Four Years of Captivity in Cochons-sur-Marne: 1900-1904 by Léon Bloy (originally Quatre ans de Captivité à Cochons-sur-Marne) is the third diary in the Ungrateful Beggar series, a notable work in Catholic literature.

This autobiography, edited for publication, chronicles four years in the life of the French author Léon Bloy after he and his family returned to France from Denmark, settling in Lagny on the Marne, approximately 40 kilometers outside Paris. The narrative spans a wide emotional spectrum, from gut-wrenching grief and sorrow as the family teeters on the brink of absolute poverty while being relentlessly pursued by creditors and landladies, to fierce outrage against the pettiness, avarice, and hypocrisy of the bourgeois and wealthy. It also offers uplifting praise for God, celebrating all that is beautiful in life despite the suffering, along with sharp satire and humor that brings laughter even amid tears.

“Terrible day! The lack of wine and fortifying alimentation, the threat of a lack of coal, the human certitude of being unable to feed our children tomorrow, the impossibility of continuing to live here and the impossibility of escaping, the apparent abandonment of everyone and the evident hostility of so many people; finally, and above all, that infinitely dolorous expectation of a liberator who never comes; all that together puts us two steps away from despair. While we stiffen our wills, our house is shaken by a tempest and the sky is sad like death without God. For whom then do we suffer thus?”

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