Paul Morand (13 March 1888 – 24 July 1976) was a French author whose short stories and novellas were lauded for their style, wit and descriptive power. His most productive literary period was the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. He was much admired by the upper echelons of society and the artistic avant-garde who made him a cult favorite. He has been categorized as an early Modernist and Imagist.
Morand was a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, preparing him for a diplomatic career, and also attended Oxford University.
A member of the upper class and married into wealth, he held various diplomatic posts and traveled widely. He was typical of those in his social group who enjoyed lives of privilege and entitlement, adhering to the inevitability and desirability of class distinction.
Morand espoused a reflexive adherence to racial, ethnic and anti-Semitic ideologies. His intellectual influences included the writing of Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler, and the author of a treatise on the superiority of the white race, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau. During World War II, he pledged allegiance to the French Vichy regime, and became a government functionary, and Nazi collaborator. He served as Vichy ambassador in Romania and Switzerland during World War II.
He was a patron and inspirational figure for the Hussards literary movement, which opposed existentialism.
Morand made four bids for admission to the prestigious Académie française and was finally accepted in 1968, over the protest of Charles de Gaulle.
Early years
Source material indicates that Morand was born in Russia to French parents who subsequently moved to Paris. Morand's father, Eugène Morand was a playwright and painter. The elder Morand was a curator at the Louvre and served as director of the École des Arts Décoratifs. The Morand home was a gathering place for the social elite and those notable in the arts and literature. Jules Massenet, composer of popular operas of the era, sculptor Auguste Rodin and writer Oscar Wilde were guests. As a youth Morand was introduced to the actress Sarah Bernhardt, and poet Stéphane Mallarmé. The multi-faceted writer and diplomat Jean Giraudoux was his tutor and became a lifelong friend. His father allied himself with those who believed in the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, yet maintained a policy of banning Jews from the Morand home.
Morand, a man of fin de siècle sensibilities, believed in the credo of "art for art's sake". He was ingrained with a deep pessimism, influenced by his father's cautionary advice to "be always distrustful". He was an intellectual proponent of Friedrich Nietzsche, and Oswald Spengler, espousing the philosophers’ belief in the decadence and decline of civilization. For Morand, class distinctions spoke to the natural order of a civilized society and he subscribed to theories based on the superiority/inferiority of race. He was influenced by the writing of Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, an aristocrat who presented his case for the superiority of the white race in an essay written in 1853, "Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races".
Morand was sent to study at Oxford University. In 1913, he was appointed cultural attaché to the French Embassy in London. His sojourn in England brought him into acquaintance with the prominent members of British society and aristocracy.
Morand often dined at the Hôtel Ritz in the company of Marcel Proust and his confidante, the Princess Hélène Soutzo. The Princess, born Hélène Chrissoveloni, was the daughter of a prominent Greek merchant banker. At the time she made Morand's acquaintance, she was married to an aristocrat of Greek-Romanian extraction, Prince Dimitri Soutzo. Morand and Princess Soutzo had an extended romantic liaison; she divorced her husband in 1924 and married Morand in 1927.
World War I
Morand served briefly in the military prior to the outbreak of World War I, but managed to avoid active service in the hostilities and was assigned to the reserve corps. An avid, active sportsman, he had failed his medical exam as unfit for service. Many attributed this exemption to the intervention and influence held by his mistress, Princess Elena Suțu (née Chrissoveloni, 5 February 1879 in Galați–26 February 1975 in Paris), the wife of the Romanian general and military attaché Prince Dimitri Suțu (Greek: Soutzos, Romanian: Suțu or Sutzu). His wealth allowed Morand to travel and indulge his interests in fast cars, fine horses and women.