The countless tributes currently being paid to Marc Bloch on the occasion of his interment in the Panthéon come from both the right and the left, ranging from the National Rally (excluded) to La France Insoumise (included). That a great medieval historian, a member of the Resistance, and a victim of the Nazis as well as some French citizens, executed in 1945, should be honored in this way is certainly cause for celebration. More questionable, however, are a number of instances of appropriation and misappropriation that are not limited to politicians but also originate within the historical profession itself. This is nothing new. Great scholars like Numa Fustel de Coulanges (d. 1889)[1] And especially Ernest Renan (d. 1892) was once the subject of dispute between the right and the left, who retained from his works what suited them and ignored what disturbed them. One could almost conclude already, before developing the point of detail that will follow (a "detail"? Perhaps not, in reality…): the great figures of the past should be studied in all their complexity because they are generally resistant to partisan reductionism.
In a letter to his old friend Lucien Febvre dated August 17, 1941, Marc Bloch described antisemitism as a "subtle, contagious, multi-filtering poison." The second Statute on Jews had been promulgated by the Vichy government about two months earlier. Observing a more or less latent progression toward a diffuse antisemitism among many French people, Bloch added: "I saw this development unfold, slowly, surely, in the years preceding the war. It was primarily in this way that the osmosis of the racist spirit from elsewhere was taking place in our country. And this development was far more dangerous than overt, stupid, violent antisemitism. Because it penetrated circles where people would have blushed—or laughed—to hear themselves accused of antisemitism." where people boasted of remaining faithful, indeed, to a famous Declaration, or believed they were, without realizing how far they were straying from it (and perhaps even today, the purest circles of this contamination are, as you indicate, a few passionately Christian groups).
Still in this remarkable letter, Bloch relied on Péguy: "The right word , It is to Péguy that we must ask., à Péguy, a singular god of faithful followers whom he would have despised: 'I am told that Jewish high finance has no national spirit. That's possible. Do you know of any high finance that is national?' He, for his part, placed himself among 'those men who simply feel French, of that France where their ancestors have lived for well over five fateful generations, of that France for which, in the previous generation, their fathers and uncles opted—men whom the good peasants, their neighbors—very good judges in this matter[2] – no more than the soldiers, once called upon to fight alongside them, feel in any way different from other French people.”
In many respects, these lines appear as lucid as they are prophetic. However, it is not certain that they could easily find a place today in the writings of some of the author's most ardent admirers. Rois thaumaturges and La Société féodaleBloch, an admirer of Péguy, elevated to the status of moral conscience.[3]The champion of "brave peasants" and soldiers who died for France—these are not references yet universally accepted. But let's stay on the ground that was primarily Bloch's focus in this letter, namely the difficulty of being both patriotic and Jewish in 1941. A slow evolution toward a pervasive antisemitism, not unrelated to a "neighborly racism" (but the "neighborly" has changed)? How can we not think of France today? Bloch also emphasized the presence of this more or less conscious antisemitism in men who didn't acknowledge it, or even laughed when accused. In his time, these men were often Catholics who simply believed they couldn't be antisemitic given the moral values they upheld, but who had nevertheless become so without ever admitting it. They were "the purest circles of this contamination." And sometimes one church replaces another. Today, it is a segment of the left, and only a segment (like in the past a segment of Catholics, and only a segment), which, in the name of moral values it claims to possess exclusively, fosters a widespread and increasingly unashamed antisemitism that, nevertheless, refuses to acknowledge its true nature. Some historians very close to La France Insoumise, and La France Insoumise itself, claim the legacy of Marc Bloch.[4]Perhaps some would be wise to read or reread these lines so as not to find themselves in the position of a segment of the Catholic Church in 1941: the very fact that it laughed at this accusation (instead of, unfortunately, blushing at it), the fact that it boasted of "remaining faithful to a certain Declaration" "without realizing that it was deviating from it," this certainly made it more dangerous than "overt anti-Semitism." One could not put it better. Thank you, Marc Bloch. Alas.
