Cultural Ferment and Intellectual Life

The decade before 1914 witnessed extraordinary cultural creativity. Paris had become the undisputed capital of modern art, attracting painters, writers, and musicians from around the world. The spring Salon and autumn Salon d'Automne showcased works that challenged every convention, from Fauvism's wild colors to Cubism's fractured perspectives.

French literature explored new psychological depths with Proust beginning his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu and Gide examining moral complexity. The Nouvelle Revue Française, founded in 1909, became the arbiter of literary modernism. In philosophy, Henri Bergson's ideas about time and consciousness influenced artists and thinkers across disciplines.

Yet this high culture touched only elites. Most French people found entertainment in music halls, café-concerts, and the new cinemas showing short comedies and melodramas. The Tour de France, begun in 1903, created new national heroes from ordinary cyclists. Football clubs sprouted in industrial towns, offering workers a brief escape from drudgery.