Editing Henri Bergson (section)

===Later years and death===
While living with his wife and daughter in a modest house in a quiet street near the [[Porte d'Auteuil (Paris Métro)|Porte d'Auteuil]] in Paris, Bergson won the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]] in 1927 for ''The Creative Evolution''. Because of serious [[rheumatology|rheumatic ailments]], he could not travel to Stockholm, and sent instead a text subsequently published in ''La Pensée et le mouvant''.<ref name=Fagot-Largeau/> He was elected a foreign honorary member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1928.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=16 June 2011}}</ref>

After his retirement from the Collège de France, Bergson began to fade into obscurity: he suffered from a degenerative illness (rheumatism, which left him half paralyzed<ref name=Fagot-Largeau/>). He completed his new work, ''The Two Sources of Morality and Religion'', which extended his philosophical theories to the realms of morality, religion, and art, in 1932. It was respectfully received by the public and the philosophical community, but by that time Bergson's days as a philosophical luminary were past. He was, however, able to reiterate his core beliefs near the end of his life, by renouncing all the posts and honours previously awarded him rather than accept exemption from the [[Vichy anti-Jewish legislation|antisemitic laws]] of the [[Vichy France|Vichy]] government.

Bergson inclined to convert to Catholicism, writing in his will on 7 February 1937: "My thinking has always brought me nearer to Catholicism, in which I saw the perfect complement to Judaism."<ref>Quoted in: {{Cite book
|last= Zolli
|first= Eugenio
|author-link= Israel Zolli
|title= Before the Dawn
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=bq_Qp53ksMAC&pg=PA81
|orig-year= 1954
|year= 2008
|publisher= Ignatius Press
|isbn= 978-1-58617-287-9
|page= 89
}}
</ref> Though wishing to convert to Catholicism, as stated in his will, he did not do so in view of the travails inflicted on the Jewish people by the rise of [[Nazism]] and [[antisemitism]] in Europe in the 1930s; he did not want to appear to want to leave the persecuted. After the fall of France in 1940, Jews in occupied France were required to register at police stations. When completing his police form, Bergson made the following entry: "Academic. Philosopher. Nobel Prize winner. Jew."<ref>Gilbert, Martin. The Second World War: A Complete History (p. 129). Rosetta Books. Kindle Edition.</ref> It was the position of the Archbishop of Paris, [[Emmanuel Célestin Suhard]], that the public revelation of Bergson's conversion was too dangerous at the time, when the city was occupied by the Nazis, to both the Church and the Jewish population.<ref>[https://catholicism.org/forgotten-converts.html Forgotten Converts, Gary Potter, 2006.]</ref>

On 3 January 1941, Bergson died in occupied Paris of bronchitis.<ref name="TuckerWood1999">{{cite book|author1=Spencer Tucker|author2=Laura Matysek Wood|author3=Justin D. Murphy|title=The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gv3GEyB19wIC&pg=PA124|year=1999|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-8153-3351-7|pages=124}}</ref> A Roman Catholic priest said prayers at his funeral per his request. Bergson is buried in the Cimetière de Garches, [[Hauts-de-Seine]].