Jean-Michel Delacompted celebrates the French spirit

Most of your portraits concern personalities from the 17th century.

At 25, I was crazy about The Princess of Cleves whose story has always made me cry … So I was interested in Madame de Lafayette (1634-1693), who wrote this masterpiece, then to Henriette d’Angleterre, who inspired it! Thanks to her, I entered the great century, with its most remarkable authors. First Bossuet, because he was the confessor of Henriette of England, then Racine, La Bruyère, Jean de La Fontaine…

Who was Henriette of England, to whom you devote so many pages to?

It was an incredible personality, a kind of Lady Diana at the court of the young Louis XI! Daughter of Charles I, English sovereign beheaded in 1649, she was Stuart by her father, Bourbon by her mother. “Exfiltrated” in France where she becomes the wife of Monsieur (King’s brother, editor’s note) Philippe d’Orléans, Henriette (1644-1670) seduced by her grace, her kindness, her taste for culture. Root dedicates him Andromache.

When she suddenly died at 26-was he poisoned? -, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet declaims a powerful funeral prayer, which puts the crowd: “Madame is dying!” Madame is dead! »» (Read extracted at the end of the interview) He wrote the most beautiful French -speaking texts, all centuries combined.

But who reads Bossuet today?

The fate that we reserve for this monument of our language is sorry! This disdain, this forgetfulness … It’s a bit like letting Notre-Dame burn a second time! For Paul Valéry, he is the greatest French author! For Paul Claudel, he embodies the French spirit.

Bishop of Meaux, notable therefore, but sensitive to the poorest, close to Vincent de Paul, he preached to the court as to the flocks of his parish. Bossuet was inhabited by the Bible he declaimed, improvised, with unrivaled inspiration.

His mastery of the language was exceptional. His prayers, for the death of the Grand Condé or for Henriette of England, Co her Treaty of concupiscence, are masterpieces.

Obvious, he also had a narrow, even sectarian side, but we cannot judge a man of that time with our eyes today … It must be read, not for morality, but for intensity.

The 17th century is also absolute monarchy, wars, people misery …

It is indeed a strongly unequal society, as the United States is today. But it is also the century of marriage of language and state, of the promotion of reason, in politics and in the arts, of the creation of the French Academy, by Richelieu, and the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.

Academicians like Boileau or Racine want to clarify the language, put it in order, discipline the spirit and the expression of thoughts.

Their priority is to create a dictionary. Of course, the cult of the personality is at its peak with Louis XIV, the “Sun King”, but if King in disgrace, he does not attract. He witnessed representations of Racine and Molière, orders the master of the Baroque Jean-Baptiste Lully and dances the ballet.

Racine was the official writer of Louis XIV, celebrating his conquests at the marches of the kingdom. It tarnishes the image of this immense tragedian a little …

Racine wanted to be near the Sun King. At the time, Louis XIV was an idol, the representative of God on earth. Racine had faith in God and in the perfection of language. He also had a passion for theater, a crazy culture (he had studied in Port-Royal before defending the theater against this school of thought), and an incredible rigor. It was in his youth that he wrote his most beautiful tragedies: Thebaid At 24, Andromache at 28.

This century was that of young people filled with ardor who burned to live. Racine was also a bourgeois, who wanted to enrich himself and place his eldest son and his daughters. Is it scandalous? To Louis XIV aging, whose life was a martyrdom (he suffered from various affections, constantly suffered from the bloodletting, the enemas), he was reading … imagine this today?

You write a striking portrait of Saint-Simon, a little less known. Can you present it?

Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of Saint-Simon, is an aristocrat born in 1675. He is very nostalgic for the reign of Louis XIII whom he did not know (the latter died in 1643). It is a fabulous observer of the court of Louis XIV, that he criticizes, castigating “the unpotted plebeian ministers, a mired church, a campaign overwhelmed with misery, justice in the hands of brigands”. He is very hard with the king, whom he almost despises. His portraits are breathtaking. His prose puts the reader on his knees.

You celebrate in your title the “grandeur of the French spirit”. How would you define this one?

Rigor, order and style. Or even lightness, grace, the art of conversation. It is the finesse of the heather or Jean de la Fontaine, the severe side of the first and the cruel morals of the other. These authors ensure a subtle criticism of the world they have in front of them, religion and politics apart … Even if, in the guise of the lion, the fountain also criticized the king.

Wouldn’t there be a part of vanity in this French spirit?

I am enough of this flogging specific to the French! We have an incredible story, remarkable personalities: let’s be proud! Let’s study them! This may require an effort, but for that it should be given the best? Who to pull us up today?

If the theater is preserved (we still play Molière and Racine), literature suffers. While you have to continue to feed on the older ones. My students from Seine-Saint-Denis thanked me for making them discover Bossuet. They did not know that the French language could have so much thickness.

Your last chapter, titled “Writing for someone” is as much a tribute to your father as a pilgrimage to your suburban city …

We do not write for ourselves, we always write for someone. I had a childhood full of love, and I wanted to express my gratitude. To my publisher Jean-Bertrand Pontalis*, but first to my parents. God knows that I love my mother, but I can’t talk about my father without crying. Albinos, disabled, he was silent, firm, courageous. Representative in bookstores, he gave me great confidence in me by defending my first book with assurely.

In this chapter, you reveal yourself as a double character, from a Catholic and bourgeois Picardy branch, and another nomadic Jew and artist. An elitist side, a plebeian side, is that also the French spirit?

Yes, there is in the language both an aristocracy and a popular breath … Like Victor Hugo, we are a monarchist and republican. This ability to reconcile opposites in an elegant dance step is the French spirit.

* Former director of the collection “The other”, at Gallimard, who died in 2013.