Raissa Maritain (1883-1960), best known as the wife of the famous
French philosopher Jacques Maritain, was a remarkable person in her
own right. A poet, philosopher, translator, and mystic, she was at
the epicenter of French intellectual life in the first half of the
twentieth century. Her autobiography, We Have Been Friends
Together, together with the second part, Adventures in Grace, were
originally published in two volumes in 1941 and 1944. Both books
are combined here and are now being re-issued for the first time.
She chronicles not only her and her husband's lives but also those
of their friends-an impressive circle of important French
intellectuals, writers, artists, professors, and influential
priests. In luminous prose Raissa recounts her childhood in Russia,
her youth in Paris, and her momentous meeting with Jacques,
followed by their conversion to Catholicism in 1906. She gives a
vivid, personal account of the Thomistic Revival they helped to
lead and describes the conversions of key figures in the French
Catholic Renaissance-many of whom were the Maritains' close
friends. However, the underlying subjects of her autobiography are
God's goodness, the mysterious operation of grace in the soul, and
the way that Raissa and others were transformed by their encounter
with the Divine. We Have Been Friends Together and Adventures in
Grace are spiritual autobiographies written by a mystic with a
difference. Raissa was totally God-focused, but, unlike most
mystics, she was not a religious by vocation. She attended the
Sorbonne, married, and associated with the intellectual lights of
Paris, New York, and Rome. She wrote a book for children, and
published poetry, works on prayer, translations, and studies of
modern authors. Raissa also played a key role in the conversion of
many and knew, often intimately, intellectuals like Ernest Psichari
and Charles Peguy, the playwright Cocteau, the authors Mauriac,
Claudel, and Bloy, and a number of painters, including Georges
Rouault. Readers interested in spiritual biography, in mystics, in
modern women authors, in the psychology of conversion, in
twentieth-century French intellectual life, and in the Thomistic
revival will find this book fascinating. Raissa's autobiography
will also hold a special place in the heart of all those who
believe, as did her godfather Leon Bloy, "There is only one misery
. . . not to be saints."
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