Bernard-Henri Lévy

It was on September 1989 that this meeting took place with Michel Leiris.

If there is a secret character in the second half of the French Twentieth Century, it is him , Michel Leiris. It is what makes this interview so precious, first published in Les Aventures de la liberté (Grasset 1991).
That is why we publish it again as an exceptional document. It is the most detailed interview that the author of L’Age d’homme (Man’s Age) and La Règle du Jeu ( The Rule of the Game) has ever granted. It is also the last one. One year before Michel Leiris died on September 30 1990.
The interview with Michel Leiris.
“It was on September 1989 that I met Michel Leiris”, said Bernard-Henri Levy.
“ I had tried first without believing it too much,, to convince him to let himself be filmed. He had refused- faithful in that, to a moral code that he shared with a few other people, but that he always maintained scrupulously- I returned to the attack a few months later for a taped interview which would not be filmed and would be, I told him, about a few obscure points on the story of Acéphale, Contre-Attaque or Le Collège de Sociologie. He had, not without some hesitation, finally accepted to be interviewed.
The interview took place at his home, quai des Grands Augustins, in a beautiful middle class apartment, filled with art objects and beautiful furniture where he lived already at the time of the Surrealists and which certainly must have impressed them . He was as I had imagined him. Small. Stocky. The same head of a boxer that he had himself described in the pages of L’Age d’homme, that I knew by heart. If he had not had this sickly voice that I was somewhat expecting, but could not imagine so broken, so harrowing, I would have recognized it without ever meeting him. And with it, much courtesy. Infinite patience. Precise and detailed answers to questions that
I was asking. Should I say how treasured this meeting was for the future director of La Règle du Jeu ?

- It has often been said, among others ,such as Klossowski, that George Bataille had a’fascist inclination. What do-you think ?
- it is not an invention of Klossowski . It was said. In my opinion, Bataille was deeply anti-fascist. What is certain, on the other hand, is that he was impressed with the means of fascist propaganda , by Hitler’s charisma. In short, we can’t say, he was fascinated, but his dream was to find, for the benefit of the left, means of propaganda as efficient as the ones displayed by the extreme-right. I believe it is that we can say.
- There was much talk about the story of Acéphale .It was 2 things. A review and a secret society. What was that secret society ?
- I was not part of it.
- You were not part of it, yes, I know. But why ?
-It was very personal. I thought things that were between some of us were as if we had formed a secret society, and it did not make any sense to institutionalize it. It was better that it remained tacit, a tacit agrement.
- Do you think it was serious, even in Bataille’s mind ?
- I believe it was serious. Yes, I am convinced of it.
- Even so there were strange things and absurd rites ?
-I know nothing of it. I was not initiated. Those who were in on the secret, have been very correct. They have never given out the secret of Acéphale.
- Do you think there was an initiation ?
- There was an initiation, that I know. Whatever it was, I ignore it. However, there was an initiation.
- So the review was the esoteric front of this story ?
- That’s it.
- They talked, in particular of strange scenes at Saint-Nom la-Bretèche ?
- At Saint –Germain !
- No, no, Saint-Nom-la Bretèche..
- Saint-Nom –la- Bretèche also ? Ah, I did not know it. I know strictly nothing. I told you that I have not been initiated. I have friends who had been. Among others, a deceased friend, Patrick Walberg. But they never gave the least indication of what was an initiation.
- All that did not seem to you a little childish ?
- Slightly childish, I will grant you.. I would consider that, I would not say childish, but not very far from it.
- It is also the period when there was all this work on Nietzsche. To take back Nietzsche from the fascists. Briefly…
- That’s it.
- What was the meaning of this rehabilitation?
- It was that. To snatch Nietzsche from the fascists. Bataille was sufficiently anti-fascist to deplore that the fascists took over Nietzsche for themselves. You know how it happened, this appropriation of Nietzsche? With the very tendentious publication, thanks to Nietzsche’sister. I can’t recall her name..
- Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche.
- That’s it. The idea was to rescue Nietzsche from the clutches of the nazis.
- In this affair, I imagine you feel close to George Bataille ?
- Totally. He knew Nietzsche much better than I do. I have to confess that I have almost no philosophical background, but I approved it completely. It was not like for Acéphale..
- Then there was Counter –Attack…
- Counter- Attack, I was never part of it. I don’t know why either. But yes, I believe that it appeared to me… Bataille spoke, for example, to celebrate Louis XVI ‘s beheading, place de la Concorde. In his mind, it was a means of propaganda for the left. . But it seemed to me childish. So that, I was never part of Counter- Attack. I was in agreement with the purpose, but it seemed to me not very serious. How could I say?…
- However Counter-Attack was the reconciliation between Breton and Bataille ?
- Of course.
- So, you should have been very keen about it….
- Maybe.
- Let’s talk about their reconciliation, if you want to. Who of the two came on the ground of the other ?
- They drew closer together. I don’t believe that we can say that one made concessions to the other. They drew closer because of the fascist threat, the common danger that forced the old quarrels to be forgotten for a while.
- Did Breton had forgiven Bataille ? Did he forget his second Skeleton ?
- It was the past.
- A recent past , however ?
- No doubt.
- Soupault told me one day that for him, on the contrary, Breton had never forgiven, and at the time of the attack against him from Bataille’s friends, he had been scared, very scared as he was risking to find himself very isolated.
-I have the impression, indeed, that he lived very badly this story of The Skeleton . As everyone knows, Breton had a very bad temper. He did not let anyone tread on his toes. Well, I don’t believe that he had been frightened.
 -Who took the initiative of  The Skeleton ?
- I believe it was Bataille himself.
- Because there were two versions : one version Bataille, one version Desnos.
- Desnos? I did not know that version. Well, know that I am a bad judge because I was the closest to Bataille and it was Bataille who told me about it. So I have the feeling that it was Batailles’s idea..
- What was exactly the idea ?
- I told you : it was to oppose the propaganda…
- No, I was talking about The Skeleton.
- Ah ! The Skeleton… It is an other thing! The idea was to shoot Breton down in flames and to attack him on his own ground.. There had been ‘A skeleton’ about Anatole France. We wanted to take the same title and the same method against Breton. That said, let’s be serious.. I don’t know what I thought at the time, but I can tell you that to-day, it appeared to me more like a hoax.
- There are two or three men who have dominated this period, Bataille and Breton anyway .I have trouble imagining them together. I believe it was you who introduced them to each other.
-No, no , I did not introduce them to each other. Maybe yes?.. Anyway it was not done in a very formal way. On the other hand, I arranged a meeting between Bataille and Aragon. I remember it well. Aragon was pretty scornful towards Bataille. He considered him as a mentally retarded dadaïst. He had told me. I don’t know if he used the exact words of ’ mentally retard dadaïst’, but that’s what he meant.
- And Bataille was he impressed by Aragon ?
- Not really.. Bataille was certainly impressed by Breton. Hostile, but impressed. Concerning Aragon, I don’t believe it..
- It is still you, if I believe among others the book of Michel Surya, who organized the first meeting between Breton and Bataille. It was about, I believe to translate Fatrasies for The Surrealist Revolution.
- That’s it. Yes . I was the intermediary. In other words, I gave the text of Fatrasies to Breton for The Surrealist Revolution. Did I introduce them to each other ? Maybe… Maybe yes, I brought Bataille to ‘ Cyrano’. But I repeat , it was nothing formal. It was not a meeting for sure. Anyway, It was that Bataille,in spite of all my efforts, refused completely to sign the text of presentation of Fatrasies! Not even his initials! He agreed to give us the text, sure, but he did not want his name to appear anywhere..
- Why ?
- Because he did not trust Surrealism. Because of his friendship for me , he accepted to give me the text, but he wanted to remain incognito.
- So Bataille was never fascinated by Surrealism which was the adventure of your generation Did he really escape this fascination ?
- There is no doubt.
- If what you say is true, he is the only one among the great minds of this period…
- What it was is that Bataille was really like Breton. He liked very much to create reviews, to be surrounded by people, to have his own team. So the Surrealist group was a rival group of the one he wished to establish.
- Did he establish it ?
- Yes, at the time of Documents and then what is certain is that Bataille considered Breton as an idealist which was for him a mortal sin.
- What did he mean by that ?
- He meant that the materialism displayed by Breton was simply verbal. – which is the real truth. I don’t reproach Breton to have been an idealist, the fact is that he was. Breton saw the Revolution as an idealist. That’s for sure.
- Was Bataille not impressed by Breton’s charm ?
- Late in life, maybe.. Since, as you know, the relations between Breton-Bataille softened enormously a few years after The Skeleton. Then, he might have been a little impressed by Breton, who was not, after all anybody, but it came late in life. At the time we are talking about, it was not at all that. Breton’s own ways could only displease Bataille, who was, how should I say ? Much more on his feet…
-  That’s it .It is the famous article in Documents precisely on’The big toe…
- Exactly. I believe, in fact, that Breton made fun of the text in ‘The Second Manifesto’ I believe of course that. ‘ The big toe’ was like that other article titled ‘Low materialism and gnosis’. In this article, there was, it seems to me , a vicious note against Breton.. It was about, anyway , a less abstract materialism than the one of the Surrealists. It was an authentic materialism.
- To day, in retrospect, who was right : Bataille ou Breton ?
- I feel, of course, much closer to Bataille. I had with him an intimacy that I never had with Breton.. And then this idea that Surrealism stayed too idealistic, I shared it and I still share it.
- Can we talk a moment about Documents ?
- Documents, it is a kind of carryall. I don’t know if you read the article that I wrote, which was titled’ From Bataille the impossible to the impossible Documents. There, I said mostly what I thought of it.. It was a gathering of pretty heterogeneous people of very different sides.
- In Bataille’s mind was it an alternative to the Surrealist group? His own gang ?
- Oh ! Yes, certainly. There is no doubt. There were, by the way ,Surrealists dissidents who collaborated on Documents- starting with me.
- Did you break off with Breton at that time  ?
-Sure, at the time of The Skeleton.
- Did you ever make up ?
-We made up late in life, but not formally. We met at the bus stop… W shook hands and did the trip together in the bus.
- Which year was it ?
- I can’t tell you. It was a few years before Breton’s death. We met at Trocadero, bus no.63.
- If I understand well, at the time in the thirties, he did not forgive you your alliance with Bataille ?
- Certainly not. When The Skeleton was, if I may say so, still fresh, the break up was straight up and serious. It softened little by little..
- What about the religious side of Bataille? His desire to create a new religion, or any way his very strong interest for all these stories of the Sacred ?
- His biographer, Michel Surya, talked about it in a very well researched way. The first article that Bataille wrote was to vilify the sacrilege that the Germans had committed in 1914 when they bombed the Rheims Cathedral.

- I thought, in particular, to all that happened around the College of Sociology…
- It was based, in fact, on the Sacred..
- You were close to the College? You were, in fact, one of the founders ?
-Yes, of course, I was even with Caillois and Bataille, the author of one of the texts that announced all that at the N.R.F.. But I thought ( I expressed it in a letter which was published by Denis Hollier) that Bataille took a little too much freedom with Mauss’ideas.
- What do you mean ?
- I mean that there were exaggerations in the Sacred as if Mauss had considered the Sacred as an explanation of all the phenomena. In fact it was contradictory to the idea of ‘ total phenomenon, that Mauss had put forth. When he speaks of ‘total phenomenon’, he says that phenomena always have a religious aspect, an economical aspect, a moral aspect ,etc .It is not especially the Sacred that dominates.
- What was Bataille’s answer ?
- He recognized that there was a problem. In the letter of which I was talking, I was asking that we organize a big session, a kind of conference to discuss all that. It never happened. I must say that I sent this letter just before the war. We were probably prevented by the war to continue.
- We can see that in Denis Hollier’s book, you were present in the first year and then after that you disappear.
- That’s it. I thought that Bataille went a bit too far. He exaggerated. One must not forget that I had been a former student of Mauss. I had taken his courses. I would have considered myself a little bit like a traitor towards Mauss if I had not made some objections and distanced myself.
- Please excuse me to come back to this point another time, but in distancing yourself is there also this question of fascination for Nazism ?
- I never thought that. Never. Klossowsky maybe thought of it. I leave him the responsibility of this declaration. It was never my point of view.
- There are still some strange texts, by the way on the war for example.
-  That Bataille may have been fascinated by the war, that ‘s certain.. He said that you have to face up to the war. It is reflected in the declaration of the College of Sociology, concerning Munich.
- You signed it…
- I signed it. A little reluctantly, but I signed it.
- Reluctantly why ?
- I will tell you honestly : I was glad that the ghost of the war was dispelled. However, I agreed, maybe a little hypocritically, with the ideas that democracies, especially France, did not know how to inspire people with myths which would allow them to face up the war.
- All this war literature, these appeals to destruction, to a widespread convulsion, that does not bother you ?
- As I told you, one can sign a text enthusiastically. Then one can sign it disagreeing with some parts of it.
- The College finally, it was mostly Bataille ?
- Of course.
- Was Bataille as charismatic as Breton ? Did he have the same authority ?
- I don’t think so. The proof is that he never founded a movement similar to Surrealism which, as you know, would not have existed if Breton had not been there.
- Bataille was more solitary.
- That’s not it. You were talking a while ago about Breton’s charm. Well, Bataille did not have this charm. He had his own charm of course., but it was not like Breton’s charm.. His ideology was, we have to say it, even more difficult than the one of Breton.
- You mean to say it was easier to be won over to Breton ?
- Yes , of course. He was a poet, quite a poet. He wrote lovely things. I don’t say that to minimize him, but to say it was more appealing that what wrote Bataille. I don’t say it was better, but more appealing.
- Was Bataille frightening ?
- Ah! Very much so.
- Did he have that reputation ?
- He had above all the reputation of someone extremely debauched.
-  There is also something else. This project you had, well before all that, around 1924 or 1925; You had an organization which must have been called : ”Yes”…
- That was Bataille ‘s idea…
- I thought it was yours.
- No, no, it was Bataille’s idea.. It was a movement of assent. In a Zen spirit. I don’t know if he was familiar with Zen philosophy, at that time, but it was in that spirit. A kind of assent brought to everything. A complete non-resistance. . He thought that to the movement ‘No’ which had been the Dadaist movement, we had to oppose with a ‘yes’ movement which would be a positive Dadaism instead of being a negative one.
- So what ? Why didn’t it happen ?
- I don’t know. It remained like that in conversation.
- At that time, he had written nothing, isn’t that right ? Anyway, he had published nothing. And yet what is striking is the extraordinary authority that he still enjoyed. It remains very mysterious for someone like me. On what was his authority based ?
- On his conversation. On the comments that he had. He had , indeed , a very big influence.
- There too, he was the opposite of Breton who relied on piles of texts ?
- Sure.
- Do you still have respect for Breton today ?
- A lot. I am not a thurifier of Breton, that’s for sure. I know that he had many faults, but still I have a lot of respect for him. I know I owe him a lot because I owe a lot to Surrealism, and as I said to you a moment ago, there would not have been Surrealism without Breton.
- In those years, you met Lacan , I suppose ? Was he still close to Bataille ?
- Lacan , I knew him indeed. I knew him even very well. I saw him all the time. I never followed his seminars. Nevertheless we were friends, especially by his wife, Sylvia, who had been Bataille’s first wife..
- When did you meet him ?
- Lacan, I probably met him. Wait… I met him at Marie Bonaparte’s… when I came back from Africa. It must have in 1934. Marie Bonaparte took a great interest in the Djibouti mission of which I was part. So I went there sometimes. She had told me once that she knew a very young psychoanalyst who would be very happy to meet me. It was Lacan.
- Did you become friends right away  ?
- I have to say that I was immediately bewildered by what I would call his hyperintellectualism. There is a very big part of his work which is way above my head, literally, but it does not stop me from feeling some sympathy towards him.
- Was he really close to the S urrealists at that time ?
- Yes, he was pretty close.
- In which way ?
- By what Dali called’ the paranoiac method’ . I believe it was that way.
- Did he have some relationship with Breton for example ?
- Of course there was mutual respect.
- Let’s go back to you. When you got closer to the Surrealists, it was Bataille this time who sulked, I imagine ?
- That’s exact. I had wanted him to become a Surrealist too. Nothing that I could do .He considered that I had gone, not exactly to the enemy’s side, but it was almost a friendly betrayal and that I had ceased to be completely on his side to go to Breton’s side..
- And what was your answer ?
- All that was implicit…Tacit. He talked about it, I don’t remember where…. In Surrealism day by day, I believe.
- The impression one has of Bataille is of a very black character.
- Superficial impression.
- That’s right.
- The reproach I have with Surya’s book, which is very well researched, it is, precisely , that he had not known Bataille and makes a portrait of him a little too black. Bataille was somewhat of a bon vivant. One must not imagine that his stories of debauchery resembled a black mass. I have never participated in it. But really, I believe it was not that black. . It’s him ( here comes his old catholic background) who described it under the aspect of transgression, which means a sin. But that said. He was someone, in personal relations that one could be with him, often happy. I did not say rather happy, but often happy.
- You knew well Colette Peignot who was Bataille’s companion at the end of his life.
- I knew her very well. She was a very fascinating person. Her beauty… Her intelligence…the inexorable side of her character. She could not stand half-measures. She had been Souvarine’s friend. For several years, I believe. That’s what originated the total hostility Bataille- Souvarine, that Souvarine expressed with much injustice in the preface of the re-edition of The Social Critique, when he accuses Bataille of anti-semitism.. It is an absurd accusation.. Complete viciousness. The fact is that he could not stand Simone Weil. But it had obviously nothing to do with it.
- Did Colette Peignot played a role in The Social Critique ?
- She wrote in it. There are articles from her book-reviews, signed Claude Arax.
- Was she not also a little the financier ?
- I believe that she came from a family, if not rich, at least well-to-do, which was not the case for Souvarine. She probably participated to the financing of The Social Critique.
- Did she take an interest in politics ?
- An interest in politics, I don’t know. She was not a person who compromised and a person in politics is obliged necessarily to accept some compromises. In that way, she did not have the personality of a politician. But on the other hand, she was a passionate revolutionary.
- There was also, in the background, Jean Bernier who had been as well Colette Peignot’s lover, and who was also a strange character.
- I knew Bernier a little, not very well, at the time of the reconciliation between Light and The Surrealist Revolution..
- Because you were there in 1925, street Jacques- Caillot, at the time of the big famous meeting ?
- Yes, exactly. With also Morhange, Politzer, Guterman. I was among the Surrealists who were in agreement with this reconciliation. All that goes back a long time !
- Thank you, any way, for all these remembrances. The important point for me was the question of Bataille’s possible fascination with fascism. I cared very much to have your opinion.
- My opinion was that Bataille was never a fascist. He was, if you want, fascinated by the propaganda genius of the Nazis. His wish was that the left party showed equal propaganda genius in the opposite way, I don’t know if the name of ‘ Counter-Attack is from him. But it could be… As it was really as Bataille saw things. It was a counter-attack. There was the fascist attack with its massive means of propaganda. . And we had to find as powerful means for counter-attack
- Do you remember the demonstration of February 12 1934 when you went with him and Roland Tual ?
- Yes, I think so. I remember vaguely this demonstration. We were there with Bataille, but it has not left me, I confess a very precise memory. Even so…Wait.. It was the famous demonstration, in the street, when The Popular Front happened. I remember it . It was very moving.
- The Popular Front was it something important or something you made fun of  ?
- No, I did not make fun of it. I worked, at that time at Le musée de l’Homme, which thanks to Rivet, was in the midst of the Popular Front.
- Because you were a member of the Vigilance Committee of the anti-fascist intellectuals ?
- Yes, yes. I was not an executive of the Committee, but I was part of it. So was Breton who had signed on to be part of it.
- I did not know that the Surrealists were in it.
- For my part, I was a little in it as Rivet’s man. I was no more there as a Surrealist, because at that time I had broke off with them.
- I thank you so much. I am embarrassed to have insisted so much. I know that…
- Please ! I know that I am one of the survivors. Maybe the last one. With Klossoski indeed.
Translated by Liliane Lazar