Le Hussard bleu

At the time of this publication, Roger Nimier was editing the weekly Opéra and moving in Parisian literary and society circles. Alongside Antoine Blondin, Michel Déon, Jacques Laurent and Félicien Marceau, he belonged to the generation of writers Bernard Frank grouped together in Les Temps modernes under the banner of “Hussards,” who claimed the legacy of Marcel Aymé, Céline, Montherlant, Giono, Morand and Chardonne, in opposition to the experimental writing championed by Sarraute or Blanchot.

A very fine copy inscribed by Nimier to François Mauriac.

The previous year, responding to Mauriac’s survey on the young literary generation published in Le Figaro (30 May 1949), Nimier had denounced “modern values” and sketched the emerging figure of the writer in resistance, mocking “the fine career of rebellion that lay open before us… No sooner had we taken a step down that path than we recoiled in horror: there was an academy of revolution, a supreme council of disorder, and the dust was already settling on a pool of blood, carefully preserved as a national emblem. Something else had to be found.” (“Vingt ans en 45,” La Table Ronde, nos. 20–21, August–September 1949, p. 1266.)

Two years later, Mauriac was invited by Nimier and the other “hussards” to contribute to the Cahiers de La Table ronde. Mauriac accepted, without allegiance, perhaps hoping the young review might supplant the old NRF. He was to be disappointed, remarking wryly that apart from himself, Thierry Maulnier — a former contributor to L’Action française — was by far the most left-leaning contributor. He recounted a lunch in his Bloc-Notes, an episode Nimier treated quite differently in Les écrivains sont-ils bêtes? (p. 19): a parody account, written as though from the perspective of Georges Bernanos, imitating his style. This “Déjeuner de Bernanos” (published in the weekly Arts, 23–29 June 1954) gently mocks each guest present, caricaturing them under transparent pseudonyms, all the more so as Mauriac’s original account was known or presumed known to readers. Nimier spares himself no more than the others, appearing as the young Roger Lainier, who opens his mouth only to ask whether the latest book by Francis Cantal (a transparent stand-in for François Mauriac, whose wartime pseudonym referenced the Cantal region near the Forez), La Brebis (Mauriac had just published L’Agneau), was any good and whether “it’s fashionable.”

“Si tu n’as pas vu l’aube douce qui brode la nuit
et qui allume, au bord des mares, les angéliques,
je t’indiquerai l’aube en te fermant les yeux
avec un baiser long comme l’aube elle-même.
Et ton cœur sera plein d’un jour blanc qui se lève,
car je te poserai de l’aube sur les lèvres.

Et si tu n’as pas vu ce joli sentiment
que Zénaïde Fleuriot a nommé l’amour,
je te l’expliquerai lentement, lentement,
comme si tu hissais ta bouche vers ma bouche,
avec tes genoux ronds pressés à mes genoux.
Alors, tu verras ce sentiment qui est l’amour,
que l’on cache beaucoup et dont on parle tant.”

Francis Jammes, Le Deuil des primevères.