The Intelligent American’s Guide to the French Right III: Condemnation, Missed Opportunities, and Vindication

The third instalment of Mr Coulombe's series on the French Right, based on his long acquaintance with Gary Potter, who spent his life trying to teach Americans about the French Royalist movement.

From Catholicism.org

By Charles Coulombe, STM, KCSS

The Croix de Feu rose up
to banish all suffering,
so that honor might be reborn in France
and that the respected victor
might once again sing his pride
to the three blue waters of hope.

Listen, listen, let everyone be silent.
The old bodies of our old bell towers,
on the orchards, on the landings,
have launched the enchanted call:
We want a French France!
We want a French France!
—“Song of the Croix de Feu.”

ALTHOUGH most supporters of Action Française and allied currents outside the country were devout Catholics, there were — including Maurras himself, for most of his adult life — a sprinkling of nonbelievers among them. For such folk, the essential role Maurras gave the Church in France’s history and her future made perfect sense. But what of le maître himself, and his co-non-religionists? For them, rather than being the Body of Christ, whose salvific mission had animated and given value to t h e various European countries and their daughter nations overseas, the Church’s importance came purely from her role in the formation of France (or whatever country the foreign disciple hailed from). The nation became in itself an object of worship, in a sense, and the Church merely a means to its end. It created for the French the dilemma that Vladmir Soloviev saw Slavophilism creating with regard to Russian Orthodoxy: “If we ask how the separated Eastern Church justifies its existence we are told: By having formed the Russian people and provided its spiritual nurture. And when we enquire how that people justifies its existence the answer is: By belonging to the separated Eastern Church.”

This elevation of France to an end-all in itself was seen by many Catholic critics as being a sort of pagan idolatry. There was also a feeling in many curial circles that the age of Monarchy had passed, and that the Church must accommodate herself to the new regime, even as Leo XIII had written. Where that Pontiff had relied on his secretary of state, the liberal Cardinal Rampolla, so too did Pius XI rely upon his, Cardinal Gasparri. Inspired by the two above considerations, Gasparri advised Pius XI to condemn AF, which he accordingly did, in 1926.

The damage done to Maurras and his following was immense; such eminent members of the movement as Georges Bernanos, Francois Mauriac, and Jacques Maritain left. Those who remained were excommunicated, and until Pius XII lifted the condemnation 13 years later, AF members who died were denied Catholic burial — the fact that it was lifted without AF members being asked to retract anything was a tacit admission of the injustice thereby perpetrated.

But the Church suffered a certain amount of damage in the immediate. Louis Cardinal Billot, an eminent French prelate and theologian, resigned the Cardinalate in protest; T.S. Eliot, who had been on the point of conversion, decided against it. A great number of heretofore active and devout Catholics felt betrayed by the Church. Maurras himself was very measured and respectful in his tone, pointing out that Infallibility by Catholic doctrinal standards did not extend to Papal political pronouncements unconnected with dogma. As noted, his refusal to return the attack in like manner was in the end rewarded with vindication.

In the immediate, however, the condemnation presented not just AF but all of the French Catholic Right with a challenge. Since liberal democracy was apparently crumbling before their eyes, and — in France, at any rate — Catholics were not to work to restore the King — what could they do? Here again, the example of Mussolini — soon to sign a deal with Cardinal Gasparri that would end the Roman Question and establish the Vatican City State — came to the fore. Many French Catholic Rightists, disaffected AF alumni or not, began looking for a substitute — a French duce, as it were.

Several candidates presented themselves, many using Maurrasian philosophy, with themselves in place of the King; around these figures were organised various “patriotic leagues.” Of them all, the most successful was Colonel François de La Rocque, who in 1930 launched the Croix de Feu, made up primarily of war veterans and students. Coming himself from a Social Catholic and Monarchist background, de la Rocque had served under and been closely associated with such heroes as Foch, Petain, and Lyautey — all of whom, as noted, had similar views. The CdF and others like it — strengthened by Great Depression-bred economic desperation — grew in both numbers and vocal opposition to the political establishment. They saw both the spectre of Communism and International High Finance as twin methods of ruining France. Meanwhile, as the French leadership floundered around, 1933 saw Hitler come to power in Germany and FDR in the United States. This appeared to redouble the need for a dynamic leader in France.

Things came to a head in January of 1934 with the Stavisky Scandal. On the 8th of that month, crooked financier and embezzler Alexandre Stavisky was found dead in an alpine chalet — allegedly of a self-inflicted gunshot. But the ensuing revelation of his connections with various government and society figures — and the extent of his frauds perpetrated against various levels of government — led many to believe that government agents had killed him. Against this backdrop, Premier Edouard Daladier fired the popular but solidly anti-Communist and anti-Corruption Prefect of the Paris Police. As a result, on the night of February 4, riots erupted in various quarters of Paris; these were led by AF, the Croix de Feu, and various other organisations. The police fired on the rioters, killing 17 of them. For one critical evening, it looked as the coup that Maurras had been predicting since the 1890s would at last come to pass — certainly many on the French Left thought so. But in reality, neither he, de la Rocque, nor any of the other leaders of the Right had any such plans, much less coordination. The moment came and went.

Nevertheless, Daladier resigned, and a “National Union” government of all the Conservative and Centrist factions took power. But this in turn galvanised the Left. In 1935, Stalin’s Comintern in Moscow ordered the various Communist parties in Europe to form “United Fronts” with the Socialists. The first fruits of this change in tactics was the election of a Communist/Socialist United Front government in Spain in January of 1936. The French Communists and Socialists also reconciled their differences, while the National Union government proved as incapable of dealing with the Depression as its predecessor. The French United Front accordingly beat them in the elections of May.

But in the meantime, events in Spain spiraled further and further downhill, as the Spanish government became ever more Leftist and anti-Catholic. It soon became a question as to whether the Left or the Right would start a revolution first — the former to eliminate the latter completely, the latter to regain control of the government. In the event, in July of 1936 Francisco Franco and the Spanish Army revolted. This conflict, pitting the left-wing “Loyalists” against Franco’s “Nationalists,” would — as with so many civil wars — be avidly watched by outsiders.

Stalin sent what money and arms he could, and Leftists around the World supported the Loyalists. Foreigners thronged to join their “International Brigades,” on what Communist propaganda as a crusade against Fascism. Americans were welcomed into the “Abraham Lincoln” and “George Washington” Brigades; having served in one of these became a badge of honour on the American Left for decades.

Franco, on the other hand, achieved the minor miracle of bringing the Spanish Right — Carlists, Monarchists, Falangists (the Falange was somewhat similar to Maurras’ philosophy, only with Spain in the role of France), and others — into sufficient accord to eventually emerge victorious from the conflict, despite their wildly different and somewhat contradictory aims. The Nationalists also received foreign assistance — Portugal and Italy sent volunteers, and Hitler’s Germany lent air support. But many other foreigners volunteered as well: Irish, Romanians, White Russians, Latin Americans, British — and at least one South African, Roy Campbell. Amongst the French were the 500 men of the Jeanne d’Arc battalion of the Spanish Foreign Legion, most of whom came from the Croix de Feu.

As the war in Spain raged, slowly going in the Nationalists favour, other things were happening international ly. In 1934, the Nazis in Austria attempted a coup, in the course of which they murdered that country’s heroic chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss. The Italians — still allied to Britain and France as they were in World War I — rushed troops to the Brenner Pass and forced Hitler to back down. But when Mussolini decided to conquer Ethiopia in 1936, he fell out with his erstwhile allies, even while tacitly cooperating with Hitler in Spain. By 1938, they would be allies, thus dooming both Austrian and Czechoslovak independence. This was a heavy blow to the French Right, many of whom had seen Fascist Italy as France’s natural ally against a resurgent Germany.

As 1939 progressed, the ultimate nightmare of a Second World War began to take shape. It would present the French Right — as it did the Right throughout Europe — with unprecedented challenges. But before the War began, the newly elected Pius XII lifted the condemnation of AF. Its members could face a dangerous and uncertain future, with that, at least, removed.

Pictured: François de La Rocque, Leader of the Croix-de-Feu and President of the French Social Party