The great betrayal (La trahison des clercs)

Translator’s Note Author’s Foreword I - The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions II - Significance of this Movement--Nature of Political Passions III - The ‘Clerks’--The Grea...

It is impossible to over-stress the novelty of this form of patriotism in history. It is obviously bound up with the adoption of this passion by the masses of the populace, and...

First of all the ‘clerks’ have adopted political passions. No one will deny that throughout Europe to-day the immense majority of men of letters and artists, a considerable numb...

Need I say that I am only denouncing this desire of the ‘clerk’ to feel himself determined by his race and to remain fixed to his native soil to the extent that it becomes in hi...

This glorifying of national particularism, so unexpected among all ‘clerks’ is especially so among those whom I described as ‘pre-eminently clerks’--the Churchmen. Those who for...

‘In the persons of Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles, you praise men who made their fellow citizens good cheer, by serving them with everything they desired without caring to tea...

This exhortation to concrete advantages and to that form of soul which procures them, is expressed by the modern ‘clerk’ in another very remarkable teaching: By praise of the mi...

To-day this desire inspires not only the moralist, but another kind of ‘clerk’ who speaks from much higher ground. I am referring to that teaching of modern metaphysics which ex...

There is another transformation of the literary soul in men of letters, wherein I think I see a cause of their new political creed. This is, that recently the only one of their...

By this I mean the ‘clerk’s’ determination to put forth his principles as valid in the practical order of things, as reconcilable with the safeguarding of the sword’s conquests....

I am under no illusion concerning the solidity of certain among these unions. Although the conservative passions fully comprehend their immense interest in identifying themselve...

I must repeat that throughout this work I am considering the teaching of Nietzsche (and Hegel’s too) insofar as it has become the pretext for a great moral preaching, though I k...

[12] In 1886, the Schnaebele affair; in 1890, the incident in Paris where the King of Spain in the uniform of a Colonel of Uhlans was hooted; in 1891, the incident of the Empres...

[71] It is current knowledge that Italian Fascism and Russian Bolshevism both derive from the author of _Reflections on Violence_. He did, indeed, preach class egotism to some e...

[123] The Abbé Sertillanges, _L’Héroisme et la Gloire_. Compare this with Bossuet’s two sermons on ‘The Honour of the World’. You can measure the advance made by the Church duri...

This transcription is based on the English edition of Aldington’s translation. Some corrections have been applied in consultation with both the French original (‘La trahison des...