COCTEAU Jean (1889-1963)

Autograph letter signed, circa July 1917; 6 ff . 1/2 in-8. Long and beautiful letter from Cocteau evoking through a caustic chronicle, the mundanities of Paris in 1917, mentioning the Beaumonts, Walter Berry, Mme de Jaucourt, Lucien Daudet, Proust, Mme Standish, Mme de Cavaillet, Montesquieu, Jacques-Emile Blanche, Bernstein, Gide, Philippe Berthelot, etc. "It has been a long time since I have been able to write to you (an abundance of material and atrocious fatigue). I stagger from reform examination to reform examination. Naked from barrack to barrack, from specialist to specialist. If I can get something - the sea, the sun and the solitude. What are you up to? Did you get the program from the Russians? I sent it by chance with the sketch of Picasso (...). Dinner at the Etienne [de Beaumont] house with your brother, who was very fit - a crazy dinner, full of trapdoors - where Mr. W. Berry had a duel with Eliane de L[ubersac], where Mme de Jaucourt, who was in full swing, shouted at Proust arriving for dessert: "Mr Proust! Why are you late? Perhaps someone was making a scene! (...). Do you like (what a mess) Cavaillet's mother saying to Marie [Princess Murat]: "Hello, Princess, and how is the Duchess [of Rohan], is she still acting up! (...) Gide brought us together like a true pastor after a rather long interlude when the good J.E. [Blanche] complained to everyone about my cruelty. Bernstein's play [L'Élévation] resembles women who dress up as widows to walk the streets (...)".