CLAUDEL Paul (1868-1955)

Autograph manuscript signed, Château de Lutaines, June 1925; 17 pages in-4 (270 x 210 mm), in black ink on 5 double sheets of laid paper bound together in a notebook, with about ten small corrections. Central fold. Paul Claudel, who corresponded a lot with Jacques Rivière at the beginning of his literary life, speaks with emotion about a book by Rivière which he was the first to discover and which retraces the spiritual path of its author. A la trace de Dieu, journal de captivité, was published by the NRF in 1925, shortly after the death of Jacques Rivière, who had transcribed his experience as a prisoner of war during the First World War, and shared his philosophy as a Christian. Claudel deciphers and analyzes Rivière's vision of a life guided by Providence from the revelation of Christmas 1913 to the war years, which imposed on him a lucid tête à tête with God.