BLOY, Léon Lot n° 386

Autograph manuscript signed for An Extraordinary Flood of Stupidity. S. l. n. d. [circa 1905-1910]. 10 p. in 1 vol. in-8 (19.9 x 14.6 cm), bradel of red demipercalin with corners (contemporary binding). Autograph manuscript signed by Léon Bloy for Une crue extraordinaire de bêtise. Published in the fourth part of his diary, entitled Le Vieux de la Montagne (Paris, 1911), this text begins with an analysis of a news item that took place in Reims in February 1910. The city court condemned its bishop for having said to teachers: "You are entrusted with Christian children & you make little pigs out of them". " Although he admits to agreeing with the bishop's comment, Bloy accuses the Catholic Church of having a large part of the responsibility for this moral decay: "You complain, my lord, of a teaching which kills souls, &, indeed, you are doing your duty in this. But what have you done to prevent this from happening? " He supports his criticism with an analysis of a work by Abbot Bethlehem: Romans à lire & romans à proscrire (Paris, 1904) in which he details the classification and the authors discussed (from the Countess de Ségur to Emile Zola, via Huysmans, Bourget or Barbey d'Aurevilly). For Bloy, the moralizing mission of this ecclesiastic has completely failed: "this priest is above all an indicator of impure books that we would perhaps never know without him. "He reproaches the Church for not having been able to strengthen the souls in her care to enable them to face such works: "What use have they made of the supreme authority? They had the noblest nation on earth beneath them. They turned it into a people of cowards, hypocrites & morons. " A testimony of the polemical fibre of Leon Bloy, but an ardent Catholic, who does not hesitate to criticize, without complacency, his own Church. Binding rubbed and soiled, small gaps in the canvas, stains.