The Church Times, 98 (9 Dec 1927) 680
Sir, – Having just returned from abroad I saw only yesterday your issue of November 25, in which you kindly printed my letter. 1 I should be greatly obliged if you would print a correction to one sentence which, as it stands, says exactly the opposite of what I meant. I wrote: “A generation which like the present has utterly repudiated Anatole France could hardly fail to be uncritical in its attitude towards Maurras.” What I meant of course, is: “could hardly fail to be critical,” etc.
As for Mr. Boulter’s letter in your issue of December 2, I must assume that Mr. Boulter has read Maurras’s pamphlet of 1903, Le Dilemme de Marc Sangnier; but I would ask whether the “quixotic” attitude of Sangnier and his friends would in his opinion have been beneficial to France? And if Mr. Boulter expects us to believe that Le Sillonwas suppressed by the influence of the French haute noblesseat the Vatican, is he not inciting us to believe that the attack upon l’Action Françaisemay spring from some other “influence,” no more noble? 2 With Mr. Ward’s letter I have no fault to find, especially as I do not know how he arrives at his figures. 3
As evidence of the complexity of which I spoke, I would point out that some of the most vociferous denouncers of l’Action Françaiseissue their projectiles from the publishing house of Bloud and Gay, the firm which has always been associated with certain exponents of Modernism, including MM. Blondel and Le Roy. 4
Two books giving interesting information are Cinquante ans de politique, by Tavernier, and Le Ralliement et l’Action Française, by Mermeix. 5
24, russell-square, london, w.c. 1. t. s. eliot
