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Lot 144 - BAC Ferdinand (1859 - 1952) MANUSCRIT autograph signed "Ferdinand Bac", Miscellaneous Manuscripts, 1932-1934; green cloth-backed notebook, small in-4 (22.5 x 17 cm), approx. 120 pages, in black percaline spine folder and cloth-backed slipcase with title-piece. First draft and working manuscript of his souvenirs and travel accounts. The manuscript, in black ink, mainly on the front of the notebook leaves, with additions on the facing page, and inserted pages, is profusely crossed out and corrected. Paginated 1-116, it bears a label on the cover giving its contents; at the end of the notebook, Bac has drawn up a "Summary" with cross-references to the pages of the notebook. At the head of the notebook, Bac has noted: "To Caroline Octavie in memory of her traveling companion. This notebook was begun on November 8, 1932 at Les Colombières in Menton with a study on my interview with Mussolini" [Caroline-Octavie dite Jeanne Ladan- Bockairy, née Jouain, F. Bac's inspiration, Bac's patron, with her husband Émile, who created for them the Colombières garden in their Menton estate]; opposite, photograph of Mme. Mme Ladan-Bockairy. The notebook begins with Impressions de Rome (pp. 1-3), the end of his interviews with MUSSOLINI, "partially unpublished", with this note at the top: "Fascism can never be a regime for France. The Frenchman loves liberty as much as the Italian, but he will never submit to a Dictatorship like Italy. This is followed (pp. 4-12) by notes on "unpublished autographs (mainly concerning Mad. Récamier", from the Caplain collection; then notes on his talks with RENAN and with TAINE, then with Prince Napoléon in 1885-1888 (pp. 12-50), intended for his (unpublished) memoirs. After an "Introduction pour les Fables de La Fontaine" (March 1934, 2 p.), intimate reminiscences on "Le Prince de Galles à la Turbie Prince of Wales at La Turbie" in 1896 (p. 52-55). Then begins (p. 56-116) the manuscript of "III volume de la série Promenades dans l'Italie nouvelle. La Sicile". Bac has mounted at the end a "sample of a page 'worked' and cancelled" (typed page overloaded with corrections and additions). Bookplate with the figure J B drawn by F. Bac.

Estim. 500 - 600 EUR

Lot 151 - DUBUFFET Jean (1901 - 1985) L.A.S. "Jean Dubuffet" and L.S. "Jean Dubuffet" with 7 autographed lines, 1948-1949, to Joe BOUSQUET; 4 pages in-8 and 2 pages in-8. El Goléa February 28 [1948]. He has left Paris, "driven out by the cold". He thanks Bousquet for the stories dedicated to him [in Le fruit dont l'ombre est la saveur]: "This book will be dear to me beyond anything I can say, and will brighten my life and my work for all the time I have to live. On his return to France, he will visit Bousquet in his room in Carcassonne. "El Golea is an oasis in the far south, right in the middle of the Sahara. The population is a mixture of Arabs and Sudanese negroes, nestled in small clay houses [...] the palm groves are immensely extensive and all around is endless sand. I'm here with sweet Lili, who's absolutely enchanted by this fairytale setting, and it took us several days' travel in a coach over desert tracks to get here [...] We go to drink tea with the natives, and this morning we were drinking it under fruit-laden lemon trees, to the enchanting music of a six-hole reed flute played softly by our host"... Etc. Paris, August 3, 1949. He sends Bousquet a painting to add to his collection, and doesn't want to be paid. His portrait of Bousquet is exhibited in New York. He worries about Max ERNST's interest in his work. He works on "a small pornographic album, drawings and text. The text is very stupid. [...] I hate ideas; I find them so hollow! I want art with my head cut off"... He ends his letter with these handwritten lines: "I have no exhibition in mind. I'm tired of doing exhibitions that only elicit horions and insults. What the European wants is ideas. He doesn't believe (not seriously, at least) that anything other than ideas is worth paying attention to. I don't give a damn about ideas.

Estim. 1 000 - 1 200 EUR

Lot 178 - LISZT Franz (1811 - 1886) L.A.S. "F. Liszt", Weymar March 20, 1851, to a journalist, 4 pages small in-4. He breaks "a silence of several years", yielding "to the interest I am duty-bound to take in a thought and a foundation which, as much by the sympathies they have already met as by the patronage they seem assured of, announce themselves as destined to occupy a large place in the development of art in Germany". Germany". He asks the journalist to "find some time to look through my brochure on the Goethe Foundation" [De la Fondation Goethe à Weimar (Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus, 1851)], and to grant him "a few columns in the Augsburg Gazette, whose high credit and universal influence could contribute so effectively to hastening the definitive realization of the Goethe Foundation, and to give translated extracts (from the 2nd and 3rd parts) of the brochure", which had interested M. Dingelstadt during his stay in Germany. Dingelstadt during his stay in Weimar for the Herder-Goethe celebrations; but the latter did not produce the promised summary. Liszt reminds his correspondent of "the honorable proposal 9 years ago, to accept for the Augsburg Gazette, some correspondence, not very frequent, on special subjects of music, dated Weymar, and signed with my name or marked with a particular sign, as you may deem appropriate? - My inveterate awkwardness in handling German phraseology would oblige me to write usually in French, but this difficulty would be very minimal for your sheet, and would only occasionally cause a slight embarrassment of translation"... In a postscript, he points out passages from his brochure that should be quoted...

Estim. 1 500 - 2 000 EUR

Lot 179 - MENDELSSOHN Felix (1809 - 1847) 2 L.A.S. "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy", Frankfurt and Leipzig May 17 and September 21, 1847, to publisher N. SIMROCK in Bonn; 1 1/2 and 1 page in-4, addresses; in German. Letters written in the year of his death, on the publication of his oratorio Elias. [Mendelssohn had just returned from England, where he had several times conducted Elias, his ultimate masterpiece, with great success. He died on November 4]. Frankfurt a.M. May 17. Thanks the publisher for his kindness in Bonn. As he seemed impatient to receive the corrections, Mendelssohn immediately set to work, and this very day sends back the piano reduction, and the choral parts of the first part, corrected. All the errors he had noticed had to be corrected. Once this is done, the printing can begin. He will send everything he has of the second part in a few days' time, and asks that the rest of the 2nd part (keyboard reduction) be sent to Frankfurt, where he is staying for a few days, as this will be useful for correcting the choir parts... He will then leave for Vevey... He has nothing against the publication of the very insignificant Rhine song ("das sehr unbedeutende Rhein-Lied" [Warnung vor dem Rhein]). Then he mentions a request from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, which had asked Mendelssohn to be its representative at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn... Leipzig September 21. On the subject of proofreading. He has reviewed only those places where several plates have been reduced to one. It is necessary to verify that the errors noted have been correctly corrected. He did not revise what he had already revised ("Ich habe nur die Stellen noch einmal durchgesehen, wo mehrere Platten in eine reducirt worden sind; haben Sie die Güte recht darauf zu halten, daß die angemerkten Fehler genau corrigirt werden. Die übrigen Platten habe ich nicht noch einmal revidirt"). He points out an indication for the horns; in the parts, everything is correct. There are also no errors in the metronome indications in the first part. In the second part, on the other hand, these indications have not been carried over to several pieces, and only reappear towards the end; he corrects two tempi, in the Allegro of no. 26 and the Allegro moderato of no. 30, and the metronome indication of no. 32 (66 and not 60). Nothing now stands in the way of printing the first part, and he will return the second part in the next few days, once he has received it. Sämtliche Briefe, Band 12, nos. 5751 and 5818

Estim. 1 500 - 2 000 EUR

Lot 185 - SAINT-SAËNS Camille (1835 - 1921) 14 L.A.S., 1855-1908, mostly to the BARBIER family; 29 pages in-8. Letters addressed to librettist Jules Barbier, then to his son Pierre, also a poet and librettist. To Jules BARBIER. St Valery en Caux August 4, 1855... "Sea bathing this time has given me colic as well as a good number of St Valéry bathers. It's very unpleasant, as you can imagine. [...] As for the forced delay in our business, that's a completely secondary matter; get well first, then we'll see. I pride myself on being one of those of your friends who love you for more than your hemistiches [...] I ask only one thing of you: don't put me back after Messrs Chelard and de Hartog. May comic opera be light for them! If they manage to do one. By the way, I've become acquainted with the score of Jaguarita. I won't say, as Lamartine did to Dumas, that my opinion is one of admiration; but rather, my opinion is one of questioning. Is it really by Halévy? Is it not by Clapisson? or rather by Adam? is it written for voices or for eels? is it really music? would colic have turned my head? [...] These, among a thousand others, are the thoughts that collide in my poor brain on reading this strange jam"... - Le Cateau February 1, 1875. Oscar Stoumon, the new director of La Monnaie, is in Paris; Barbier should talk to him about the Stamp... - [1877]. Talks with Carvalho. "Deprived of the poetic character that music gives so well and that nothing can replace, your characters will have no consistency and consequently will not interest, at least that is my intimate conviction, and I will tell no one but you. [...] Finally, I believe in the success of the opera and doubt very much that of the drama"... - Evian, September 28, 1890. He doesn't want to recommend "a musician I don't know to a priest I don't know either. It can't be done, all the more so as I've had to put up with it in the past, and more than once, for having dealt with such matters with abbots to whom I had not been previously introduced. These gentlemen retain all their unction for the needs of their holy ministry, and sometimes have not the slightest urbanity left for ordinary life. [...] Only Gounod who knows how to swim in holy water"... To Pierre BARBIER. - September 25, 1891. "Phryné is a piécette made several years ago and not by Gallet. I gave it back to the author and asked him for it again, but I'm afraid I'm not even capable of doing this bluette in two acts"... - November 15, 1895. "I won't tell you that our little domestic quarrel is of great interest, you wouldn't believe me, but it's a very charming pretext for music, the way it's presented. I think you must have thought of a role for Madame Delna, and there would certainly be something to do. The practical disadvantage is that it's impossible to get interested in this madman. From then on, he can say the most beautiful things in the world; they'll please if they're pretty and well sung, but they'll lose a good half of their value as they travel from the performer to the listener like driving force carried by an electric wire. And how can a singer give the immaterial impression of the follet! [...] I know it's a shame to lose such lovely verses, but you do them so easily! A small, slight woman, as lively as a bird, that's how I see the role"... - July 6, 1908. He leaves for Dieppe, then goes to the fêtes in Béziers. As for Pierre's friend: "There was an excellent piece in her work, the malédiction à la mer and the passage that follows; that's what won her the prize. She'll do as Gluck did and use it later for something else. - October 27, 1908: "I don't have the cruelty of asking you to sacrifice your verses, but I can't help deploring the fact that you've gone down this road. You speak of Don Juan! but Don Juan is a lyrical character. A mother who wants to prevent her daughter from going wrong, intrigues and money matters, are not. Prose would have allowed you to make the 2nd act clearer, and to convey the political importance of this young race's virginity, which is clumsily understood"... Etc. - November 21, 1911. "Lately a small music journal has inaccurately quoted lines from Faust to show their ridiculousness. I wanted to avenge your father and sent a correction that was not inserted. - October 25, 1912. He confides a secret to her: "I have just given 10,000 f. to a member of my family. I really can't go on like this. Sure, it's good to pay your father's debts, but yours was the victim of a

Estim. 1 000 - 1 200 EUR

Lot 192 - ARAGON Louis (1897 - 1982) MANUSCRIT autograph signed "Aragon", Une histoire contemporaine: Claude-André Puget, [1947]; 22 1/2 pages in-4 (some edges slightly frayed). Preface for the collection of poems by Claude-André PUGET (1900-1975), La Nuit des temps (Clairefontaine, 1947). "Where does singing come from, and who is the singer? What is this murmuring madness in a young man, awakening... What is this music in him, this need to communicate it to others through arrangements of words, arbitrary surely, arbitrary... They say he's a poet; he writes verse... [...] This century is a deep, dark well, and if I lean over the edge, what inexplicable things are at the bottom! [...] A poet, too, is a creature of time. [...] He thinks he's free, he invents his romance, he moves forward and begins to sing. [...] What are the Sinhalese poets like, or those from Carcassonne? Some write for the eyes, others are all voice, and I've known poets of absence, who took their greatness from what they didn't say. [...] It was around 1920, at the age of seventeen, in Nice, [...] that Claude-André Puget wrote the first poems that have come down to us from him!".... Arago then went through Puget's poetic work, from his first book, Pente sur la mer... "It's a poetry of the fall. That's why it despises drums and rhyme. It's an extraordinary thing, a song that is a song only because it is held. This young man we are still hearing, what trouble was he expressing, what turmoil in these common poems, what sadness so different from the complaints of the Pléiade era, or from that nostalgia for Lamartine that we thought, taking him at his word, even at twenty, was still on the verge of death? [...] I'm not talking about influence: I'm just noting the analogies between song over a fairly short period of French poetry, as if at a given time singers couldn't get away from certain informal rules, a certain vocal framework, where song bends to new traditions, as demanding as those of the sonnet or the sextine. I love these early books, in which very young men reveal more about themselves than is apparent"... Etc. Aragon continues to explore and comment on Puget's various collections, making numerous quotations, ending with La Nuit des temps: "Yes, we are at a hinge in the century, at a threshold in the human adventure, and at this point of passage we must know how to read the variations in poetry as the variations in man. I followed this poet step by step for twenty years, and he may have seemed to follow only his reverie, but I know that like the reflections of a fire on the clouds, these variations from red to black through pink came from an external and distant inferno. Nothing is arbitrary in poetry, whatever one may think. And it is only at that moment when the poet's voice seems to lose itself in reality, that it finally sings, that it fills the heart with its music, and the eyes with tears, at that moment when poetry merges with man's destiny, in La Nuit des Temps "...

Estim. 1 000 - 1 200 EUR

Lot 193 - ARAGON Louis (1897 - 1982) L.A.S. "Aragon", Paris November 23 [1971], to Suzanne CORDONNIER-MUZARD; and 2 L.A.S. "Suzanne C" and "S C"(minutes) from Suzanne MUZARD to Aragon, November 1971; 2 pages in-4 each. Clarification about Suzanne Muzard's affair with André Breton, following an article in France-Soir quoting Aragon. [November 20]. Suzanne Muzard protests: "I don't think my ex-husband will accept as accurate that I took furs and jewelry from him, only to, in your words, hasten to sell them in order to bail out the father of Surrealism at a time when you were AB's best friend [...]. [...] Today I seek to understand the reasons for your malicious insinuations, and why it pleases you that in a sentimental period of his life AB should be classed as having lived off a woman"... November 23rd. ARAGON denies having given any interview to France-Soir: "There was no malicious insinuation on my part. In today's press, anyone can be made to say anything. [...] I would also point out that, not only is the vocabulary used not mine - I have never used the word deche to mean the material difficulties of life - but that, whatever André's difficulties in this area may have been at the time (difficulties of which I was never aware or conscious), they were in no way comparable to what was happening in my life. I don't see any reason for this, and I must tell you that, despite the break-up between us later on (and this was the great tragedy of my life), I never ceased to love and admire André, and I never wrote anything against him, even when he associated himself with texts directed against me"... However, on the occasion of several recent biographies, he expressed his indignation "that you have been purely and simply eliminated from his life, that there is no mention anywhere of the only woman I know of whom he truly loved"... He also spoke of what Breton thought and said of her "in that dark period of his life after your last departure, when Éluard and I feared he would kill himself because of your absence - I told anyone who would listen that it was a shame to bar from his existence the woman for whom, with her gone, he had written the most beautiful poem of his life, L'Union libre".... And he recounts the conversation he and Éluard had with Breton in the early days of 1932, after the publication of the poem without an author's name... November 24th. Suzanne Muzard's reply: "You remain the only witness to a once stormy passion - which from the start was doomed by its messiness - not to survive. I don't deny having loved André. And I believe, as you tell me, that I counted in his life... far too much. I never knew he'd thought of killing himself. [...] I don't think it's excessive that A.'s entourage judged me to be harmful. And yet I had extenuating circumstances! I was just a pawn between two men for whom I was the stake... I never thought I'd mention the proof André meant in print or in private - at the end of Nadja"... As for L'Union libre, the poem was written in his presence and only later published: "AB had no doubt given up honouring me with it! But what you don't know is that the title L'Union l.. was a challenge to marriage and EB"... She was touched that Aragon wanted to bring her out of the shadows, at the age of 71! "I've come to realize that love isn't always exclusive, but rather renewable. AB and I resurfaced - elsewhere - separately. For 25 years, I've lived on a feeling whose real importance I've been able to measure.

Estim. 400 - 500 EUR

Lot 195 - BARBEY D'AUREVILLY Jules (1808 - 1889) MANUSCRIT autograph signed "J. Barbey d'Aurevilly", La Colonne, [1873]; 3 fol. pages in black and red inks (leaves cut out for printing and reassembled, framed). Vigorous article on the destruction of the Colonne Vendôme during the Commune and the decision to rebuild it. [In May 1873, Marshal de Mac-Mahon, President of the Republic, decided to have the Colonne Vendôme rebuilt at Gustave Courbet's expense]. Barbey's article appeared in Le Gaulois on June 6, 1873, and was collected in Dernières Polémiques (A. Savine, 1891). It is divided into four parts. The manuscript shows erasures and corrections. Some sentences are written in red ink, and Barbey has embellished his text with letters in ink of different colors (the title in gold ink). "She was a glory. She's going to be a second. It was victory that raised her, and it is victory that raises her. The victory of the last few days! Victory once again over the enemy, and what enemy? The enemy within, more odious than the enemy without! We're going to see her on her feet again! And may we press her, to crush them better, on the chest of all France's enemies, that vanquished brass, as its sublime inscription said, supplied by the Enemy and brought down by an enemy, worse than the first! Blessed be the God of France! We are going to see again that vanquished bronze - and now doubly victorious, which we might never have seen again; for the wretches who brought it down had lit enough fires in Paris to melt it in their abominable flames! [...] So it's not just a column that's been raised today... These are the raisings of France! Etc. Barbey then evokes the destruction of the Commune, and underlines the symbolism of the Column, which "is not a monument like any other. The Column is part of the honor of France, and when it is knocked down, our honor seems to be knocked down as well. [...] Its bronze is much more than mere bronze. The blood of those who took it from the enemy on the battlefield has soaked it, penetrated it, and made it human and alive. Make no mistake! It's the blood of France that's in there"... Those who destroyed it were "parricides": "An anonymous and collective crime, carried out in bright sunlight, but by beings who called themselves the mob, the irresponsible and detestable mob [...] We can raise the Column. We can't have it raised by those who brought it down! We cannot impose this vengeful and just atonement on them. [...] Only one name now stands out in the memory of the sunken crime, and that is the name of COURBET, the Erostrate of the Column, more guilty and more imbecile than the stupid Erostrates who so bestially burned Paris! Courbet, the false artist, who found ugly this proud Colonne, soaring straight up to God, like a Te Deum of victory for rapt eyes, like the flame of an inextinguishable incense burner, Courbet, who will forever remain the holder of the crime of the Colonne, in execrable immortality!" How to punish such a man: "it would be necessary," said an indignant man the other day, "to show the whole of France the citizen Courbet, sealed in an iron cage under the base of the Colonne. [...] Certainly, the weakness of our decrepit days will recoil before such a male chastisement, but History is there to take care of the cage. And I tell you, it will be made of iron!

Estim. 800 - 1 000 EUR

Lot 196 - BLOY Léon (1846 - 1917) L.A.S. "Léon Bloy", Paris February 28, 1888, to Maurice de FLEURY; 2 pages in-8. Pathetic letter from Le Mendiant ingrat, superbly calligraphed. He got his address from HUYSMANS. His soul is "sad & weary usque ad mortem", but he rejoices and will pray for Maurice and his fiancée... "I have known a time, already long ago, of arms on the cross & holy tears & pure life, when I would have had more confidence in talking to God. I lived then in a perpetual hurricane of Joy & the world appeared around me, in the fog, only as a perpetual argument of sobs and obsessions. I had at my side, to envelop & enclose me in the intoxications of the Eucharist, an unheard-of being whose memory I profaned by trying to paint him with the earthy pigments of literature [allusion to La Femme pauvre]. I wasn't, as I am now, riddled with appalling sorrows, harassed, hounded, cornered on the most fragile partition of my free will by the barking desires of a Justice whose raging need will eventually turn into madness in me. I was poor - God knows! - even more so than today, so destitute as to repel Job's dung and discourage his vermin, I assumed the scarcity of space. But I didn't suffer for it in my soul, barely having the slightest inkling of sensible realities & not yet understanding the frightening symbolic Decree of the distribution of earthly goods, by virtue of which the appointed stewards of divine Divine Compassion depart, always, empty-handed & bitter-hearted, under inexplicable skies. I am therefore nothing of what I was, years ago, when, in my prayer, I presumed with the audacity of the simple, the formidable complicity of an army of chosen ones. [...] I am not one of those who believe in the vanity of suffering, especially when one suffers for great things & when one suffers exorbitantly!

Estim. 400 - 500 EUR

Lot 199 - [CHATEAUBRIAND François-René de]. DURAS Claire de Kersaint, duchesse de (1777 - 1828)19 autograph letters, Saint-Cloud and Paris January-April [1821], to François de CHATEAUBRIAND; 90 pages in-8 (slight wetness to a few letters). Important correspondence to his "brother" Chateaubriand, ambassador in Berlin, full of advice on conduct for the "old diplomat", news of the Chambers and of his own efforts to get his friend to the Congress of Leybach, to return to his Ministry of State, etc., as well as jokes and comments on the French government. We read of jokes and friendly quarrels, among frequent mentions of Pasquier, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Rayneval, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Corbière, Minister without Portfolio; and Villèle, Minister and Secretary of State, member of the Council. January 4 and 5. Saint-Lar y's appointment as quaestor "caused a great stir in the royalist party, Villèle and Corbière complained, and the King told them he had had special reasons [...]. It is said that this reason is the request that this M. de St Lary made to the Chamber in 1815 for the payment of the King's debts"... She begs to assure the Grand Duke Nicolas of her attachment... January 11-12. To obtain Chateaubriand's admission to the Laybach Congress, she wrote to Rayneval: "He is more important than anyone in foreign affairs, and during the chambers, he is the real minister. M. Pas quier entre la chambre son rhumatisme et le Conseil a plus en qu'il ne peut porter. It's for Laybach that Villèle and Corbière are going to show up, because it will be something decided in the Council very probably"... She recounts with indignation the escape of Captain Nanty, "the Quiroga of the conspiracy", and two others; "the most seriously compromised is M. d'Argenso n"... January 18-19. Humbol dt is of the opinion that the King of Prussia will not object to Chateaubriand following him to Laybach. Laybach: the Emperors of Russia and Austria allowed themselves to be followed by MM. de La Ferronays and de Caraman... She wonders about the application of the Congress' anti-revolutionary and anti-liberal principles: "It is said that everything will end here for Naples without fighting or violence. Moncenigo has written that something will be given up on both sides, and that an agreement will be made, but will the garrisons be suffered? And without that, how will the most beautiful constitution in the world work? The King of Naples would need a loyal army on which to rely, "in this volcano of revolution where the alphabet of '93 is being stammered out, and where a thermopylian battalion is being made by subscription"... Today, "the harmony of liberality and monarchy" is the only tenable doctrine; we rally to those who fight anarchy and revolutions: "this was the whole secret of Bonaparte"... January 28th. Another explosion yesterday at the Tuileries: "Madame wasn't scared at all. They say she's fat, and that's what drives the Jacobins to despair and makes them undertake these horrors. [...] The new Louvel has not been arrested"... The Chamber of Peers, where "there are 50 or 60 defenders of conspiracies so hot-headed and zealous that you'd think they were defending their own cause", rejected the supplementary indictment and released ten of the defendants... Diplomatic rumors about the English project to reduce the "expenses of St. Helena"; Tierney added that "we will give freedom to the prisoner who can no longer have any inconvenience. Great alarm at the French legation", but it was "an English joke"... February 1st. The royalists' alarm was infectious, and led to the "ugly ultras" being blamed: "When you see all this, you despair, because you have to be incorrigible not to be corrected by Louvel. Do we need a second lesson of the same kind? Echoes of a discussion in the Secret Committee (De Serre insulted by General Foy)... February 2-4. Affairs in England, according to Mr. Canning... "M. de Tall eyra nd has become a Liberal. What interest can he have in this? As for Congress, well-informed people say that "it was we, and we alone, who had hindered everything up to now. [...] Emperor Alexander spoke out most strongly in the last instance, and said he would march in person to Naples if necessary"... February 8. Brochure by Fiévée [Ce que tout le monde pense, ce que personne ne dit]: "In it you can judge the spirit and hopes of the extreme right"... February 11. People don't want Chateaubriand in Laybach: it is feared that the plenipotentiaries Blacas, Caraman and La Ferronays will be "hurt by the arrival of a superior man who would attract attention". She hopes that the King of Prussia will not go, but it is possible that he will join the Emperors in Naples: "it is of the

Estim. 1 500 - 2 000 EUR

Lot 202 - COCTEAU Jean (1889 - 1963) Le Mystère de Jean l'Oiseleur. Self-Portrait No. 33. [1924]. Original Indian ink and collage drawing, numbered in red pencil, with autograph MANUSCRIT. 25.5 x 20 cm à vue (framed). In the margin of his self-portrait, Cocteau inscribed this comment: "Ronsard, Mozart, Uccello, Saint-Just, Radiguet, my starry friends, I aspire to join you." The project for Le Mystère de Jean l'Oiseleur was born in October 1924 in Villefranche-sur-mer. In his room at the Hôtel Welcome, Cocteau "had no one to talk to but himself. From the table in front of which he sits, he sees himself in the mirror of his wardrobe [...] The 31 self-portraits to which he adds a few sentences or snatches of text are among his treasures. Surety and simplicity of line, acuity of detail, relevance and sincerity of purpose [...] By blending writing and drawing, which is "a writing unraveled and reknotted differently", Cocteau offered publisher Édouard Champion with one of his finest Oeuvres poétiques: Le Mystère de Jean l'Oiseleur. [...] The title is intriguing. A bird-catcher catches birds with a net. Does Cocteau capture the thoughts that come to mind and squeeze them onto a page? These 31 self-portraits by Jean Cocteau are "plunging views into his soul" (Pierre Bergé). Le Mystère de Jean l'Oiseleur was published in 1925 by Édouard Champion as a phototypeset of the manuscript by Daniel Jacomet, with 142 copies printed. EXHIBITIONS Jean Cocteau, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, 1989, no. 247; Jean Cocteau, Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels, 1991; Jean Cocteau, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2003-2004; Jean Cocteau, sur les pas d'un magicien, Palais Lumière, Évian, 2010. PROVENANCE Collection Liliane et Étienne de Saint-Georges, Brussels; sale Sotheby's Paris, November 24, 2010, no. 216

Estim. 2 500 - 3 000 EUR

Lot 206 - COCTEAU Jean (1889 - 1963) 10 L.A.S. "Jean" (one signed with a star), 1940-1946 and s.d., to Jean MARAIS; 14 pages in-4 (flaws, wetness to a few letters, one with tears on an edge), 2 letters bear the stamp of the Censorship Board. Loving correspondence, evoking his plays and films. June 1940. "My darling child. With no news from you, I try to live with your image and the certainty that your star and my star are protecting you. If by some incredible chance this letter reaches you, listen: the slightest scratch, the slightest sprain - have yourself evacuated to Perpignan",... January 25, 1943. Death of his mother: "That's done. The cemetery was the only atrocious thing - we're thrown into a real urinal in Place Clichy. But that counts for little. At last, Maman can move around freely and never leaves my side. She was at the Opéra - where the rehearsal was very beautiful and noble" [for Honegger's Antigone]... Every day he works on the film that will become L'Éternel Retour, "which changes a lot and gets stronger. The title will not be Tristan". He was unable to find a role for King Marc, which bothered him greatly: "you need a Marc whose stature doesn't crush you"; he changed the role of Yvonne [de Bray]: "She immediately found what was needed: the love of this woman for this dwarf. It gives it greatness. [Madeleine] Sologne was superb yesterday. I'm styling her with flat hair that falls [...]. She looks like a cathedral statue, a strange bird, a ghostly drowning woman. He worries about the dates, as the film opens on the 15th and Marais will have fittings... - February 1st. "How sad I am not to have had you at the Antigone rep. I did the show thinking of you and dedicating it to you. [...] Now I'm working on our film and starting to rehearse at the C.F." [Renaud et Armide, at the Comédie Française]. Shooting will start in March in Nice, and he hopes that Marais will return soon "after the fittings for Carmen, to work a little with Madeleine, to try things out, etc. [...] I think I'll be able to do it again. [...] I think the film is becoming very beautiful and very implacable. Your role is marvelous. He is waiting for Christian Bérard, who was ill in Marseille. All he can think about is "the joy of working together". (On the back, letter from Paul?)... - Beautiful letter in which Cocteau gives Marais the freedom to live his life as he wishes (this letter was of great importance to the actor, who quotes it in his autobiography). "My Jeannot. I must explain my point of view. I believe in being a hero, always - even in the smallest things. Your happiness must come before mine, since your happiness makes me happy. I'm very good at killing ridiculous revolts and selfish feelings. I swear to you that this attempt to masturbate me is a victory, and that the joy of seeing your face lit up far outweighs any instinctive sadness. So be free and know that you make me happy by being happy. What would sadden me is to feel you pull away out of delicacy. I repeat that it's useless and that I adore your presence in all its forms. Never be embarrassed by any scruples. Show me your heart by playing Renaud as only you can. This collaboration will console me for the rest, and take us a long way from petty shames"... [1944-1945]. Thursday. He rehearses at the Opéra-Comique, and goes to make "a brass head for the Cinémathèque. You see, I'm holding on and not letting myself go to my room. The difficult thing is to get down to writing, to serious work. Even my poor hand is too nervous to form the letters. [But I'll get there. Thierry Maulnier's magazine is going to publish Léone"... He searched everywhere for "chansons parlées, of which he found only one sheet. The rest may be at his mother's "in your dear little mess". The news of his comrade's death deeply shocked him: "This nightmare is atrocious. But we'll wake up one morning and I'll see your dear face other than through the magical forces of the soul"... - The texts are nowhere to be found". Luckily, Hubert took out a notebook from his library: "I'm sending it to you - the prose texts are missing. I'll try to write you a new one"... (On the back, letter from four friends)... - February 19, 1945. He has asked that "a séance of L'Eternel Retour be organized for those on leave from the 2nd D.B. currently in Paris", and will do his utmost to ensure that Marais attends; a friend will intercede with Leclerc. Bérar d "has done wonders for our play. He's back in top form [...] I've been offered a lot of work, but I refuse anything that isn't poetry, theater or film. I don't want to write any more articles. The tone of the press

Estim. 1 000 - 1 500 EUR

Lot 208 - COLETTE (1873 - 1954) 15 L.A.S., 1920-1923 and n.d., to Léopold Marcha nd; approx. 32 pages in-4 on blue paper, most on Castel-Novel letterhead, 11 envelopes (defects to 1st). Beautiful, friendly correspondence to the actor and playwright, a faithful companion. [September 1920], on his nomination as Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur: "My child Léo, how kind you are. Without your initiative, I wouldn't have this ribbon. [...] It's a bit singular, and extremely pleasant"... The children played jokes on him: "I found two red ties at my place setting, the decanter girdled in crimson, my chair at the table bound in crimson, and a hundred little bows on the tails of the grapes. That's very nice. [...] It's September, in all the beauty of the word. This still, heated air, cooled by a single breath, and so many wasps and huffing cats, and so many roses, it's a time of year you'd like to eat, drink and hug. For there is nothing like being a coarse nature!"... 1921 [28.IV]. It's springtime in Corrèze: "Everything's too beautiful, I'm drunk. And then my arm shakes from driving the tractor [...]. Nightingales don't know their cavatina yet, and God knows, the little bastards, if they repeat it! My daughter is a very pleasant sort of progressive peasant. She talks anatomy, circulatory system, pistil and stamen and carbon monoxide. Just like I'm talking to you. She knows the names of the four little bones in the ear, and it's about damn time, because I'd forgotten them"... - "Didn't you see Castel-Novel in springtime, you little wretch! The walls are sparkling with lizards and blond with bees. And the smell of lilacs in the morning... The Pati-Pati has happily turned into a herding dog. What's more, she's discovered that bathing is not a hygienic punishment. She jumps flat into the water, spread-eagled like a frog, and comes out of it laughing up to her ears, only to dive back in afterwards" She finishes adapting Chéri for the theater... - April 30]. She is not afraid of the 3rd round at the Vaudeville: "I have a premonition. The Athénée? Peuh [...] if we can't do it elsewhere". She's counting on a reading effect. "I put a thousand things in Act 3! Moui, my darling child, you sent me lilies of the valley, enough to ward off fate. I missed a beautiful little snake yesterday, the color of powdered slate"... - [September 14]. "I brought here a magnificent flu, which is curing me at present, and for the rest I let myself live, stuffing garlic into every pore". She asks him to bring her "the bookscatalogues because I foresee an inevitable famine and will have to lizard"... -October 1st]. She went for a drive with Sidi [her husband Henri de Jouvenel] in Haute-Corrèze: "It's magnificent! What are we going to see in Switzerland that's so beautiful? I had no idea about this Corrèze! [...] M... for women of letters! - December 28]. "As God is my witness, I wanted to lose weight. But I was wrong to take him as witness. He knows all about it, and plays jokes on me: the rain, thanks to him, doesn't stop. I drink to console myself, I eat to forget, I sleep in defiance, and the rest of the time my daughter recites fables by La Fontaine. Fontaine"... Bertrand [de Jouvenel] writes a play... She awaits the Marchands' arrival: "we'll work, among mulled wine and the screams of a mare with a nervous bladder"... [January 2, 1922]. "Cap d'Ail, hiiii! I can do it, and what a pleasure! We'll talk about it, I'll be back on Wednesday. In a sweat of blood, I've just made a new [...]. Don't tell me about Le Disparu, pleasantly truncated at first, then strangely punctuated with asterisks, and moteux"... 1923. [October 19]. "I see that work fever is devouring your kidneys - come". She begs him to bring some fly killers, as it's "a delicious heatwave. The flies think it's July and give themselves away. He will help her write her lecture, and has to work on the play... - November 1st]. She's sad he's not coming, but understands: "Work comes first, alas. If you think this conference amuses me. Having prepared "La vie à deux" for ten days, I can see that I'll have to abandon it, on pain of shattering or frightening the audience. I assure you, speaking in the provinces is like giving a lecture to Demoiselles. So I'm not ready and I'm cutting back"... On her return "we'll go and eat andouillette and gras-double. [...] we'll have a useful chat, because I'm off again for conferences that will provide me with a material necessity". Bertrand, who is celebrating his twentieth birthday, has the flu... - November 3]. She arrives in Paris before setting off again for 8 days of conferences: " "

Estim. 1 500 - 2 000 EUR

Lot 210 - ELUARD Paul (1895 - 1952) MANUSCRIT autograph signed "Paul Eluard", Paris July 18, 1932; 3 pages in-4 on blue paper. Political manifesto, marking the rallying of part of the Surrealist group to communism and the Soviet revolution. Despite the scourges it engenders, we must not forget that war "has been and must be the all-powerful governor, the vigorous gas pedal of the class struggle and the decisive factor in the Proletarian Revolution, provided that it is transformed from an imperialist war into a civil war". The signatories call for a war against French imperialism, in which the proletariat would draw inspiration from the Russian example of 1917. They are not pacifists: "There is no peace possible in a capitalist regime" where we prepare for war, first and foremost against the U.S.S.R.: "Aggressed or not, the U.S.S.R., the only nation that can speak of peace without hypocrisy, may be led, from one day to the next, to wage war to defend socialist conquests". And they will be at the side of the Red Army. On the eve of the opening of the Congress of All Parties Against the War, they spoke out against Henri Barbusse and Romain Rolland, who condemned the war, and against the socialists "Vandervelde, Adler, Renaudel, Breitscheid and others who so shamefully betrayed the proletariat in 1914, and who have been bent on saving capitalism ever since, breaking the class struggle and revolutions. No sacred union of the revolutionary proletariat with the treacherous leaders of the Socialist International and the Amsterdam Trade Union Federation [...]. [...]. A united front can only be achieved once "all these impostors" have been unmasked. They want to make their ideas heard in Geneva, but the Communist parties are not sufficiently organized. That's why they appeal to the "Internationale des Écrivains Révolutionnaires" (International of Revolutionary Writers) to be represented at this congress by its French section, where we find it hard to understand why we can't appear on the same level as "the seven surrealists (?) who," says our comrade Vaillant-Couturier, "are already welcomed in the literary section" and, even more so, as "the idealist attracted by the powerful influence of Marxism (!!) who appears in the philosophical section". Long live the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against imperialist war! Long live the alliance of the victorious Russian Revolution and the French workers against Western imperialism!" Following are the names of the signatories: alongside Eluard himself, André Breton, Roger Caillois, René Char, René Crevel, Jules-Michel Monnerot, Benjamin Péret, Guy Rosey, Yves Tanguy, André Thirion, Pierre Yoyotte and others.

Estim. 500 - 700 EUR
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