BARRÈS, MAURICE. – Born in Charmes-sur-Moselle (Vosges) on 22 September 1862; died in Paris on 4 December 1923. From 1883 he began to make himself known by writing for newspapers and journals.
He was among the first to denounce the positivist doctrines of Renan and Taine (Huit jours chez M. Renan, 1888). From the same year dates the novel Sous l'oeil des Barbares, which revealed his nature as an ideologue and artist, and which was followed by Un homme libre (1889) and Le jardin de Bérénice (1893), one of his most characteristic books, in which the contrast between feeling and the brutality of material and political interests is brought to light. These three novels, which form a kind of trilogy entitled Le culte du moi, in which the inner unity of man is examined, were followed by those of l'Energie nationale, specifically Les déracinés (1907), in which B. deplores the disintegration of France and combats the excessive concentration of spiritual life in Paris, giving us, by contrast, a passionate evocation of Lorraine; Au service de l'Allemagne (1905) and Colette Baudoche (1909), in which fidelity to tradition is embodied in a modest girl from Metz. He also wrote, besides other novels, memoirs and travel impressions (Venice, Spain); studies of art (Greco ou le secret de Tolède, 1912); and a vigorous account of religious life in Lorraine (La colline inspirée, 1913). Sympathetic toward the Church, he defended it against the dangers of the separation regime, although he was not a practicing Catholic. He was a deputy for Nancy until 1895, a traditionalist and patriot, but did not join Maurras’s monarchist movement. Member of the Academy from 1906.