3 - Roland DORGELÈS.

Roland DORGELÈS. Autograph manuscript, *Le Château des Brouillards*; 953 ff. in-4 (22 x 17 cm, plus a few extra pages), mounted on tabs and bound in three in-4 volumes, ivory vellum, title painted on the smooth spine (Ad. Lavaux). Complete working manuscript of this novel set in Montmartre, published in 1932 by Albin Michel. Dorgelès had considered titling his book *Le Roman de Montmartre*. It is indeed a portrayal of Montmartre at the turn of the century, from the Maquis to the Lapin Agile and the streets surrounding the strange building at 13 rue Girardon—a former folly that gives the novel its title—where artists, poets, street performers, outcasts, and anarchists live. The poet Paul-Gérard Clair (Dorgelès’s alter ego) frequents the circle of the anarchist bookbinder Lucie Fouché, known as Rapine; he will find himself implicated in a case involving anarchist counterfeiters before being killed in the fighting of 1914. The manuscript is written in violet ink. It contains numerous and significant erasures and corrections, with crossed-out passages and many pasted-in scraps of paper. On the reverse side of some pages, there are abandoned drafts. It is paginated chapter by chapter (continuous pagination for chapters X–XI, XIII–XIV, and XVI–XVII). There are numerous variations from the published edition; for example, certain chapters have been renamed, with the original titles crossed out in the manuscript itself (shown below in square brackets). The manuscript is organized as follows: I [Snowy Night] At the Lapin Agile, followed by a new version: I To the Sound of the Guitar, II [Before the War / And This Is How It Happened...] Discovering Montmartre, III At Mimi-Pinson’s, IV [Élie the Necromancer] New Characters, V [Where We Speak of Love / The Time of Lilacs / Romance] The Color of Happiness/Spring, VI 13 Rue Girardon, VII Tell Me Who You Haunt..., VIII The Ways of Fate, IX Change of Scenery, X Between Two Worlds, [XI] A Nighttime Visit, XII Alternatives, XIII Where Love Bears Fruit, XIV A Treasure on a Rooftop, XV Mr. de Grandpré Makes Himself Useful, XVI The Police Get Involved, XVII In Mortal Danger, XVIII The Last Night, XVII [XIX] Where the Author Evokes Shadows.