---
date: '2026-10-25'
description: a French Catholic democratic movement associated with Marc Sangnier, seeking to connect religious conviction with social responsibility and popular participation.
id: Le Sillon
modified: '2026-10-25'
seealso:
  - '[[library/Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter]]'
  - '[[thoughts/Simone de Beauvoir]]'
tags:
  - history
  - religion
title: Le Sillon
created: '2026-10-25'
published: '2026-10-25'
pageLayout: default
slug: thoughts/Le-Sillon
permalink: https://aarnphm.xyz/thoughts/Le-Sillon.md
generator:
  quartz: v4.6.0
  hostedProvider: Cloudflare
  baseUrl: aarnphm.xyz
full: https://aarnphm.xyz/llms-full.txt
---
_Le Sillon_ means “the furrow.” It developed around the journal founded by Paul Renaudin in 1894 and became associated with Marc Sangnier’s work for Catholic democracy. Study circles and popular education brought religious conviction into discussion with workers’ lives and civic responsibility. See [FranceArchives on Sangnier](https://francearchives.gouv.fr/fr/pages_histoire/40007) and the [historical study of the movement’s beginnings](https://www.persee.fr/doc/xxs_0294-1759_1995_num_47_1_3199).

On 25 August 1910, Pope Pius X condemned the movement; Sangnier submitted and dissolved it. Its supporters’ subsequent lives therefore extend beyond the formal movement’s end. [FranceArchives](https://francearchives.gouv.fr/fr/pages_histoire/40007).

## in Beauvoir’s memoirs

In [[library/Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter]], [[thoughts/Simone de Beauvoir|Beauvoir]] explains that Zaza’s father had belonged to Le Sillon before the Church condemned it. He retained a belief in Catholics’ social duties and rejected Maurras’s politics. This background helps explain Zaza’s indignation when Simone repeats her father’s amusement at violence against Sangnier’s supporters.

The scene also records Simone recognizing how readily she has borrowed her father’s judgment. Zaza’s response makes her examine an opinion she had repeated without thinking. See the [French text](https://livreur2soleil.com/yms/Ebooks/Romans/Simone%20De%20Beavoir/Memoires%20d_une%20jeune%20fille%20rang%20-%20Simone%20de%20Beauvoir.pdf), in the passage about the Camelots du Roi and the walk along rue Saint-Benoît; pagination varies by edition.