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Maurice BarrsMaurice Barrs (September 22, 1862 - December 4, 1923), French novelist and politician, was born at Charmes-sur-Moselle (Vosges). He received his secondary education at the lyce of Nancy, and in 1883 went to Paris to continue his legal studies. He had already started contributing to the monthly periodical, Jeune France, and he now issued a periodical of his own, Les Taches d'encre, which survived for a few months only. After four years of journalism he went to Italy, where he wrote Sous l'oeil des barbares (1888), the first volume of a trilogie du moi, completed by Un Homme libre (1889), and Le Jardin de Brnice (1891). Barrs divided the world into moi (myself) and the barbarians, the latter including all those antipathetic to the writer's individuality. He supplemented these apologies for individualism with L'Ennemi des lois (1892), and with an admirable volume of impressions of travel, Du sang, de la volupt, de la mort (1893). Barrs wrote his early books in an elaborate and often very obscure style. He carried his theory of individualism into politics as an ardent partisan of General Boulanger. He directed a Boulangist paper at Nancy, and was elected deputy in 1889, retaining his seat in the legislature until 1893. The Comdie Franaise produced his play Une Journe parlementaire in 1894. In 1897 he began his trilogy, Le Roman de l'nergie nationale, with the publication of Les Dracins. The series makes a plea for local patriotism, and for the preservation of the distinctive qualities of the old French provinces. Les Dracins narrates the adventures of seven young Lorrainers who set out to conquer fortune in Paris. Six of them survive in the second novel of the trilogy, L'Appel au soldat (1900), which gives the history of Boulangism; the sequel, Leurs figures (1902), deals with the Panama scandals. Later works include: - Scnes et doctrines du nationalisme (1902)
- Les Amitis franaises (1903), in which he urges the inculcation of patriotism by the early study of national history
- Ce que j'ai vu du Rennes (1904)
- Au service de l'Allemagne (1905), the experiences of an Alsatian conscript in a German regiment
- Le Voyage de Sparte (1906).
The Acadmie franaise admitted Barrs as a member in 1906. His son Philippe Barrs followed him in a journalism career. Barrs, Maurice Barrs, Maurice Barrs, Maurice
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