Witches’ Sabbath

Maurice Sachs

1939

Thus there began to form, or to show itself within me that heart so proud and yet so tender, that effeminate and yet indomitable character which, constantly vacillating between weakness and courage, between flabbiness and virtue, has endlessly brought me into contradiction with myself.

—Rousseau

It was at the Collège de Luza, to which I had been…

Please login or register for free access to Posen Library
Register
Already have an account?
Engage with this Source

Creator Bio

Maurice Sachs

1906–1945

Born Maurice Ettinghausen in Paris, the decadent writer Maurice Sachs grew up in a wildly dysfunctional family of well-to-do unobservant Jews. Louche, dissolute, and untrustworthy, he associated with the leading homosexual writers of the interwar period, including Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, and André Gide. He was converted to Catholicism by Jacques and Raïssa Maritain in 1925 and even studied for the priesthood for a while, but he did not remain a practicing Catholic for long. During the German occupation of Paris, he engaged in various dubious business activities and possibly acted as a Gestapo informer. He was deported to Germany and died there in 1945. His autobiography, Witches’ Sabbath, was written in 1939 but published only in 1946.

You may also like

Memories

I. I must revive the experiences of the revolutionary path traversed in order to share memories and knowledge with workers and the younger generation. They want and need to have an…
View Source
Painting of girl standing in front of slanted table with scrap of black bread.
Tooltip info icon

Aniska

Shterenberg is famous for a series of paintings he did in 1917 and 1918, which are sometimes known as “hungry still lives.” A single object, such as a herring or a loaf of bread, is the focus of the…
View Source