Translations:CP 03862/6/en

But even if I were less tired, how many other absurdities I could point out in the Figaro manifesto. No fair mind will contest that one loses their universal value in denationalising it, and that even at the height of singularity, generality blossoms. But, is it not a truth of the same order, that one removes their general value and even national value to a body of work whilst seeking to nationalise it. The mysterious laws presiding the blooming of the aesthetic truth as well as the scientific truth are falsified, if a foreign reasoning intervenes at the beginning. The expert who gives the greatest honour to France by bringing the laws to light, would cease giving honour if he searched for it and not for the only truth and he would no longer find this unique concept which is a law. I am embarrassed to say such simple things but I cannot understand how a mind like yours seems not to take this into consideration. That France must watch over the literatures of the whole world is a mandate that we would cry with joy to learn that has been entrusted to us, but that is a bit shocking to see us taking this upon ourselves. This “hegemony”, born of the “Victory”, makes one think involuntarily about “Deutschland über alles” and because of this, it is slightly unpleaseant. The character of “our race” (is it good french, to speak of a “French” “race”?) was to know how to combine such pride with even more modesty.