BLOY, LÉON. — Writer, born in Périgueux in July 1846, died in Bourg-la-Reine on 3 November 1917. A Catholic of passionate spirit, ignorant of sweet tolerance («tout ce qui n’est pas exclusivement, éperdument catholique n’a d’autre droit que celui de se taire»); in constant warfare with his materialist century, an enemy of the secular spirit which, in his eyes, was guilty of the greatest compromises; an exposer of the accommodating, flat, overly practical bourgeois class; ready to anatomize every mediocre critique and social lie, whether it concerned lukewarm Christians or writers prepared to compromise, this entrepreneur of demolitions, opposed especially within Catholic circles, dedicated his entire work to the ever-greater glorification of God, comprising some thirty volumes.
Among these, particularly significant are the eight that constitute his Journal, namely: *Le mendiant ingrat*, *Mon journal*, *Quatre ans de captivité à Cochons-sur-Marne*, *L’invendable*, *Le vieux de la Montagne*, *Le Pèlerin de l’Absolu*, *Au seuil de l’Apocalypse*, and *La porte des humbles* (and which, despite the differences in the attitudes of the two writers, recalls the *Journal* of Jules Renard).
Of an integral, apocalyptic Catholicism, which inspired in him a trembling expectation of the reign of the Spirit, *missionné pour le témoignage* in his crusade against the enemies of truth and justice, he incessantly affirmed Christian solidarity; he spread words of consolation in his letters; but, a nature of elemental violence and impulsiveness, incapable of balance or serenity, he revealed himself always as a passionate polemicist, driven by indignation and love. Always sincere but uneven, and at times moved by personal animosity, he was often unjust and thus fell into contradictions: he proceeded by intuition, expressed himself through visions and prophecies, created a hallucinatory atmosphere, shrouded reality in a mystical character. He denounced the mediocrity of the clergy, whom he considered unconscious depositories of divine mysteries and revelations; he was antimodern inasmuch as he opposed the materialistic exaggerations of the modern world: hatred in him was affirmed in the function of love, and in exaggeration and rebellion, even when it seemed at times to overstep the mark, he revealed anxieties of tenderness, proving himself a most ardent worshipper of God. In his final years, his work attained serenity and moving humility, as attested by *Méditations d’un solitaire* (1916) and *Dans les ténèbres* (1917).
A poet in prose, capable of refined analysis, he possessed the gift of narrating and depicting with perfect clarity; his style could expand into broad invective, become caustic and trembling, ignite in a dazzling anathema recalling Tertullian, or dissolve into the most profound tenderness. The novel *La femme pauvre* concludes with the celebrated words: «Il n’y a qu’une misère; c’est de n’être pas des saints».
Notable among his works are: *Le Révélateur du globe* (Paris 1884) on C. Columbus, *Le désespéré* (ibid. 1886); *La Chevalière de la Mort* (ibid. 1896) dedicated to Marie Antoinette, *La femme pauvre* (ibid. 1896); *Belluaires et porchers* (ibid. 1905); *Celle qui pleure* (ibid. 1908), dedicated to the Madonna of La Salette, to whom he also refers in *Vie de Mélanie* (ibid. 1912); *Le sang du pauvre* (ibid. 1909); *L’âme de Napoléon* (ibid. 1912); posthumously published were *Lettres de jeunesse* and those to his fiancée.