BARRÈS, MAURICE. - Born at Charmes-sur-Moselle (Vosges) on 22 Sept. 1862, died in Paris on 4 Dec. 1923. From 1883 he began to make himself known by writing in newspapers and reviews.
He was among the first to denounce the positivist doctrines of Renan and Taine (Huit jours chez M. Renan, 1888). Of the same year is the novel Sous l'oeil des Barbares, which revealed his nature as an ideologue and an artist, and it 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 under the title Le culte du moi, in which the intimate unity of man is examined, are followed by those of Energie nationale, and precisely Les déracinés (1907), in which B. deplores the disintegration of France and combats the excessive centralization of spiritual life in Paris, giving us by contrast a passionate evocation of Lorraine; Au service de l'Allemagne (1905) and Colette Baudoche (1909), where fidelity to tradition is embodied in a modest young girl of Metz. He also wrote, along with other novels, memoirs and travel impressions (Venice, Spain); art studies (Greco ou le secret de Tolède, 1912) and a vigorous tale of religious life in Lorraine (La colline inspirée, 1913). Sympathetic to the Church, he was its defender against the dangers of the regime of separation, though he was not a practicing Catholic. He was a deputy for Nancy until 1895, a traditionalist and patriot, but he did not join Maurras's monarchist movement. A member of the Académie from 1906.