SOURCE: Lawrence, Derek W. “The Ideological Writings of Jean Giono (1937-1946).” French Review 45 (1972): 588-95.

[In the following essay, Lawrence examines Giono's antiwar writings during the period before and during World War II.]

The political writings of this period are not the result of a sudden impulse on the part of the author conscious of an imminent threat of war in Europe, and should not be separated from the philosophy expounded in Giono's earlier works. Unfortunately, peace-time struggles against the atrocities of war often pass unnoticed by the general public, and unchallenged by government officials until war-clouds begin to cast their menacing shadows; at which point their authors can be charged with being unpatriotic, or indifferent to the fate of future generations! Such was the case with Giono.

From Colline to Que ma joie demeure and Les Vraies Richesses he expounds a philosophy of life in accord with Dionysus, one leading to the acceptance of death as natural, and justified as a source of life in the eternal cycle. Fully stated in the description of Bobi's decaying corpse, this concept was first expressed in Jean le Bleu: a vision of total integration as the young boy contemplates Franchesc Odripano in his sleep.¹ And to this death, with its sense of justice, Giono immediately opposes that of Louis David who, in his prime, became an unnecessary victim of the imbecilities of war. His whole philosophy is summed up in this opposition.

Through the Dionysiac experience we can build a full life. It is this message that Giono has in mind when he exclaims: “J'ai écrit pour la vie, j'ai écrit la vie. J'ai voulu saouler tout le monde de vie”;² as when he says: “On a dû te dire qu'il fallait réussir dans la vie; moi je te dis qu'il faut vivre, c'est la plus grande réussite du monde.”³ So while Romain Rolland urges the British and French governments to take energetic measures to ensure Czecho-Slovakia's independence,⁴ Giono sends telegrams to Daladier calling for a French initiative leading to a peaceful settlement ensuring Czecho-Slovakian neutrality and ultimately to universal disarmament. These telegrams have been reprinted in Précisions (pp. 10 & 58).

Refusing to take part in a worse holocaust than World War I, he publishes Refus d'obéissance, reiterating his stand taken in 1934; calls on the peasants of all nations to reduce food supplies and thwart their governments' plans for aggression (Lettre aux paysans …); then utters a final, unqualified condemnation of war, whose heroes are inevitably forgotten:

“Il n'y a pas de héros: les morts sont tout de suite oubliés. Les veuves de héros se marient avec des hommes vivants simplement parce qu'ils sont vivants et qu'être vivant est une plus grande qualité qu'être héros mort. Il ne reste plus de héros après la guerre; il ne reste que des boiteux, des culs-de-jatte, des visages affreux dont les femmes se détournent.”⁵

This recalls the hospital scenes of Le Grand Troupeau in which the broken soldiers are contrasted with the beautiful roses growing in the garden below, and bearing ironically the names of generals and battles: the sightless push the wheel-chairs of the legless, while one blind disfigured soldier runs his fingers over a nurse's face to re-discover what his own face was once like.⁶ And we remember all the horrors of trench warfare suffered by Olivier until he persuades a trench-mate to shoot off part of his hand, thus escaping from the front-line—where Giono himself spent four long years. Years during which he learned that not only does a soldier have to fight the opposing army, but also has to contend with the uncompromising discipline imposed by his own leaders, whose summary justice can be even more effective than the enemy's heavy shell-fire. For example he tells us that in 1915, as the French army attempted to recapture the Fort de Vaux, “tous les jours à la batterie de l'hôpital, entre deux rangées de sacs à terre, on exécute sans jugement au revolver ceux qu'on appelle les déserteurs sur place.”⁷ Then in 1917 at Chemin des Dames officers and men revolt against the appalling conditions and seek the peace of a nearby forest. But during the night, Giono relates, “on nous cerne avec des tirailleurs sénégalais … on nous arrête au matin: on nous compte à deux heures de l'après-midi; on fusille sans jugement 300 hommes pris au hasard le lendemain à six heures du matin.”⁸ In July of the same year a similar insurrection, in the Russians' Châlons camp, led to the execution of another friend, Ivan Ivanovitch Kossiakoff.

War, according to Giono, is simply an unpleasant but inevitable part of our modern technological society. Whereas peace is essential to enjoy the “Vraies richesses,” war helps to amass wealth for capitalists, who view with indifference the resultant misery and suffering; besides, “l'état capitaliste considère la vie humaine comme la matière véritablement première de la production du capital.”⁹ This is one of the statements most often quoted against Giono, as it could so easily be employed as pro-communist propaganda. In fact he is opposed to all parties: witness his Journal entry for November 20, 1936, in which he unequivocally rejects Communism, Fascism or Nazism: “Persuadé actuellement qu'il faut refuser fascisme, nazisme et communisme. Ça n'est, entre eux, qu'une lutte entre dictateurs. Se reformer sur le mot liberté. C'est celui que ni Hitler, ni Musso, ni Staline n'acceptent.” In his Lettre aux paysans … he denounces communism in these terms: “Il n'a fait que changer le capitalisme de forme … Il n'a fait que transformer le capitalisme particulier en capitalisme d'Etat” (p. 38); while in Le Poids du ciel he states categorically: “Je suis l'ennemi du parti quel qu'il soit” (p. 142). This attitude should, moreover, be viewed in the wider context of all the works published previously: remember that in Que ma joie demeure Bobi's efforts to achieve a collective solution to the problem of joy were doomed to failure; while on a more personal plane the “Contadour” experiments of the same period brought no lasting satisfaction to any of the participants.

Our modern automated society has reduced each individual to a robot, and an executioner. In this vast “danse des âmes modernes,” described in Le Poids du ciel (Part I), factory workers form the industrial chain by day; then, attending political meetings, they have their minds filled with thoughts of the chain by night: never are they encouraged to use any initiative. Gradually their instincts are dulled, and they lose sight of the real truth. This is the underlying meaning of “Les Grandeurs libres” (Part II). We follow the unchartered voyage of a Soviet ship from Odessa to Spain. The ship's captain, confronted with the beauties of the stars above him, and an enormous ray in the depths of the Mediterranean, becomes sensitive to the secrets of the universe. As night engulfs not only this ship, but also the Moscow-Berlin train as it crosses the Polish steppes, a Soviet civil servant awakens from his dreams: drawn to the window he beholds the same constellations and is filled with similar sensations. Night is the domain of the senses, when man can become integrated with the universe; but daylight hides from us its secrets: it is the domain of human values. And at this point, by interpolating disjointed sequences of conversation, news headlines, clippings, journalistic speculation on the efficiency of gasses in future wars, Giono effectively depicts a world created by man through his intelligence, which has dulled his instincts. This is by no means a theme new to his readers, for it occupied many pages of Les Vraies Richesses, leading up to the dialogue between ‘Antigone intelligence’ and Oedipe now blind to the beauties of the universe. But Oedipe freed himself from Antigone's shackles, rediscovering the essential gestures of a full life. Likewise, in Part III of Le Poids du ciel, Giono offers a solution in the peasant-artisan society where day is not contrasted with night, for there man's life and dreams are as one.

Modern technology has created the masses: “l'état le plus bas de l'être humain”; “l'ensemble des hommes qui ont abandonné toute liberté d'action et de pensée, tout droit à la noblesse et tout droit à la pureté” (pp. 157-158). Political leaders thrive on the masses who, devoid of real heroism but avid for grandeur, are drawn into the army (another party!) which satisfies this need, without demanding any energy or initiative. Our society thrives on heroes: the Boromés will always take advantage of the Saint-Jeans. In his Journal, at the time of composing Batailles dans la montagne, Giono makes the following analysis of the situation: “Justement Boromé représente la société telle qu'elle est, basée sur la fausse morale catholique, sur les besoins du capitalisme, et je voudrais qu'on comprenne qu'aussi longtemps que cette société existera, elle se servira des héros, elle exploitera l'héroïsme pour son propre intérêt.” With the result that we are constantly inundated with propaganda: “Honneur, Civilisation, Devoir, Culture, sacrifice, décisions, décisive, héroïque, canon, national, victoire, commande.”¹⁰ In the name of patriotism we are encouraged to make war so that our children might never become soldiers. The power of words, the virtue of lies: a truth first discovered and exploited by Ulysse in Naissance de l'Odyssée! This form of propaganda encourages social heroism, or mass heroism, which needs a battlefield. But a real hero does not need a beautiful death; he builds a beautiful life¹¹: the work of an individual.

Gradually the values of comfort have superseded those of creation. And to the masses, who need to be guided, who are slaves to the industrial chain, Giono opposes the individual who has not lost the ability to create. He eulogizes the peasant-artisan societies, composed of men in constant communion with the universe. How can we describe a peasant?

“C'est un homme entièrement naturel … il est revêtu de forêts qui lui recouvrent les cuisses … il est entièrement fait de tous les épisodes de la vie paysanne … Toutes les bêtes sont en lui … et tous les arbres embranchent leurs branches et soulèvent leurs ondes de feuilles dans le corps de cet homme qui contient le monde.”¹²

This is indeed the song of the world, for the song in the peasant's heart is in harmony with the song of nature: the ultimate aim of the Dionysiac experiment, as expounded in the cycle of novels beginning with Le Serpent d'étoiles. The same can be said for the artisan, such as the cobbler who, having an individual method for making a shoe, is irreplaceable, and lives for the created article which forms a bond with his fellow men. Unlike the worker in a Bata factory, who, perfecting one gesture, never creating anything, loses contact with life in the fullest sense of the word, the artisan is in constant communion not only with men, but all that is not man. Peasant farmers and artisans form a strong economic unit, and the owner of ‘Silence’ (Triomphe de la vie) orders a dog-cart, coats, shoes, jars and a harness from the local craftsmen. On the day the articles are delivered there takes place a spontaneous ‘fête paysanne,’ with feasting, dancing and singing: the peasants sing the songs of the universe: a feast which recalls those of the unpublished Chant du monde, Que ma joie demeure and Batailles dans la montagne.

To conclude Triomphe de la vie Giono describes a new episode in the life of the once abandoned village of Aubignane, turning the clock back to the time of Regain. Indeed, throughout the discussion of the essays and pamphlets we have been drawn into comparisons with the works devoted to Pan and Dionysus; and in venerating his artisan father, to whom he quite naturally turns to justify life at a time when Europe is on the brink of war, the author evokes all the artisans who have peopled those works. Most prominent in our minds are the shepherds, ‘les chefs des bêtes,’ on the Mallefougasse plateau, with the weight of the heavens bearing down on their shoulders: “Le poids du ciel est là sur leurs épaules avec son équilibre.”¹³

These essays restate the philosophy contained in previous works, whose lyrical style has also been adopted. Needing to write rapidly on account of the urgency of the situation, Giono encounters no difficulties of composition, employing a style practised and perfected over the years; then the repetitions and enumerations contained in this style, when applied to ideological writings can be an effective means of instruction—already tried and proved effective in Les Vraies Richesses. Sometimes a formula is reiterated, such as the “je te reconnais” with which he evokes the memory of each friend killed in the battle of Fort de Vaux.¹⁴ More often, however, it is by repeating certain important themes—not only within a particular essay, but from one treatise to the next—that Giono hopes to drive home his message: heroism has been invented; the slavery of the masses; the strength of the individual, feared by political leaders; the corrupting effects of money on a peasant-artisan society; the beauty of poverty; the stupidity of war; machines create soldiers, etc.

Replete with such tautology these ideological pamphlets and essays generally represent unrewarding reading. But occasional purple patches recompense the persistent reader with passages that would have graced the finest pre-war compositions: tributes to his cobbler father, recalling much of Jean le Bleu; passages expressing the peasant's or artisan's natural life and communion with the universe; the sensuality of night, together with the sensitivity of plants and animals expressed in some moving pages of Chute de Constantinople;¹⁵ the ‘fête paysanne’ of Triomphe de la vie when men rejoice, eating all the natural foods that nature can provide and, as in Que ma joie demeure, are invaded by an irrepressible sensation of joy: “l'enfance magique restée à nos côtés” (p. 193); and finally the entire first half of Les Grandeurs libres. We are accustomed to seeing Giono's peasants moulding their lives according to seasonal changes as the earth follows its course around the sun. Here we witness just one revolution of the earth on its axis, and man reacting instinctively to that movement which creates night and day. Night is again depicted with all its sensuous appeal. In sleep man is free to dream. If awake he is governed by his senses and can become assimilated into the universe as the ‘divine truth’ penetrates his heart. Moreover we find ourselves in the midst of a symbol, with night representing an ideal life (dreams) in the realm of our instincts, to be followed by the nightmare reality of day, the realm of man's intelligence.

Realizing as we do to what extent Triomphe de la vie is a simple restatement of past themes, we find regrettable the fact that it was published during the German occupation of France when it might be interpreted as supporting the agricultural policies of the Vichy government.

Giono's true attitude to the invader and the Vichy régime can be gleaned from a study of Voyage en calèche, written at this time, but not published or produced on the stage until after the war when his name was removed from the black list. Set in Piedmont in 1797 it shows Napoleon's army in control of Northern Italy, a situation which permits many pointed allusions to the German occupation. A colonel of Napoleon's hussars has been assigned the important mission of capturing Consalvo (Julio), a Piedmontese patriot, who is causing havoc among the occupying forces, and opposes his own government which is too docile to the French (the invaders here). This is an open attack on the Vichy government which had offered the hand of friendship to the conquerors: typical of opportunists who are willing to make pacts with the enemy. The governor Prina is like all men of straw: “Les hommes de paille ont toujours l'ambition d'être pris pour des hommes d'or” (p. 148). Can a foreign army permanently subjugate an entire nation? While the colonel boasts of the strength of the French army occupying the whole land, Donna Fulvia, who has just received news of her death sentence, remarks:

“Colonel! il y a l'esprit. Quand j'ai été frappée tout à l'heure j'ai été brisée en plus de mille Fulvie qui ont sauté de tous les côtés comme des gouttes d'eau et roulé dans les pentes. Mais L'esprit est resté solide sur les hauteurs.”

(p. 179)

This is why military victories can never be permanent.

Julio lives dangerously, disregarding the authorities, defying death. To avoid capture by the colonel he enters the service of the latter's fiancée, Donna Fulvia, a celebrated Milanese soprano. In a light carriage they drive unmolested through the army's night patrols. Julio escapes, but Donna Fulvia is imprisoned by her fiancé for her part in the escapade. On Prina's orders she is sentenced to death, in an endeavour to lure Julio into a trap. Instead John, a valet of unusual talents, forges Napoleon's signature on papers effecting her release, and on others ordering all the emperor's troops on manoeuvres, to leave the roads around Milan unguarded!

Julio is engrossed in a strange passion: to live in constant peril, but always eluding death, determined to choose his own moment. Sensing in Donna Fulvia a passion akin to his own, he saves her from the executioner, thus drawing her out of the magic circle, so that they can wittingly embrace death together.

While holding a place in the ideological works of this period, Voyage en calèche is also forward-looking. First Julio then Donna Fulvia discover an all-consuming passion, and must be viewed as precursors of the ‘âmes fortes’ who are to people the post-war novels. Moreover this is a chronique in the Stendhalian sense, being inspired by an Italian chronicle of the Napoleonic era. Giono explains his discovery: “Dans une chronique d'époque, de la première campagne de Napoléon, je suis tombé sur un personnage extraordinaire, qui habitait Rhô, près de Milan, et qui, pour s'octroyer des réquisitions, avait imité des signatures de Bonaparte de telle façon qu'un jour, avec ce système, il a délivré un de ses amis hors la loi condamné à mort.”¹⁶

Angélo and Le Hussard sur le toit, written during the period presently under discussion, show Giono abandoning the lyrical novel, in which man is assimilated into his habitat, and moving towards psychological analysis, guided by Stendhal; while Deux cavaliers de l'orage and Pour saluer Melville are divided to varying degrees between these conflicting styles: rooted in the lyrical past they employ new techniques which are fully developed in Giono's post-war chroniques.¹⁷ Generally speaking the ideological writings prolong the lyrical cycle; but the influence of Stendhal on Voyage en calèche makes this play a truly transitional work for, between 1937 and 1946, looking for inspiration as he gave a new direction to his work, Giono turned to Italy, the land of his “carbonaro” grandfather, but also the land of adoption for Stendhal.

Notes

1. Jean le Bleu, p. 292. “Dans toi il n'y a déjà plus d'homme, il n'y a plus que la matière de cent sauterelles neuves, de dix lézards, de trois serpents, d'un beau rectangle d'herbe drue et peut-être le coeur d'un arbre.”

2. “Je ne peux pas oublier,” Refus d'obéissance, p. 15.

3. Les Vraies Richesses, p. 214.

4. The term mesures énergiques appears in the telegram addressed to Daladier and Chamberlain early in September, 1938, and signed by Romain Rolland, Paul Langevin and Francis Jourdain, reprinted in Précisions, pp. 8-9.

5. “Du pacifisme absolu,” Nouvelle Revue Française, Vol. 52, CCCIV (1939), 167. Cf. Précisions, p. 58.

6. See Le Grand Troupeau, p. 228 et seq.

7. Preface to Lucien Jacques, Carnets de moleskine (Paris, 1939), p. 13. This preface was later published as Recherche de la pureté (Paris, 1953).

8. Preface to Carnets de moleskine, p. 17. In actual fact Giono was on leave at the time of the insurrection, but explained to me that he was present for the executions.

9. Refus d'obéissance, p. 17.

10. “Promenade de la mort,” L'Eau vive, p. 213. An extract from the projected novel Chute de Constantinople.

11. See Précisions, p. 55.

12. Le Poids du ciel, pp. 31-40. The italics are mine.

13. “Complément à l'Eau vive,” L'Eau vive, p. 27. The italics are mine. This phrase, chosen as the title of an essay of the period now under discussion, emphasizes the unity of thought.

14. Refus d'obéissance, p. 21.

15. “Promenade de la mort,” L'Eau vive, p. 262 et seq.

16. “Je viens de ‘me trouver’,” Arts (December 8-14, 1965), 43.

17. These works are fully analysed in my recent article, “The Transitional Works of Jean Giono,” Studies in Contemporary French Literature, Special Issue #1 of French Review (Winter, 1970).