Alphonse de Chateaubriant: Catholic Collaborator

The Second World War spawned infamous collaborators such as Brasillach and Drieu la Rochelle, men who betrayed France throughout the Occupation. Among their number stands the Catholic writer Alphonse de Chateaubriant. Author of the prize-winning novels Monsieur des Lourdines and La Briere, he turned his literary talents to the propagation of a collaborationist message in the pages of the infamous essay La Gerbe des forces and the equally ignominious newspaper La Gerbe. Although nothing predisposes a Catholic to be a collaborator, Chateaubriant’s commitment to the National-Socialist cause arose from an idiosyncratic reading of Christian doctrine which justified racism and elitism in the name of spiritual regeneration. He viewed his encounter with National Socialism as a long-awaited meeting of minds, and championed its representatives as men of vision who would re-evangelise the world. After the war, Chateaubriant fled to Austria. Condemned as a traitor in his absence, he indulged in an attempt at self-revision and fulminated against his judges until his dying day. This book explores the dangerous pathways down which misplaced idealism can lead. It challenges those who would obscure the proper telling of Chateaubriant’s involvement, or obstruct a fitting narrative of the Vichy years.