Le Lendemain, c’est vous

From Brazil, where he had settled in 1938, Georges Bernanos closely followed events in Europe: the war, the collapse, the armistice. He was among those who refused to see France left to the mercy of Nazism, who could not forgive a Marshal of France for accepting defeat so readily, and who sided with the Resistance and its leader, Charles de Gaulle. He multiplied his combative writings and lectures in support of Free France throughout Latin America, seeking to galvanize the young, in whom alone he believed the “fairer world of tomorrow” could be built — provided they did not seek the safety of party allegiance, and did not yield to the forces of ideological or economic totalitarianism, his particular bête noire. To these young people he addressed his rallying cry: “Le Lendemain, c’est vous!” (“Tomorrow is you!”), an appeal that gives its title to the present volume, gathering numerous texts still unpublished in France, written between 1940 and 1947, together with a preface in memory of Léon Bloy.