Nationalism, Positivism and Catholicism: The Politics of Charles Maurras and French Catholics 1890-1914

At the time of the Dreyfus Affair and the start of the Action Française, Charles Maurras pressed forward the idea, borrowed from Auguste Comte, of an alliance between Positivists and Catholics. The compatibility of Maurras's own Positivist political ideas with Catholic principles was later questioned by Marc Sangnier, and the ensuing polemic between the two men was itself the origin of a lengthy controversy in which the two leading figures were the philosophers Maurice Blondel and Lucien Laberthonnière, both of whom strongly contested Catholic indulgence towards Maurras and the Action Française. This study of Maurrassian ideology and Catholic reactions to it explores a wide range of themes.