- On http://renebaert.wordpress.com we have reproduced the text of a lesser known work, titled "L’épreuve du feu: à la recherche d’une éthique" authored by the Flemish poet and writer René Baert (1903-1945).
Published in 1944 in Brussels, this work is above a call for the spiritual unity of Europe, in response to the national-socialist revolution in Germany at that time. Aside from ethical questions, it deals with artistic and literary subjects, citing Keyserling, Abel Bonnard, Drieu la Rochelle, Montherlant, Nietzsche and Ernst Jünger in the process.
The work includes the following chapters:La mesure du monde
Méditation de janvier
L'unité spirituelle de l'Europe
Liberté chérie
Le crime des politiciens
Apprendre à servir
« L'intelligence française »
Pitié pour les jeunes
Entre l'Aigle et la Croix
Les forces vives
Le mauvais temps
Primum vivere
La liberté humaine
Poésie et Destin
De quoi meurt l'Occident
Nouvelles élites
Drieu La Rochelle et Montherlant
Notre déchéance
La mission du poête
« L'exigence du jour présent »
La vie profonde
Le salut est en soi
La part de Dieu
Mystique de l'action
« Nietzsche et le problème européen »
L'âme populaire
Notre petitesse
Pour une renaissance de la Tragédie
L'homme totalitaire
« Le Travailleur »
« L'état chantant »
Le sens révolutionnaire
L'Ordre, notre condition
In the words of the befriended painter Marc. Eemans:"Cet ami était le cher René Baert, un poète admirable qui fut assassiné par la «Résistance» en Allemagne, peu avant la capitulation de celle-ci, en 1945. Je fis sa connaissance dans un petit cabaret artistique bruxellois appelé Le Diable au corps. Depuis nous sommes devenus inséparables aussi bien en poésie qu'en politique, disons plutôt en «métapolitique» car la Realpolitik n'a jamais été notre fait. Notre évolution du communisme au national-socialisme relève en effet d'un certain romantisme en lequel l'exaltation des mythes éternels et de la tradition primordiale, celle de René Guénon et de Julius Evola, a joué un rôle primordial. Disons que cela va du Georges Sorel du Mythe de la Révolution et des Réflexions sur la violence à l'Alfred Rosenberg du Mythe du XXième siècle, en passant par La Révolte contre le monde moderne de Julius Evola. Le seul livre que je pourrais appeler métapolitique de René Baert s'intitule L'épreuve du feu." (http://euro-synergies.hautetfort.com/archive/2010/01/04/3a22db1a00abed1581ae2f2856d50104.html)
During the 1930's both Baert and Eemans would work on a literary journal named "Hermès" (Revue trimestrielle d’études mystiques et poétiques) which showed limited similarities to the journals of Gruppo di Ur: "Ici il nous plaît d’attirer l’attention sur une démarche à peu près parallèle à celle d’Hermès qui se fit en Italie dans les années trente, mais dont nous ne prîmes connaissance qu’il y a peu en nous intéressant aux écrits traditionalistes et autres de Julius Evola, décédé à Rome le 15 juin 1974. Dans sa jeunesse, Evola adhéra au dadaïsme de Tristan Tzara et publia même en 1920 à Zurich, dans la collection “Dadà’, une plaquette intitulée Arte Astratta. Par la suite, il aurait également été en contact avec André Breton, dont il aurait cependant très tôt rejeté le “dilettantisme” et, en 1927, il fonda avec quelques amis le groupe “Ur” qui sera assez proche par l’esprit et les intentions de notre revue Hermès. Aux sommaires de la revue qu’édita le groupe et dont l’ensemble fit l’objet d’une réédition en trois tomes intitulée Introduzione alla magia (8), on peut trouver nombre de textes qui auraient très bien pu figurer dans Hermès et dont certains y figurent en effet." (http://marceemans.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/ce-que-fut-la-revue-meta-surrealiste-hermes-1933-1939) - You forgot to copy the foreword which highlights one of the fundamental differences between a feminine "being" and a virile being.
"Grandeur et bonheur sont incompatibles et nous n'avons pas le choix. Heureux, personne ne le sera, personne parmi tous ceux qui sont vivants aujourd'hui ; mais il sera possible à plusieurs d'entre nous de parcourir le chemin de leur vie, selon qu'ils le voudront, dans la grandeur ou la petitesse. Cependant, celui qui ne désire que le bien-être ne mérite pas de vivre."
SPENGLER.
- This drawing is a good illustration of what greatness is: http://ww2history.ru/uploads/posts/1267477746_65-4.jpg
And these pictures of what "well-being" (sic) is in the contemporary "West": http://koleksifoto.com/images/wallpapers/67775642/Art/Modern-Woman/Modern-Woman19.jpg
http://www.surfersvillage.com/gal/pictures/ITExperts-gal.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7140/7522177240_59a1fee0c9_o.jpg
http://www.mobilefanatic.net/uploaded_images/women-cell-phone-718612.jpg
- R. Baert, as many reactionary aesthetes of his time, diagnosed quite properly the crisis of the so-called Western world, not quite as comprehensively and radically as Drieu de la Rochelle though, but, when it came to offer solutions to solve it, the only ones he could offer were far too blurred with aesthetic considerations, and basically remained on the plane of the race of the soul, to use J. Evola's terminology. In fact, his world view lacked maturity. This is not a criticism : he was quite young when he wrote "L'épreuve du feu : à la recherche d'une éthique » (The Test of Fire : in Search of an Ethics).
For those who cannot read French, this is the English translation of that quotation from O. Spengler's "Jahre der Entscheidung" : "Greatness and happiness are incompatible and we are given no choice. No one living in any part of the world of today will be happy, but many will be able to control by the exercise of their own will the greatness or insignificance of their life-course. As for those who seek comfort merely, they do not deserve to exist. " (http://aryanism.net/downloads/books/oswald-spengler/hour-of-decision.pdf) incidentally, the German author shows in the next sentence that he does not have a clue as to what a man of action really is.
A similar judgment on the feminine value of happiness, quoted in "To Ride the Tiger", was once expressed by F. Nietzsche : "it is a sign of regression when pleasure begins to be considered as the highest principle."
"The Test of Fire : in Search for Men" would not be a bad title for a book.
- Which texts by Drieu de la Rochelle are essential in this regard? Is it 'Notes pour comprendre le Siècle', also cited in 'L'Epreuve du feu'? It would be very helpful to find the texts (or excerpts) online.
To: evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com
From: evola_as_he_is@...
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 22:14:44 +0000
Subject: [evola_as_he_is] Re: L’epreuve du feu: à la recherche d’une ethiqueR. Baert, as many reactionary aesthetes of his time, diagnosed quite properly the crisis of the so-called Western world, not quite as comprehensively and radically as Drieu de la Rochelle though, but, when it came to offer solutions to solve it, the only ones he could offer were far too blurred with aesthetic considerations, and basically remained on the plane of the race of the soul, to use J. Evola's terminology. In fact, his world view lacked maturity. This is not a criticism : he was quite young when he wrote "L'épreuve du feu : à la recherche d'une éthique » (The Test of Fire : in Search of an Ethics).
For those who cannot read French, this is the English translation of that quotation from O. Spengler's "Jahre der Entscheidung" : "Greatness and happiness are incompatible and we are given no choice. No one living in any part of the world of today will be happy, but many will be able to control by the exercise of their own will the greatness or insignificance of their life-course. As for those who seek comfort merely, they do not deserve to exist. " (http://aryanism.net/downloads/books/oswald-spengler/hour-of-decision.pdf) – incidentally, the German author shows in the next sentence that he does not have a clue as to what a man of action really is.
A similar judgment on the feminine value of happiness, quoted in "To Ride the Tiger", was once expressed by F. Nietzsche : "it is a sign of regression when pleasure begins to be considered as the highest principle."
"The Test of Fire : in Search for Men" would not be a bad title for a book.
- His criticism of the decadence of Europe is not to be found in his essayistic work, but rather, en "filigrane", implicitly, in his novels-with-a-message, whose titles can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Drieu_La_Rochelle. We have to refer the readers to a wikipedia page for the simple reason that there is no other biographical and bibliographical source of information in English on him online. A quick look at a picture of him will give, to those who have not read him as well as to those who cannot read him because of the barrier of language, a good indication of how intellectualistic his views were.
Existentially, he is not an example to be followed by those who have rightly diagnosed the decadence of Europe, and who are thoroughbred enough to fight efficiently against the annihilation of it inwardly and outwardly ; the period we are going through is no longer one of decadence, but one of annihilation. While supporting - fully consistent with his view that the Jews were the main cause of the "French terrible incapacities" and National-Socialism was "Europe's best chance against decadence" - collaborationism and the occupation of northern France by National-Socialist Germany, he incoherently managed to help J. Paulhan, one of the main members of the early so-called "Resistance", escape the Gestapo not just once, but twice. For some reasons, he became disillusioned by National-Socialism, started to privately praise Stalinism, which, consistent again in his inconsistency, he compared to Catholicism, and turned to the study of generic Eastern spirituality, showing in the process that the Jew, while being one of the obvious causes of the "French terrible incapacities", may not be the only one.
- A selection of his writings, sorted by year, is featured on the website of the Wallonian 'Association des amis de Drieu La Rochelle'. See http://drieu.be/Ecrits%20de%20Drieu.html
To: evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com
From: evola_as_he_is@...
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2013 15:35:46 +0000
Subject: [evola_as_he_is] Re: L’epreuve du feu: à la recherche d’une ethique
His criticism of the decadence of Europe is not to be found in his essayistic work, but rather, en "filigrane", implicitly, in his novels-with-a-message, whose titles can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Drieu_La_Rochelle. We have to refer the readers to a wikipedia page for the simple reason that there is no other biographical and bibliographical source of information in English on him online. A quick look at a picture of him will give, to those who have not read him as well as to those who cannot read him because of the barrier of language, a good indication of how intellectualistic his views were.
Existentially, he is not an example to be followed by those who have rightly diagnosed the decadence of Europe, and who are thoroughbred enough to fight efficiently against the annihilation of it inwardly and outwardly ; the period we are going through is no longer one of decadence, but one of annihilation. While supporting - fully consistent with his view that the Jews were the main cause of the "French terrible incapacities" and National-Socialism was "Europe's best chance against decadence" - collaborationism and the occupation of northern France by National-Socialist Germany, he incoherently managed to help J. Paulhan, one of the main members of the early so-called "Resistance", escape the Gestapo – not just once, but twice. For some reasons, he became disillusioned by National-Socialism, started to privately praise Stalinism, which, consistent again in his inconsistency, he compared to Catholicism, and turned to the study of generic Eastern spirituality, showing in the process that the Jew, while being one of the obvious causes of the "French terrible incapacities", may not be the only one.
- The integral text of "L’epreuve du feu" has been added http://renebaert.wordpress.com/lepreuve-du-feu-a-la-recherche-dune-ethique/ together with a navigation by chapter (see the menu). Also some tiny bits of biographical information - much remains unknown.
To: evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com
From: evola_as_he_is@...
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2013 15:35:46 +0000
Subject: [evola_as_he_is] Re: L’epreuve du feu: à la recherche d’une ethique
His criticism of the decadence of Europe is not to be found in his essayistic work, but rather, en "filigrane", implicitly, in his novels-with-a-message, whose titles can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Drieu_La_Rochelle. We have to refer the readers to a wikipedia page for the simple reason that there is no other biographical and bibliographical source of information in English on him online. A quick look at a picture of him will give, to those who have not read him as well as to those who cannot read him because of the barrier of language, a good indication of how intellectualistic his views were.
Existentially, he is not an example to be followed by those who have rightly diagnosed the decadence of Europe, and who are thoroughbred enough to fight efficiently against the annihilation of it inwardly and outwardly ; the period we are going through is no longer one of decadence, but one of annihilation. While supporting - fully consistent with his view that the Jews were the main cause of the "French terrible incapacities" and National-Socialism was "Europe's best chance against decadence" - collaborationism and the occupation of northern France by National-Socialist Germany, he incoherently managed to help J. Paulhan, one of the main members of the early so-called "Resistance", escape the Gestapo – not just once, but twice. For some reasons, he became disillusioned by National-Socialism, started to privately praise Stalinism, which, consistent again in his inconsistency, he compared to Catholicism, and turned to the study of generic Eastern spirituality, showing in the process that the Jew, while being one of the obvious causes of the "French terrible incapacities", may not be the only one.
evola_as_he_is@{{emailDomain}}