L’Église

Two months after the publication of Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night), and a week after the fateful 7 December, Georges Bernanos published a remarkable tribute in Le Figaro: “For us, the question is not whether M. Céline’s portrait is atrocious, but whether it is true. It is true (…) Yes, this is the accursed part, the shameful part, the rejected part of our people. And we would readily agree that there exist more reassuring images of modern society (…). Yet any old priest of the Zone, who sometimes hears the confessions of M. Céline’s heroes, will tell you that M. Céline is right.” (“Au bout de la nuit,” Le Figaro, 13 December 1932)

As soon as Voyage appeared, Céline had presented Bernanos with a press copy, inscribed with a deferential “hommage de l’auteur à Monsieur Georges Bernanos.” A year later, the tone grew warmer: to the illustrious peer who had raised his voice in his defense, Céline sent his friendly and grateful homage. Relations between the two men did not grow much closer, however, and Bernanos clearly distanced himself when the pamphlets appeared: Céline “got the wrong urinal,” he wrote in 1938 in Scandale de la vérité, after the publication of Bagatelles pour un massacre.