Bernard Faÿ Add a review

Marie Louis Emmanuel Bernard Faÿ (French pronunciation: [bɛʁnaʁ fa.i]; 3 April 1893 – 31 December 1978) was a French historian who served as an official under Vichy France. He is known for his close friendship with Gertrude Stein, who avoided Nazi persecution and collaborated with the Vichy regime under his protection.

Faÿ studied and taught history in France and the United States and became a respected historian of Franco-American relations in interwar France. Despite his arch-conservative views, Faÿ was deeply embedded in Paris' prewar cultural scene. As the general administrator of the Bibliothèque Nationale under the German occupation and head of anti-Masonic service of the Vichy Government, he oversaw the persecution of French Freemasons from 1940 to 1944. After the end of the Second World War, he was convicted of indignité nationale and sentenced to life in prison. He escaped after five years and resumed teaching history in Switzerland, where he played a role in the founding of the Society of St. Pius XI.