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Du Diable à Dieu: Histoire d'une conversion
1907 · 250 pages
Du Diable à Dieu: Histoire d'une conversion
by Adolphe Retté
"From the Devil to God" is the first-person conversion memoir of Adolphe Retté, a French Symbolist poet and anarchist who had been a militant atheist and materialist known for public blasphemy. After a crisis of despair and suicidal impulses, he converted to Catholicism in 1906, and here tells that story in his own words. Please note: the text is in French, and no public-domain English translation exists.
The changed life
Raised without faith and, by his own and his contemporaries' account, a militant atheist active among anti-religious circles, Retté passed through despair and suicidal impulses to convert to Catholicism in 1906 — the most literal atheist-to-Christian journey among our conversion narratives.
Summary
Du Diable à Dieu ("From the Devil to God"), published in Paris in 1907 with a preface by François Coppée, is Adolphe Retté's first-person account of his conversion. Among first-person unbelief-to-faith narratives it is one of the most literal: Retté had been, by his own and his contemporaries' account, a militant atheist and materialist, active in anti-religious circles and known for public blasphemy.
The book traces the crisis that broke that unbelief — a period of despair and suicidal impulses — and the movement of a hostile, worldly mind toward the Catholic faith he embraced in 1906. Written by a working poet of the French Symbolist movement, it carries the literary sensibility of its author into a candid record of spiritual struggle and surrender.
It should be read as a period document of a genuine, hard-won conversion, told from the inside by a man who had spent his adult life attacking the very faith he came to profess.
Who was Adolphe Retté?
Adolphe Retté (1863–1930) was a French Symbolist poet and anarchist. Raised without religious faith, he became by his own and his contemporaries' account a militant atheist and materialist, active among anti-religious circles and known for public blasphemy, before a spiritual crisis involving despair and suicidal impulses led him to convert to Catholicism in 1906.
Du Diable à Dieu was the first of several accounts he wrote of his new faith, followed by further volumes such as Sous l'Étoile du Matin and Au pays des lys noirs. Of all the conversion memoirs we offer, his is the most literal atheist-to-Christian story — a man who moved from open hostility to the church into its communion.
Common questions
- Is this book available in English?
- No. Du Diable à Dieu is in French, and no public-domain English translation exists. Our edition presents the original French text; readers who need English would have to translate it, which the public-domain status permits.
- Was Retté genuinely an atheist before his conversion?
- Yes. By his own and his contemporaries' account he was a militant atheist and materialist, active in anti-religious circles and known for public blasphemy, before converting to Catholicism in 1906 — making his the most literal atheist-to-Christian memoir in our collection.
A note on the text. Du Diable à Dieu: Histoire d'une conversionis in the public domain. What you're buying is our edition — the careful typesetting and design. The original text is also available free here.