90 - Marcel JOUHANDEAU (1888–1979)

Marcel JOUHANDEAU (1888–1979) Letter to Patrice CAUDA, and autograph manuscript; 2 pages in-8, and 3½ pages in-8. The letter is addressed to the poet Patrice Cauda, who is about to stand trial. Jouhandeau has spoken with his lawyer: “Your case is not very serious. That’s just what’s needed. The trouble is that justice is a sort of brute, lacking discernment, intelligence, or compassion. Wait, without worrying about the consequences. They will be insignificant, and I’ll make sure your judge is forever despised. I guarantee that his name will go down in history. You’re a Villon Prize winner, and you’re more honest than he is”… Working manuscript for *Ces Messieurs* (1951), with numerous cross-outs and corrections; it is crossed out with a red pencil line and paginated in pencil from 88 to 91: “With a hooked nose, the gaze of St. Ignatius, and a borrowed air of dignity, his umbrella prominently displayed, a man of a certain age sits between two young men, the shame of whom only he is spared from noticing”…