Léon Bloy (; 11 July 1846 – 3 November 1917) was a French

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

, essayist,

pamphleteer A pamphleteer is a historical term used to describe someone who creates or distributes pamphlets, unbound (therefore inexpensive) booklets intended for wide circulation. Context Pamphlets were used to broadcast the writer's opinions: to articu ...

(or lampoonist), and satirist, known additionally for his eventual (and passionate) defense of

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and for his influence within French Catholic circles.

Biography

Bloy was born on 11 July 1846 in Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac, in the arondissement of

Périgueux Périgueux (, ; or ) is a commune in the Dordogne department, in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. Périgueux is the prefecture of Dordogne, and the capital city of Périgord. It is also the seat of ...

Dordogne Dordogne ( , or ; ; ) is a large rural departments of France, department in south west France, with its Prefectures in France, prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and ...

. He was the second of six sons of Jean-Baptiste Bloy, a

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

an freethinker, and Anne-Marie Carreau, a stern disciplinarian and pious Spanish-Catholic daughter of a Napoleonic soldier. After an agnostic and unhappy youth in which he cultivated an intense hatred for the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and its teaching, his father found him a job in Paris, where he went in 1864. In December 1868, he met the aging Catholic author Barbey d'Aurevilly, who lived opposite him in rue Rousselet and who became his mentor. Shortly afterwards, he underwent a dramatic religious conversion. Bloy was a friend of the author

Joris-Karl Huysmans Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (, ; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel (1884, pub ...

, the painter Georges Rouault, the philosophers Jacques and Raïssa Maritain and was instrumental in reconciling these intellectuals with Catholicism. However, he acquired a reputation for bigotry because of his frequent outbursts of temper. For example, in 1885, after the death of

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

, whom Bloy believed to be an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, Bloy decried Hugo's "senility," "avarice," and "hypocrisy," identifying Hugo among "contemplatives of biological scum." Bloy's first novel, '' Le Désespéré'', a fierce attack on

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...

and those he believed to be in league with it, made him fall out with the literary community of his time and even many of his old friends. Soon, Bloy could count such prestigious authors as

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...

, Guy de Maupassant,

Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; ; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, writing on Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote wo ...

, and

Anatole France (; born ; 16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters.Bourg-la-Reine Bourg-la-Reine () is a Communes of France, commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, center of Paris. History In 1792, during the French Revolution, Bourg-la-Reine (meaning "Town of the Queen") w ...

Criticisms

Bloy was noted for personal attacks, but he saw them as the mercy or indignation of God. According to

Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aqui ...

, he used to say: "My anger is the effervescence of my pity." Among the many targets of Bloy's attacks were people of business. In an essay in ''Pilgrim of the Absolute'', he compared the businessmen of

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

unfavourably to the cultured people of Paris:

Our Lady of La Salette

Inspired by both the millennialist visionary Eugène Vintras and the reports of an apparition at La Salette— Our Lady of La Salette—Bloy was convinced that the Virgin's message was that if people did not reform, the end time was imminent. He was particularly critical of the attention paid to the shrine at Lourdes and resented the fact that it distracted people from what he saw as the less sentimental message of La Salette.

Influence

Bloy is quoted in the epigraph at the beginning of

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...

's novel '' The End of the Affair'' (1951), though Greene claimed that "this irate man lacked creative instinct" in reference to Bloy. He is further quoted in the essay "The Mirror of Enigmas" by the writer

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

, who acknowledged his debt to him by naming him in the foreword to his short story collection ''Artifices'' as one of seven authors who were in "the heterogeneous list of the writers I am continually re-reading. In the christological fantasy titled " Three Versions of Judas" I think I perceive the remote influence of the last (Bloy)". In his novel ''The Harp and the Shadow'' (1979), Alejo Carpentier excoriates Bloy as a raving, Columbus-defending lunatic during Vatican deliberations over the explorer's canonization. Bloy is also quoted at the beginning of

John Irving John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American and Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of his fourth novel '' Th ...

's '' A Prayer for Owen Meany'', and there are several quotations from his ''Letters to my Fiancée'' in Charles Williams's anthology ''The New Christian Year''. ''Le Désespéré'' was republished in 2005 by Éditions Underbahn with a preface by Maurice G. Dantec. The historian Jaime Eyzaguirre came to be influenced by Bloy's writings. According to the historian John Connelly, Bloy's ''Le Salut par les Juifs'', with its apocalyptically radical interpretation of chapters 9 to 11 of Paul's Letter to the Romans, had a major influence on the Catholic theologians of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

responsible for section 4 of the council's declaration ''

Nostra aetate (from Latin: "In our time"), or the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions, is an official declaration of the Second Vatican Council, an Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. I ...

'' (1965), the doctrinal basis for a revolutionary change in the Catholic Church's attitude to

Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...

. In 2013,

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

surprised many by quoting Bloy during his first homily as pope: "When one does not confess Jesus Christ, I am reminded of the expression of Léon Bloy: 'He who does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil.' When one does not confess Jesus Christ, one confesses the worldliness of the devil." Bloy and his effect on 21st-century French scholars make a significant appearance in

Michel Houellebecq Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas on 26 February 1956) is a French author of novels, poems, and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker, and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. H ...

's novel ''

Submission Deference (also called submission or passivity) is the condition of submitting to the espoused, legitimate influence of one's superior or superiors. Deference implies a yielding or submitting to the judgment of a recognized superior, out of re ...

'' (2015).

Works

Novels

* ''Le Désespéré'' (1887) ('' The Desperate Man'' translated into English by Richard Robinson. Sunny Lou Publishing, , 2023) * '' La Femme pauvre'' (1897) (''The Woman Who Was Poor'' translated into English by I. J. Collins. St. Augustines Press, , 2015)

Essays

* "Le Révélateur du Globe: Christophe Colomb & Sa Béatification Future" (1884) (In English translation: "The Revealer of the Globe: Christopher Columbus and His Future Beatification" (Part One). Sunny Lou Publishing, , 2021) * "Propos d'un entrepreneur de démolitions" (1884) ("Words of a Demolitions Contractor" translated into English by Richard Robinson. Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2020) * "Un Brelan d'excommuniés" (1889) * "Le Salut par les Juifs" (1892) ("Salvation through the Jews" translated into English by Richard Robinson. Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2020) * "Léon Bloy devant les cochons" (1894) * "Ici on assassine les grands hommes" (1895) ("Great Men Are Slain Here," in English translation by Sunny Lou Publishing, , 2025) * "Je m'accuse" (1900) ("I accuse myself"), in response to Émile Zola's 1898 open letter '' J'Accuse…!'' (''Je M'Accuse...'' translated into English by Richard Robinson. Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2020) * "Le Fils de Louis XVI" (1900) ("The Son of Louis XVI", in English translation. Sunny Lou Publishing , 2022) * "Exégèse des lieux communs" (1902–12) ("Exegesis of the Commonplaces", translated into English by Louis Cancelmi. Wiseblood Books , 2021) * "Belluaires et porchers" (1905) ("Gladiators and swineherds") * "Le Résurrection de Villiers de lʼIsle-Adam" (1906) ("The Resurrection of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam", in English translation. Sunny Lou Publishing, , 2022) * "L'épopée byzantine et Gustave Schlumberger" (1906) * "Celle qui pleure" (1908) ("She Who Weeps", in English translation and published by Sunny Lou Publishing, , 2021) * "Le Sang du Pauvre" (1909) ("Blood of the Poor", translated into English, and published by Sunny Lou Publishing, , 2021) * "L'Ame de Napoléon" (1912) ("The Soul of Napoleon." In English translation: Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2021) * "Sur la Tombe de Huysmans" (1913) (In English translation: ''On Huysmans' Tomb: Critical reviews of J.-K. Huysmans and À Rebours, En Rade, and Là-Bas.'' Sunny Lou Publishing Company, 2021) * "Jeanne d'Arc et l'Allemagne" (1915) ("Joan of Arc and Germany." In English translation: Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2021) * "Constantinople et Byzance" (1917) ("Constantinople and Byzantium." In English translation: Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2022)

Short stories

* ''Sueur de sang'' (1893) ("Sweating blood" In English translation: Wakefield Press, , 2016) * '' Histoires désobligeantes'' (1894) (''Disagreeable tales'')

Diaries

* ''Le Mendiant ingrat'' (1898) ("The Ungrateful Beggar," Sunny Lou Publishing, , 2025.) * ''Mon Journal'' (1904) ("My diary") * ''Quatre ans de captivité à Cochons-sur-Marne'' (1905) ("Four Years of Captivity in Cochons-sur-Marne: 1900-1904," Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2022.) * ''L'Invendable'' (1909) ("The Unsaleable") * ''Le Vieux de la montagne'' (1911) ("The Old Man from the Mountain") * ''Le Pèlerin de l'Absolu'' (1914) ("The Pilgrim of the Absolute", edited by David Bentley Hart. Cluny Media, LLC, , 2017) * ''Au seuil de l'Apocalypse'' (1916) ("On the Threshold of the Apocalypse." In English translation: Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2021.) * ''Méditations d'un solitaire en 1916'' (1917) ("Meditations of a Solitary in 1916," Sunny Lou Publishing Company, , 2023.) * ''La Porte des humbles'' (posth., 1920) ("The Door of the Lowly") A study in English is ''Léon Bloy'' by Rayner Heppenstall (Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes, 1953).

Quotations

* "Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength, but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it." * "There is only one tragedy in the end, not to have been a saint." * "But I love Paris, which is the place of intelligence, and I feel Paris threatened by this truly tragic lampstand sprouting from its belly, which will be visible at night from twenty leagues away ..." * “The rich man is an inexorable brute whom one is forced to stop with a pitchfork or a round of grapeshot in the belly...” * “And they ich Catholicsdare to speak of charity, to pronounce the word Caritas which is the very Name of the divine Third Person! Prostitution of words enough to put fear in the devil! That beautiful lady, who does not have the honesty even to surrender her body to the poor souls whom she arouses, will go, this very evening, to show all that she can of her white, sepulchral flesh where jewels like worms quiver, and make herself worshipped by imbeciles, on supposed feast days of charity, on the occasion of some disaster, to fatten the sharks or shipwreckers a little more. The so-called Christian riches ejaculating on misery!” * "All that happens in life is adorable."

References

Sources

* * Rayner Heppenstall 'Léon Bloy', (1953) Bowes & Bowes, Cambridge. (1954) Yale University Press, New Haven.

External links

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