He is the prophet of modern times, before which all others seem mute. He rails better than the prophets; His fire feeds on all the dung of our time.

Franz Kafka

Some have defined Léon Bloy (1846-1917) as a “right-wing anarchist”, the truth is that he is unclassifiable and many things can be said about him, unless he is a complacent writer. Bloy was born in Périgueux to an anticlerical, Mason and Voltairean father and a Catholic mother, and these extremes seem to have been reflected in his radical and virulent nature. In his youth he was a militant atheist, a true enemy of Christ and the Church. However, very soon, under the influence of the writer Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, whom he met around 1868 and who would be his mentor and protector, he converted to Catholicism, a belief that he would live with great intensity and commitment until the very end. end of his days.

Bloy relentlessly criticized his time, a society he hated because it embodied a world without God: atheists, mundane clergymen, wealthy bourgeois, disbelieving workers, their writings are harshly examined... and no one comes out unscathed, not even his friends, with the most of whom ended up distancing themselves. But those who had the aplomb to endure his diatribes discovered in him a great Christian and an excellent writer, with a merciful heart who empathized with the despised and afflicted. He played a crucial role in the spiritual evolution of many intellectuals whom he reconciled with Christianity, such as the philosophers Jacques and Raïssa Maritan and the painter Georges Rouault, among others.

The poor man's blood (1909) is one of his most important works. In it, he unmasks with total freedom of conscience –of which he was so jealous and for which he paid a very high price– the decadence, hypocrisy and cruelty of his society. Georges Bernanos points out that Bloy, because of his exaltation, may seem incongruous, but in reality his pen moves inspired by the Spirit.