220 - RACHILDE (Marguerite Eymery Vallette, known as) [Périgueux, 1860 – Paris, 1953], French writer.

RACHILDE (Marguerite Eymery Vallette, known as) [Périgueux, 1860 – Paris, 1953], French writer. Signed autograph letter addressed to [Alfred Mortier]. Bas-Vignons, June 26, 1907; 7 pages, in-8°. A very fine letter written following a lecture by Mme Aurel (Mortier’s wife). “It is perfectly true that a woman’s book cannot and must not obey the laws governing a man’s book, and it must seek its own laws—but it must achieve Sincerity. Hmm! Who will dare? The story of our sensibilities—which are also our senses—who will tell it? As for me, I don’t give a damn… because I would never have dared to try. The few small truths I ventured to express immediately earned me years in prison (probably… because I had tried to be proper.… That is to say, picturesque… well then…! [...] For literature [...] we would need finely tempered natures, more open to the pleasure of the setting of sensation itself. The best male writers—in the sense of truly literate writing—were impotent (For my part, I know one who reached the highest echelons of literary refinement, who wept before a “real man” out of the despair caused by any masculine effort… can you picture the scene?) And that doesn’t mean a learned woman can’t—in fact, she can be the most perfect (or the most accomplished) in literature. On the contrary… she has time to feel because things move more slowly… so they say!) ” She then speaks of herself and her husband, Alfred Valette, editor of the *Mercure de France*. “I am looked down upon as a woman of letters by my husband (take this word ‘contempt’ in the affectionate sense and in the literal sense of something not taken seriously), and I believe I am loved as a woman just as much as ever—which is to say, more than any other woman… and yet I still miss… being understood—which is both less and more, if you catch my meaning. Thus I have fallen and now seek nothing but the picturesque, the brutal effect.” Enclosed are two autograph letters signed on “Mercure de France” letterhead and a business card with an appointment request.