This article examines the ill-fated 1922 Congress of Paris, an international conference organized by André Breton whose aim was to diagnose the sources of the “modern spirit.” Although the Congress had ambitious international goals, it was ultimately brought down by a remark with xenophobic connotations. Largely remembered today as being the death knell of Paris Dada – the very public fight between Tristan Tzara and Breton meant that the Congress never took place but also that Paris Dada was dissolved – this article uncovers the tensions involved in self-consciously defining “modernism.” Arguing that an inherent ambivalence over the term shaped the main participant’s understanding of the Congress, I read the Congress as a concrete manifestation of the impulse to “federate” the arts in post-war France.