Paul Morand never concealed a certain nostalgia for the Belle Époque and its rituals, its sense of hierarchies, its good manners, faith in progress, as well as a faith in the superiority of the white race. However, the outbreak of the First World War not only put an end to that society, but also disclosed deep cracklines in the European spirit, until then considered by Morand, among others, as the repository of reason. Thus Europe and the European people , much like many of Morand’s characters, become clinical cases. Starting from the author’s interest in psychiatry and psychoanalysis during the first war, the article aims to focus on their role in order to illuminate not only some of Morand’s characters, but his whole output.
