Huysmans et le « cormoran de Meaux »

The judgments of Huysmans on Bossuet are explained by the nineteenth-century author’s overall hostility to classical literature; they are motivated by the desire to attain through him the “fin de siècle” episcopate, accused of servility and resistance to the mystical revival. Bossuet’s providentialism could speak to Huysmans, but the latter reduced it to the events of his personal life and gave it a conspiratorial bent.