Déracinés, Les. Novel by Barrès, published in 1897, the first in his trilogy Le Roman de l'energie nationale. It depicts the moral and physical uprooting of seven young Lorrainers. In Lorraine their schoolteacher Boutheiller (based on the philosopher and politician Burdeau), by his version of Kantianism, detaches them from the firm basis of traditional morality. Thereafter they are physically uprooted from their province, moving to Paris, filled with a desire to fulfil themselves to their utmost. Their fates are disparate: two, Racadot and Mouchefrin, of peasant origin, have little natural defence against what Barrès sees as intellectual anarchy, and end up as assassins; Renaudin becomes an unscrupulous political journalist, Suret-Lefort a successful Third-Republic lawyer-politician. Three turn out, in Barrès's terms, reasonably well: Sturel, an impassioned Boulangist [see Boulanger, G.]; Roemerspacher, a Tainian historian; and Saint-Phlin, a traditional aristocrat who remains solidly linked to Lorraine land and tradition. This roman à thèse is well-constructed, its themes skilfully interwoven. Above all, it gives a full (if partisan) picture of the political life of the period. It was of great influence, giving the word ‘déraciné’ to the political vocabulary and spelling out the influential doctrine of ‘la terre et les morts’.
— Richard Griffiths
