Note 118 — III The ‘Clerks’—The Great Betrayal (continued 2)

This depreciation of Greece, to be seen in many French traditionalists since de Maistre, is constant among the Pangermanists. (See notably Houston Chamberlain, Genesis of the Nineteenth Century, tome i, page 57.) In a periodical with dogmatic claims (Notre Temps, August, 1927), under the suggestive title ‘Towards a Practical Idealism’, I read: ‘A young generation trained in this way, more sporting than ideological, supports those who ask whether we are not at the dawn of a great age.’ Here again the Churchmen do not lag behind. In La Vie Catholique (24th September, 1927) I find a warm eulogy of a champion boxer. It is true that this eulogy ends up with the words: ‘Finally, let us add that Tunney is a convinced and practising Catholic, and that two of his sisters are nuns.’