Bloch was agnostic, if not atheist, in matters of religion. His son Étienne later said of his father, "in his life as well as his writings not even the slightest trace of a supposed Jewish identity" can be found. "Marc Bloch was simply French". Some of his pupils believed him to be an Orthodox Jew, but Loyn says this is incorrect. While Bloch's Jewish roots were important to him, this was the result of the political tumult of the Dreyfuss years, said Loyn: that "it was only anti-semitism that made him want to affirm his Jewishness".
