Albert Zbinden: “Let’s say the word, you were an anti-Semite.”

Céline: “Exactly. To the same extent that I thought that the Semites were pushing us towards war. Out side of that I had nothing against them—I wasn’t part of the overall conflict with the Semites; I didn’t have any reason. But insofar as they constituted a sect, like the Templars, or the Jansenists, I was formally against them, in the manner of Louis XIV. He had his reasons for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, as did Louis XV for his hounding of the Jesuits… And there you have it, don’t you: I took myself for being Louis XV or Louis XIV, which is obviously a profound error. Thus my great enemy in this was myself, and what I should have done was quite simply to have remained silent. My great sin in this was pride and, I’ll admit it, vanity, and stupidity. I should have remained silent… Such problems are beyond my power. I was born at a time when people were still talking about the Dreyfus Affair. That whole thing was truly a stupid episode, for which I am paying the bill.”