellman points out--re‐ ied in writers like Charles Peguy, Georges sembles Charles de Gaulle's. Bernanos, Leon Bloy, and Emmanuel Mounier. In the wake of France's defeat, Dunoyer de Very simply, these thinkers were fundamentally Segonzac aligned himself to the new regime led sceptical about the powers of reason, the benefits by Marshal Philippe Petain, to whom he would of industrial capitalism, the viability of individu‐ lend unwavering loyalty for the next three years. alism, and the desirability of modern democracy. He developed the idea of an ecole des chefs (lead‐ A generation of young and mostly Catholic men-- ership school), largely inspired by the model of so‐ women rarely played significant roles in this cial service proposed by Lyautey, and was named male-dominated world, and Protestants and Jews to create and administer such an establishment. were, of course, equally rarissime--fell under the Although its original charter was quite modest--to spell of this communitarian, mystical, and almost train the leaders for the youth work-sites being inevitably reactionary and authoritarian world created by Vichy, and whose purpose was to both view. They, in turn, both reflected and helped in‐ form and control the young French men who fluence the ideological underpinnings of the so- could no longer serve in a reduced army--the called National Revolution--the name given by the school's ambitions were much greater. By the end men of Vichy to their political enterprise. The of 1940, the school's purpose was to train an elite "best and the brightest" of this generation--a of leaders for a France transformed according to group that includes such postwar intellectuals like the criteria of the National Revolution. As Hell‐ Hubert Beuve-Mery, Jean-Marie Domenach, and 2 H-Net Reviews man writes, by late 1940 "the school began to self- It was only with the radicalization of Vichy, consciously take on the role of avant-garde labo‐ marked by the return of Pierre Laval to power ratory for the National Revolution" (p. 32). and the occupation of southern France by the Ger‐ Dunoyer de Segonzac succeeded in housing mans in late 1942, that Uriage turns against the the school at the Chateau Bayard, a massive me‐ regime. But they would not yet question the per‐ dieval pile overlooking the Alpine village of son of Petain: convinced that the Marshal had be‐ Uriage. As Hellman emphasizes, the setting was come the effective prisoner of the collaborationist ideal for a community steeped in a mystical world wing, the men of Uriage resisted on his behalf view harkening to an idealized medieval past-- (this was far from unique among the early re‐ where men were knights, women were women sisters; the best known example is probably Henri and all children were above average (if born into Frenay, the founder of the movement Combat, the right community and properly educated). One who was both an ardent Petainism and a resis‐ of the favorite teachers at Bayard, the professor of tant). But as Hellman observes, this was a "spiritu‐ law Jean-Jacques Chevallier, asserted that the pur‐ al tightrope act that could not go on forever" (p. pose of Uriage was to form a new kind of man, 170). Ultimately, the school was shut down in De‐ one that right-thinking women would welcome, cember 1942 and was turned over to the Milice, because "if she is not spoiled by false ideas, con‐ the collaborationist and paramilitary organization ventions, or snobbishness, what she wants of a commanded by Joseph Darnand. man, frst of all, is to be a man. And the more and As for the men of Uriage, they regrouped, the better she is a woman, the more she harbors baptized themselves as an Order, and prepared contempt for the womanish man. In that she is for the Resistance. But the preparation did not re‐ more than correct" (p. 49). quire a knowledge of explosives or machine guns: Though Hellman cannot resist arching his "Rather than fghting for liberal or democratic eyebrows from time to time, he takes all of this values in an oppressive situation, the men of talk quite seriously--and this is one of the book's Segonzac's circle were preoccupied with promot‐ most important and controversial qualities. As he ing spiritual values in tightly disciplined, hierar‐ argues, Dunoyer de Segonzac and his disciples chical communities such as their Order" (p. 195). created and reflected a Vichy which "might have Hellman here shows some irritation with his sub‐ been"--one frmly constructed on an authoritari‐ jects, who were less concerned with booting the an, hierarchical, Catholic, and traditionalist foun‐ Germans out of France than dilating on the world dation. United in a common hatred of all the ills according to the right-wing intellectuals Mounier, associated with modernity, these men were soon Teilhard de Chardin, and Peguy.

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