André Chaumeix

André Chaumeix (6 June 1874, Chamalières, Puy-de-Dôme – 23 February 1955) was a French academician, journalist, and literary critic. He was the fourteenth member elected to occupy seat 3 of the Académie française in 1930.

He was elected member of the French Academy on May 22, 1930 in the chair of Georges Clemenceau. He acquired a great influence there, making and unmaking elections.[1] With the advent of the Vichy regime in 1940, André Chaumeix, along with the majority of academics, became a supporter of Marshal Pétain and of state collaboration.[2] In 1941, he wrote a programmatic article in the Revue des deux mondes in favor of the National Revolution: "[Petain] wanted to revive the healthy customs (...) that a senseless policy had banished for forty years and more. He endorsed in choice terms the brand-new policy of collaboration announced at Montoire: "France is an indispensable part of Europe (...) No one knows what the future world will be. It is possible that we will have to fulfill a useful and active mission. We will only fulfill it if we are a renewed nation".[3]

In the Maurrasian press, he then wrote to contribute to the work of "national renovation" by maintaining the pure French style, to stigmatize democracy,[4] "the regime of ease," with monarchist accents,[5] and the writers of the Enlightenment and the Romantics who had become involved in the political debate.[6] In these writings mixing literary and political considerations, he frequently quotes Maurras.[5]