Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE. 4 L.A.S. "LFC", "LouisF" and "Louis", [Copenhagen March-April 1948], to his friend the publisher Jean-Gabriel Daragnès; 5pages in-4, and 4, 6 and3pages in-fol. About his publishers, notably his hatred of Mme Voilier (Denoël), and about the pamphlet against Sartre, À l'agité du bocal. 22nd [March]. Daragnès is to visit Céline in Denmark. As for the publisher Sorlot, "he will pay as little and as late as possible... maybe not at all - but that's okay - it's excellent anyway - it will encourage serious publishers". Céline doesn't want to correct the proofs, and leaves that to Marie Canavaggia. As for the contract, "it's a joke [...] I no longer have a civil status in France. I can be reaped for anything! Proof! A thousand proofs! And the tax authorities are waiting for me with 600,000 francs in seizures due to Pétain!". We should phone Fasquelle, who had offered money in Switzerland: "but I refused with the utmost dignity. I only want to receive money if he pulls my bears. No pourliches. In principle, he was to set up a fictitious house in Switzerland in my name. Mother Voiliers would have sued me there! There's no more Denoël, it's a gang - and no doubt assassins". Then Céline talks about his friend Dedichen and his lawyer Mikkelsen. He will soon be leaving Copenhagen for the countryside: "You know how much I adore it! After all, isn't everything better than Fresnes and its Danish equivalent?" Finally, he evokes his old Montmartre friends "Popol" [Gen Paul] and "Antonio" [Zuloaga]: "He doesn't write a word anymore [...] You'd have to withdraw 200,000 for him to wake up. Ah dear snobs!" Wednesday [end of March]. For Sorlot, who "must be being purged", we must wait: "If he has the money on the 15th", Geoffroy will turn it into an object. Have Daragnès bring some tea: "Lucette has been so ill that I've had to cut out her coffee. The poor little thing is dragging on now, no longer lively and cheerful - it distresses me. The ordeal has been too long, too hard, too much sadness, too much anguish, too much horror. [...] Above all, she misses her little world of dance. This life of rotten dogs, this perpetual humiliation would wear away granite. I still hate her, but she's incapable of it". After alluding to the scandal involving Ambassador Charbonnières' father, he talks about the pamphlet À l'agité du bocal: "La lettre pour Sartre à ne pas publier - privée. I'm still a prisoner on parole. I can't afford the luxury of provoking the eminent patriot Sartre. There'd be scandal, indignation, a tipping point. - As long as I have the mandate up my ass, any revolt would come back in handcuffs... it's the mandate that has to be lifted"... 18th [April]. After Daragnès's visit, he talks about Maurice d'Arquian's plan to publish his works: "I'd certainly like to get along with D'Arquian a thousand times better than with Voiliers - a lying, bluffing, stupid old bitch who hasn't understood a thing. As for soliciting her, snotty pimp that she is... she'll immediately see an opportunity to snot me up even more. I broke up with her - that's all. I don't know which bidet she's falling off! Contract? What a nice story! What a nice brelet! She can wipe her ass! It's null and void - and broken for a hundred reasons [...] Voiliers is only on probation. His judgment box has evaporated - ipso facto. His so-called perlimpinpin actions, his puppy-paper contracts. What's more, they behaved ignobly towards me. I made this joke. This grunt disgusts me. She's cowardly, deceitful, stupid and, worst of all, broke. A publisher is first and foremost a banker. [...] She was counting on my contract, my business, to sell me to another publisher. [...] She wasn't even born yet, the mouse, I already had winners and more winners! Poet I say! I'd rather deal with a man like d'Arquian than with a fake maxi clueless cunt like that. I'd rather die, to tell you the truth, than be made by a damsel, even one with a dildo!" As for the letter to Sartre [À l'agité du bocal], "too bad it's circulating! So much the better. He won't have me or Charbonnières extradited. They dreamed it, too bad. They've got it in the ass like Voiliers"... 29th [April]. He gives Arletty's address at the Plaza Athénée. Everything would be fine with d'Arquian, if it weren't for Voilier: "she's planning to pay her fine with the reprint of Le Voyage! What a joke! And I'm jumping rope. [...] So damn I'd like to forbid her to pull. Outright. [...] Let her at least be forced to give me another contract with money first"...