Maurice Barrès

French Symbolist novelist and journalist. Initially an individualist, he was elected to parliament as a socialist within the populist nationalist Boulangist coalition. However, he became an ardent nationalist and anti-Semite during the Dreyfus Affair, becoming a leading mouthpiece, alongside Charles Maurras, of the Anti-Dreyfusard side. Amongst the Dadaists, Breton and Aragon initially admired Barrès' anarchist views in 'Un Hommes Libre' (1889), the 'Culte du Moi' trilogy (1888-91) and 'L'Ennemi des Lois' (1892), whose main character spends three months in Sainte-Pelagie prison for anarchist propaganda, but eventually subjected him to the mock trial [charged with an "attentat à la sûreté de l'esprit" (attempt against the security of the spirit)] that signalled the end of the Dadaist movement in the spring of 1921.