Quotes from book
Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Name: Les grands cimetières sous la lune
Author: Georges Bernanos

Georges BernanosOriginal title Les Grands Cimetières sous la lune (French, 1938)

Les Grands Cimetières sous la Lune is a book by novelist Georges Bernanos which fiercely condemns the atrocities carried out in Majorca by the Nationalists in Spain. Majorca had been secured for the Nationalist rebels by Manuel Goded Llopis at the outset of the Spanish Civil War. Bernanos states that 3,000 were killed by Nationalists and his book contains horrifying details of summary executions.

“There is a well known and most profound saying of people wishing to induce sympathy in each other. 'Put yourself in his place,' they say. But it is easy only to put yourself in the place of your equals. At a certain point of inferiority, real or imaginary, this substitution is no longer possible…. Young Vittorio Mussolini has published a book on his Ethiopian campaign, of which I quote this extract: It was thrilling. A huge zariba, surrounded by tall trees, was very difficult to hit. I had to aim very carefully, and I only succeeded the third time. The poor devils inside jumped out when they saw their roof was on fire, and fled madly…surrounded by a ring of flames, four to five thousand Abyssinians died of suffocation. It was like hell itself. Smoke rising up to unbelievable heights, and flames turning the black sky red. Obviously Signor Vittorio Mussolini never dreamt of putting himself in the place of the Ethiopians!”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.222-223

“A large number of suspects, both men and women, escaped martial law for lack of any shred of evidence against them on which a court-martial could convict. So they began setting them free in groups, according to their birth-place. But half-way, the car-load would be emptied into a ditch.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.105

“Everybody in Palma knew that my son was a lieutenant in the Phalange, and I was often seen at mass. For months I had been friendly with insurgent leaders who were feared by all the suspects. And yet people I hardly knew spoke freely to me, when the slightest indiscretion on my part would have cost their liberty, or their lives. I'll tell you why it was. It was because it is still known in the world that a Frenchman doesn't let himself become a policeman's pawn - that's why. Because a Frenchman is a free man.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.109

“I have done no passably decent job in this world which did not at first seem to me useless - absurdly useless, useless to the point of nausea. My secret demon is called :What's the use?”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.17

“The population of Majorca has always been noted for its absolute indifference to politics. In the days of the Carlistes and the Cristinos, George Sand tells us how they welcomed with equal unconcern the refugees of either side. According to the head of the Phalange, you could not have found a hundred Communists in the whole island. Where could the Party have got them from? It is a country of small market-gardening, of olives, oranges and almonds, without industry, without factories. I declare on oath that during the months preceding the civil war there was no attempt of any kind made against persons or belongings. 'There was killing in Spain,' you say. 'A hundred and thirty-five political assassinations between March and July 1936.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

But in Majorca there were no crimes to avenge, so it could only have been a preventative action, the systematic extermination of suspects.
Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.86 [Carlistes and Cristinos - followers of Don Carlos - reactionary, and Maria Cristina - liberal - in the Spanish War of Succession in the 1830s].

“You know, sometimes I imagine what any decent agnostic of average intelligence might say, if by some impossible chance one of those intolerable praters were to let him stand awhile in the pulpit, in his stead: 'Ladies and gentlemen,… I don't share all your beliefs, but I probably know more about the history of the church than you do, because I happen to have read it, and not many parishioners can say that. For though you're not interested in unbelievers, unbelievers are extremely interested in you.. Yes, we were drawn to you. But now we've decided that you're not very interesting after all, and it's rather disappointing….. Because you do not live your faith, your faith has ceased to be a living thing.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.196-207

“When marine officers called on me at Palma, they remarked on the clean roads, the punctual trams and so on. 'Why', they exclaimed, 'business as usual - and you say there's killing going on? what nonsense!' They didn't realise that any tradesman who closed down, closed down at his peril. They didn't know that the relatives of the executed were not allowed to go into mourning. How can you expect the outside appearance of a town to be affected, just because the staff of its prisons is double, treble, ten times, a hundred times what it was? The discreet slaughter of fifteen or twenty wretched people per day, will not prevent tramways from running to schedule, cafés from being full, or churches resounding with the Te Deum.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.98

“You don't wage civil war in kid gloves. The Spanish bishops know it so well that they have been obliged to refer to 'regrettable excesses' and 'inevitable abuses'. They seem to think that war is like Shrove Tuesday, that it's a jolly respite, as it were, from social morality, and that men can give themselves up to being cruel just as gay sparks at carnival-time indulge in bottom-pinching! Once the illuminations go out, we must welcome the dear lad home with a smile that's both knowing and fatherly. 'Don't worry, my dear boy. We can none of us resist a little fun sometimes. Think no more about it.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

But, Your Excellencies, this is something more than a little fun!
Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.147

“Money-crimes have an abstract quality. History is laden with the victims of gold, but their remains are odourless.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.35