Henri Desgrange - Writing Style

Writing Style

Geoffrey Nicholson pointed out the way in which Desgrange modelled his writing on Zola. In launching the Tour de France (see below), for instance, he wrote:

"With the broad and powerful swing of the hand which Zola in The Earth gave to his ploughman, L'Auto, journal of ideas and action, is going to fling across France today those reckless and uncouth sowers of energy who are the great professional riders of the world... From Paris to the blue waves of the Mediterranean, from Marseille to Bordeaux, passing along the roseate and dreaming roads sleeping under the sun, across the calm of the fields of the Vendée, following the Loire, which flows on still and silent, our men are going to race madly, unflaggingly."

Of riders in Paris–Brest–Paris (see reference to Audax Français below), he wrote:

"There are four of them. Their legs, like giant levers, will power onwards for sixty hours, their muscles will grind up the kilometres, their broad chests will heave with the effort of the struggle, their hands will cling on to their handlebars; with their eyes they will observe each other ferociously; their backs will bend forward in unison for barbaric breakaways; their stomachs will fight against hunger, their brains against sleep. And at night a peasant waiting for them by a deserted road will see four demons passing by, and the noise of their desperate panting will freeze his heart and fill it with terror."

Desgrange wrote in the first issue of L'Auto that there would be "not a word" about politics, even though politics - the Dreyfus affair - had led to the paper's creation. On the eve of the first world war (see "Desgrange and war" below), however, he wrote:

"My dear boys ! My dear French boys! Listen to me! In the 14 years that L'Auto has appeared every day, it has never given you bad advice, has it? Well! Listen to me! The Prussians are bastards (salauds]. I don't use the word to be vulgar but because it is exactly what I mean... When your rifle is aimed at their chests, they will beg for mercy. Don't give it to them. Shoot them down without mercy!"