The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical EditionVol. 3: Literature, Politics, Belief, 1927-1929

The Action Française, M. Maurras and Mr. Ward

The Monthly Criterion, 7 (Mar 1928) 195-203

Mr. Leo Ward has just brought out a small book entitled The Condemnation of the “Action Française.”Essays on this affair have recently appeared in several British periodicals; books on the subject, from one point of view or another, appear in France almost at the rate of one a week; Mr. Ward’s pamphlet is the first book on the subject written by an Englishman, and is therefore of particular interest. ^1*

The history of the affair has been summed up in the various review articles mentioned. To study the affair in all of its aspects is an immense labour, and no complete account could be attempted in the space which I can here devote. The main aspects are three: the motives of the condemnation by the Vatican of an important intellectual movement, the consequences of this condemnation, and the question of its justification. With the motives I am not here concerned; ^2* for my purpose it is quite unnecessary to assume that they were any but the purest and highest. And I shall not concern myself with the consequences, which would involve us in a battle in a fog. It seems more appropriate here, that I should merely touch upon the question of justification, especially in application to the morality and moral influence of a contributor to this number of The Criterion.

Mr. Ward’s book is largely a compilation. It contains an essay by Mr. Ward, which first appeared in The Month; ³ a selection of passages from the works of M. Maurras and his colleagues; and a selection of statements by eminent personages in the Roman Church. Mr. Ward writes as a Roman Catholic for Roman Catholics. I find no fault with him on that account; only I must say that his task is very much simpler than mine would be, were I a Roman Catholic myself, and determined to accept the instructions of authority. For Mr. Ward does not appear to be interested either in the political aspect or in the literary aspect. There is no reason why he should be. Only, his task is thereby much simpler for him. On the other hand, Mr. Ward is not, I assume, in a position to consult all of M. Maurras’s works, as some of them are on the Index. ⁴ Here I can perhaps help him. And although I disagree with Mr. Ward, he will probably find me more sympathetic to his point of view than most of his critics in this country.

Still, the work of M. Maurras is little known in England, so that these critics may not be numerous. The majority of those who are in a position to advertise contemporary French literature are Liberals, horrified by such a word as Reaction, and by no means friendly to Catholicism; or Conservatives, indifferent to foreign thought and equally unfriendly to Catholicism; or Socialists, who can have no use for M. Maurras at all. The fact that he is also an important literary critic, and has written as fine prose as any French author living, makes no difference to his reputation. But if anything, in another generation or so, is to preserve us from a sentimental AngloFascism, it will be some system of ideas which will have gained much from the study of Maurras. His influence in England has not yet begun.

What is remarkable about the thought of M. Maurras, and what we should not learn from perusing Mr. Ward’s book, is its gradual development from the humble and (I admit) grotesque origins of Positivism. Mr. Ward says, “finding that the Royalist tradition was strong only among the Catholics, M. Maurras ceased to develop his anti-Christian theories in public, though he did not withdraw them” [7]. In this sentence there are several misunderstandings. The strength of the Royalism of the Action Françaisedoes not depend primarily upon the traditional Royalists. It would be truer to say that a number of traditional Royalists have...