Paul Valéry

With "Locarno" (2025), Christine de Mazières has written a novel that is both historical and contemporary—a European drama about diplomacy, memory, and the power of language. The starting point is the 1925 Locarno Peace Conference in Switzerland, where, in the aftermath of the First World War, Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann, and Austen Chamberlain attempted a moral renewal of Europe. De Mazières recounts the events as a polyphonic tableau: politicians, journalists, and artists act on a stage where political gesture, rhetorical form, and symbolic action are inextricably intertwined. A journalist, Louise Lenfant, witnesses this "comédie humaine de la paix," whose fragile hope she carries both personally and politically. The novel's emblematic image—an eagle swooping down on doves of peace—encapsulates the paradox of this era in a single metaphor. The essay “The Spirit of Locarno” reads de Maizières’ novel not as a mere historical reconstruction, but as a literary reflection on the relationship between intellect and politics. At its core lies the question of whether peace is conceivable as long as Europe remains intellectually divided. The text demonstrates how the novel continues Valéry’s diagnosis from “La Crise de l’esprit” (1919): the attempt, after the catastrophe, to create a “fédération de l’esprit”—a federation of the mind. The review interprets Locarno as a narrative response to Valéry’s question “Et qu’est-ce que la paix?” (And what is peace?) and as an echo of Heinrich Mann’s call for an “intellectual Locarno.” De Mazières combines Briand's moral vision with Valéry's skeptical intelligence, transforming the political stage of 1925 into a literary laboratory for the present: a century later, in 2025, Locarno remains an open question for Europe itself – whether it is capable of renewing its intellectual powers before the eagle once again dives on the doves.