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Since the 1950s, Hussard has taken a specific meaning in the French culture. The word refers to writers grouped together under the contentious label of “fascists.” It came from a young columnist, Bernard Frank, whose polemic was published in Sartre’s review, Les Temps Modernes of December 1952. The short list of Hussars included only three names: Jacques Laurent, Antoine Blondin and Roger Nimier. None of these young men was ever a member of a fascist organization. But, in 1947, Sartre could compare De Gaulle with Hitler; and in the Fifties, fascist was a usual term of abuse. With cleverness, Bernard Frank spotted young writers who were in reaction against the dominance of the intellectual Left. The word came from The Blue Hussar ( Le Hussard bleu ), a brilliant novel published in 1950 by Roger Nimier, translated in British English and American English in 1952 and 1953, respectively. During the Fifties, it became a sort of flag, or banner. It signaled a new way for literature to be free, and even created a fashion, because the public was tired of the post-Liberation authors, who seemed too severe and gloomy. The Hussars incarnated a quest for happiness, a reaction of freedom and lightness against elder writers considered by them to be pessimistic and sadly didactic. The group not only attracted close acquaintances like Stephen Hecquet, Nimier’s friend, but it was strong enough to have an impact on Leftist writers. Even today, Bernard Frank himself and Roger Vailland are sometimes defined as “hussards de gauche,” or left Hussars . “The Hussars: A Young Literary Right Faced with Camus” deals with three periods or important moments: first, from 1945 to 1952, the years before the quarrel with Sartre just as well before the group of the Hussars has been identified; next, from 1953 to 1959, marked by the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Camus and the war in Algeria; and finally, from 1960 to 1962, the years punctuated by Camus’ and Nimier’s deaths in car crashes. In effect, the death of Nimier spelled the end of the Hussars. Each of the essay’s three parts is devoted to these specific periods, but on occasion takes the liberty of moving back and forth across time.

First in line, François Truffaut, is also the most represented writer in the volume (together with Nimier). Since no Arts equivalent of what Antoine de Baecque did for the Cahiers du Cinéma (Histoire d'une revue) has ever been released (not even a short monograph), it seems useful to propose a preliminary diachronic account of the magazine. [...]politics has all along been part of the agenda of this non-group (or this group of non-members) that is the hussar circle of influence.

En effet, puisque ce phenomene naturel, \"reapparition a l'air libre, sous forme de grosse source, de l'eau absorbee par des cavites souterraines,\"2 suppose une preexistence sous forme non visible en surface, une resurgence de l'Histoire chez Deville impliquerait que l'Histoire n'etait pas absente dans ses premiers livres. Elle revele, a propos de l'enterrement officiel en 1905, l'operation politique (le heros Brazza, dont on a detruit l'ultime rapport, hostile aux exploiteurs de la colonie, a peut-etre ete empoisonne), mais aussi la confusion d'ordre mythologique (le cercueil contient-il la depouille ou les cendres?).\\n A son depart pour l'île de Sao Tome, il previent: \"J'ai decide d'enqueter, et achete a cette fin des lunettes noires et une carte de l'île au tresor\" (69).