CELINE Autographed letter signed to Daragnès 1949

  
Louis-Ferdinand CELINE - Signed autograph letter [to Daragnès]. [Klarskovgaard near Korsör, Denmark, January 7, 1949]. Beautiful and important letter: My old friend, here is chapter 2 (semi-draft) of Féérie (.) I need to cover about 80,000 of them for a 600-page novel. Ah, if only I could spend my life washing dishes, how I would prefer it!

) I read the press reviews about me, truly dreadful. They are dreadful in the sense that they demonstrate that France no longer exists. That the puppets have come. The collaborating press didn't even mention it.

I only had a scathing critique from De Lesdain, a seasoned Gestapo agent, in a weekly magazine where he violently reproached me for focusing on collaborators of the past instead of choosing subjects for novels from terrorist atrocities and the horrors of the resistance. Céline, after 18 months in Danish prisons, sought refuge on the shores of the Baltic Sea, at his lawyer Thorvald Mikkelsen's. Guignol's 2, resumes Féerie and what will become Foudres et flèches, in a pavilion owned by Thorvald Mikkelsen. Céline maintained a very abundant correspondence and some close friends visited him: Pierre Monnier, Daragnès, Henri Mahé... Jacques de Lesdain is mainly known for his activities during the Occupation, notably at L'Illustration, where his title of "Political Editor" appeared on the cover of the weekly magazine between October 1940 and August 1944.

His long articles during these four years praised the "benefits" of collaboration in a "new Europe". Shortly before the Liberation, he left Paris for a hotel in Sigmaringen and, according to André Brissaud, "lamented the fate of his fourteen trunks" lost during the escape. He stayed in the city dominated by the Hohenzollern castle until April 23, 1945. Eight months during which he continued his collaboration activities, despite the increased hatred since the defeat. Another prominent exile, Louis-Ferdinand Céline - appointed physician of the French community in Rhineland - still speaks of Jacques de Lesdain in a letter to Charles Deshayes dated August 24, 1948: "he arrived in Baden-Baden with 400 kilos of luggage.

He occupied an apartment at the Hotel Bären in Sigmaringen, furious that he couldn't reside in the castle. His German wife was engaged in a very active black market trade". Céline also mentions "an absolutely vile character, an infinite scoundrel, an old saintly Prussian official. I have never seen or come across such a fervent pro-Nazi propagandist".

Céline's acrimony towards the journalist can be partly explained by the lasting resentment Céline harbors against Jacques de Lesdain, since the publication of Guignol's Band in 1944, which he explains here to Daragnès: "I only had a scathing critique from De Lesdain, a seasoned Gestapo agent, in a weekly magazine he edited... Where he violently reproached me for focusing on 'nonsense from the past' instead of choosing my novel subjects from 'the terrorist atrocities of the horrors of the resistance'. In his critique, published in Aspects on June 2, 1944, Jacques de Lesdain wrote about Céline: "It is fortunate that he is inimitable", lamenting "hundreds of pages filled with coarse descriptions, endlessly repeated without any demands in line with the anxieties we are experiencing". Guignol's Band was therefore just a "kaleidoscope of painful, often obscene images", populated by a "world of rogues, lamentable extras, and human refuse".

During the Occupation, Daragnès was wary of the "Gen Paul gang", but Céline cared for his mother "until the last minute" (March 1941) and Daragnès will never forget his dedication. It was Daragnès who put Céline in touch with Paul Marteau and Jean Dubuffet, two supporters of the writer during his trial. Additional photos and descriptions available upon request.

_gsrx_vers_625 GS 6.9.7 (625). _gsrx_vers_1608 GS 9.5 (1608).