ABSTRACT
In a letter to Dom Besse, in 1919, Bernanos had noted: 'Writing, for me, is the condition of my moral life'. The proof of the tremendous seriousness with which Bernanos looked at the world is that he knew the most atrocious of temptations that can assail a Christian. 'The demon of my heart often asks, 'what is the use?' he remarked in Les Grands Cimetieres, and Professor Lima tells me that in their last conversation in Brazil, Bernanos echoed these words again, affirming that all hope for saving modern man must be given up. This was not to be his last word, and the abbe Pezeril was in his right to call him, in a magnificent funeral oration, 'a touchstone of Christianity', a man of hope. By civilization Bernanos meant the spirit which informs an age, underlies the reflexes of the people, sets their goals and organizes the web of their relationships.
