Simone Weil in Marseille is the story of a philosopher living as a refugee in Vichy France, working with resistance networks, meeting a priest and a farmer-writer, and filling notebooks. This guide follows that period using reliable summaries.
Marseille came after the factory and classroom years covered in simone weil factory work, and it belongs within the wider account in simone weil in france.
Why Marseille
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that after the German Western offensive Weil left Paris with her family in June 1940, on the last train. They settled eventually but temporarily in Marseilles, at the time the main gathering point for those attempting to flee France.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the same move in similar terms: after the German invasion she was in Marseille, publishing essays and doing what she could for those, often Jews like herself, seeking escape from Vichy France and the Nazi threat, according to its biography.
The turn from pacifism
The Stanford Encyclopedia says that after the military alliance of Germany and Italy in May 1939 Weil renounced her pacifism. It adds that she did not feel she had been wrong to hold the position before, but argued that France was no longer strong enough to remain generous or merely defensive, as its summary reports.
The Wikipedia biography records a remark attributed to her, that non-violence is good only if it is effective, and says she became committed to fighting the Nazi regime even if that required force. That background explains why the Marseille years were spent on resistance-related work rather than on withdrawal from events.
- Marseilles was the main gathering point for those fleeing France: Marseilles
- In Marseille after German invasion, publishing essays and helping those seeking escape: Marseille
- France no longer strong enough to remain generous or merely defensive: pacifism
- Non-violence good only if effective; committed to fighting the Nazi regime: non-violence
- Delivered Cahiers du temoignage; group infiltrated; questioned by police; never arrested: Cahiers du témoignage
Resistance work and a police interview
The Wikipedia biography says Weil began the risky work of delivering the Cahiers du témoignage, a resistance paper, and that the group she belonged to was infiltrated by informants. It adds that she was questioned by the police and was ultimately never arrested, according to that biography.
The Stanford Encyclopedia puts it more briefly, saying that in Marseilles she would work with the Resistance.
Perrin, Thibon and the farm work
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, in Marseilles she was introduced to the Dominican priest Joseph-Marie Perrin, who became a close friend as well as a spiritual interlocutor, and through whom she began to consider the question of baptism. The entry says that to help her find work as an agricultural laborer, Perrin turned to his friend Gustave Thibon, a Catholic writer who owned a farm in the Ardèche region, so in fall 1941 she worked in the grape harvest.
The same entry adds that she worked a full eight hours per day but was not treated like the rest of the laborers, since she resided and ate at the house of her employers. It also reports that she carried Plato’s Symposium into the vineyards and tried to teach it to her fellow workers. Her interest in farm labor fits a practice the entry says she had long sought: to apprentice herself to the life of agricultural laborers.
The Wikipedia biography notes that Thibon later edited some of her work, helping to draw attention to her spiritually related thought in the English-speaking world, as that account puts it. How far Thibon’s editorial choices shaped her reputation is a debated point.
The same biography says Weil encouraged her parents to buy a farm in the Ardèche where they could sustain themselves and work, but her family thought it safer to plan to move to the United States. The plan shows how the farm work was tied to her sense of what a livable life might be.
Writing in the free zone
The Stanford Encyclopedia notes that her essay “The Iliad or the Poem of Force” appeared in the December 1940 and January 1941 issues of Cahiers du Sud under the anagrammatic pseudonym Emile Novis. It explains that she took the name to avoid antisemitic confrontation and censorship, and it ties the essay’s concept of force to its place after the fall of France and to her position of exile, as its discussion frames it.
The Wikipedia biography says the essay was first published in 1940 in Les Cahiers du Sud, the only significant literary magazine available in the French free zone, according to its entry. The detail helps explain why a major philosophical essay by a refugee appeared in a regional literary review rather than in a philosophy journal, and why the pseudonym mattered.
The same source says that in New York, as in Marseilles, she filled notebook after notebook with philosophical, theological and mathematical considerations. It also says her concept of attention, though present in her early writings, reached its robust theoretical expression while she was in Marseilles in 1942, according to the Stanford entry.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy adds that she entrusted her writings, essays, notebooks and letters to Gustave Thibon in 1942, when, with her parents, she fled France. Selections from these writings, it says, first made Weil widely known in the Anglo-American world, per that entry.
Leaving France
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, in 1942 Weil agreed to leave France in part so her parents would be in a safe place, since they would not leave without her, but principally because she thought she might be more useful for France’s war effort if she were in another country, per its account. The next stage of her life, in exile and in London, is told in simone weil free france.
Marseille therefore marks the last extended stretch of her life in France. Her practical commitments and her writing continued to run together there, under the conditions of occupation and exile.
How to read Weil’s Marseille period
Several of the sources describe the religious side of this period as a matter of interpretation. The Stanford Encyclopedia says Perrin was the person through whom she began to consider baptism, and the Wikipedia biography describes her receiving spiritual direction from him. How she herself understood her position is something readers can take from her letters, and different commentators describe it differently.
A cautious approach is to separate three threads: the practical record of flight, resistance paper delivery and farm work; the literary record of essays and notebooks; and the interpretive question of how her thought developed. The summaries cited here agree on the first two threads more than on the third.
For readers who want to follow up, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes Thibon as a lay Catholic theologian and notes that Weil handed him her writings when she left France, per that source. The material he received is the starting point for several of the posthumous books that made her known beyond France.
Frequently asked questions
When did Simone Weil go to Marseille?
Show answer
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says she left Paris with her family in June 1940 and settled eventually but temporarily in Marseilles.
Who were Perrin and Thibon?
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The Stanford Encyclopedia describes Joseph-Marie Perrin as a Dominican priest and Gustave Thibon as a Catholic writer who owned a farm in the Ardèche region.
What did she write there?
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According to the Stanford Encyclopedia, she filled notebooks in Marseilles, and her essay on the Iliad appeared in Cahiers du Sud under the pseudonym Emile Novis.
Why did she leave?
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The Stanford Encyclopedia says she agreed to leave in part for her parents’ safety and principally to be more useful to France’s war effort.