André Gide - Eugéne Rouart: Correspondance I 1893 –1901, and: André Gide - Eugéne Rouart: Correspondance II 1902 –1936 (review)

Eugène Rouart, a successful farmer and businessman who eventually made his mark as Senator for the Haute-Garonne, lies as a shadow behind the character of Michel in L’Immoraliste and Robert in L’École des femmes. His influence can also be discerned in the original project to write Corydon. Now we can see in more detail the background to his La Villa sans maître (1897) in which ‘Ménalque’ appears as an avatar of Gide’s character of the same name in Les Nourritures terrestres, but this did not preclude the Master sending a severe letter of criticism. ‘Il est clair,’ writes Walker in his judicious and informative preface, ‘que Rouart commence, dès 1901, à incarner pour Gide une version de cet “esprit faux” qu’il consacrera une bonne partie de sa carrière ultérieure à traquer, à analyser, et à portraiturer sans merci.’ From Gide’s first cannily exploratory remark that ‘la beauté des races ici vous emplit d’une exaltation vaguement érotique’ (Tunis, 4 November 1893) and through the shared discovery of the recently published translation of A. Moll’s Les Perversions de l’instinct génital (1893) they both realized that their sexual orientations were similar, but at the outset Gide made it clear that there was no question of overstepping the boundaries of a strict but profound friendship. Rouart wrote on receiving his copy of Corydon in 1924: ‘La société moderne me paraît discrètement indulgente’. Gide had a more explicit polemic in mind. An interesting question is raised, which Walker addresses in some detail: what is the nature and quality of Gide’s ‘honesty’ in these letters, since he was often self-contradictory in other contexts? Apart from the sexual sphere, his attitudes towards the Dreyfus case and racism provide a case in point. Rouart places himself firmly on the Right; Gide sends back some letters from Rouart, which he finds insulting. In one highly important letter, written from Rome on 24 January 1898, Gide contests Rouart’s anti-Dreyfus position, but, strangely, on the grounds that he and his like-minded friends are ‘révoltés par vos façons, non par votre cause,’ adding: ‘Car je n’aime pas plus les Juifs. . . je t’assure; et au contraire ne les ai jamais crus plus dangereux.’ As for Gide’s constant condemnation of hypocrisy, what should we make of his conclusion: ‘Mais, quand on n’a plus d’autorité, il faudrait de l’habileté formidable—et l’habile à présent serait de simuler au moins la franchise si l’on n’ose pas l’avoir—s’il est dangeureux de l’avoir.’ Was he loth to break their friendship? Rouart was undeniably difficult and his wife found him impossibly unpredictable (details are thoughtfully provided here in her letter to a mutual friend, F. P.Alibert, dated 24 February 1916). Approximately 880 letters (several more have been lost or destroyed) exchanged over a period of 44 years chronicle this fascinating relationship. The best date from before the end of the First War and all are authoritatively presented with excellent footnotes. One quibble: it is a pity that the cross-references in the index to La Villa sans maître have been lost in the printing process.