Out of the bleak pessimism of late-winter France came the new fad of Dolorism. The first 5,000-copy issue of its melancholy bible, La Revue Doloriste, sold in Paris last week like gargles in wintertime London. The cult of sorrow and misery even took the spotlight from Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialists (TIME, Jan. 28), as staid Figaro gave it tongue-in-cheek recognition: "No school ever chose its hour better than this one. Every French citizen is an unknowing Dolorist.And Monsieur Gouin [France's Premier], perhaps, is also one."
High priest of the inconsolable Dolorists was chalk-faced Julien Teppe, who believes that only...
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