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Politics and Belief in Contemporary France pp 298–335Cite as

The Heritage of Mounier: The Christian Left and the Death of Christian Democracy

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Abstract

The death of Emmanuel Mounier brought an outpouring of tributes to the man and his work that equalled or surpassed those paid to Léon Blum and Marc Sangnier, both of whom died within a short time of Mounier. In the judgment of one of his friends, Mounier’s death was a far greater loss than that of Blum, for, unlike the grand old man of French Socialism, Mounier died when he was comparatively young and at the height of his power. “No one, alas, will be able to take Mounier’s place,” he said.1 Typical of the heartfelt reaction of the veterans of Esprit was that of Hélène Iswolsky. “How soon he has left us!” she wrote.2 In a similar vein, a friend of thirty years standing complained that “Mounier seems to have left us at the moment when a generation had the greatest need of him.” 3 And Adrian Miatlev, the Russian-born poet, confessed in a letter to a friend that although he had never been especially close to Mounier, he had cried for a day following Mounier’s funeral. “It began,” Miatlev wrote, “at Châtenay-Malabry where we accompanied Emmanuel Mounier to the cemetery after the funeral mass. Inconceivable, an inconceivable thing! I am surprised at my own grief, and many others are also. I cried like an old woman who finds peace through tears. ... I have never missed anyone so much.” 4

Le monde est silloné d’influences. De vastes jeux s’y jouent qui se joueront de nous si nous ne les maitrisons pas. Nous ne donnerons, il est vrai, que ce que l’on acceptera. Nous ne choisirons que ce que nous désirons déjà au trefonds de nous-mêmes. Mais dans l’humble tâtonnement comme dans la maitrise virile s’affirme la même vocation humaine: discerner, choisir, transfigurer.

Mounier, “L’Action intellectuelle ou de l’Influence,” 1931–1932.

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  1. R. William Rauch Jr.
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© 1972 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

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Rauch, R.W. (1972). The Heritage of Mounier: The Christian Left and the Death of Christian Democracy. In: Politics and Belief in Contemporary France. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9380-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9380-1_7

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