François Mauriac / Signed autograph letter / Sartre / Theater / Critique / 1937

  

Autograph letter signed “François Mauriac” to Thierry Maulnier S. [Paris, probably late 1938], 2 pp.

Letterhead at his address, 38 avenue Théophile Gautier, Paris. Watermark: “Crown Liner” with a crown. Two words blacked out and two others underlined by Mauriac. Central fold inherent to the period folding.

Mauriac reacts emotionally to Maulnier’s review of his first play, then takes the opportunity to criticize Sartre in passing.

Nothing could have moved me, reassured me, or consoled me as much as your article in Combat did. Between us, I was very worried, very troubled by the half-praises of [Jacques] Lemarchand, “under orders,” or by the strokes of “polish” that [Jean-Jacques] Gautier dreamed of landing on my nose, while praising me in a false voice, yes! Very troubled by the laborious duties of [Francis] Ambrière and by his foolishness. But here you are, stating without any incense burners why you judge this play to be good [.] but this friendship based on literary esteem, shared work, secret thoughts, memories we never mention, is very precious to me, and I am telling you this this morning, to you whom I consider the best “mind” of your generation—the only one on our side who can stand up to Sartre. I have faults, but I am not ungrateful, and if I am capable of resentment to a degree that surprises even me!—I have a courtly nervousness that my true friends know well. There you have it, a confession, dear Thierry! But it is because I cannot embrace you!

François Mauriac

Then, in the margin, vertically: Present my respectful homage (and affectionate ones) to your wife.

Distrust between Sartre and Mauriac. Having become a leading literary critic at the NRF with his short-story collection Le Mur, published in the spring of 1938, Sartre henceforth asserted his literary and intellectual stance. The concrete result of Sartre’s recruitment would also be Mauriac’s review, published in the journal in February 1939.

This letter is likely to date from late 1938. Mauriac’s play was still being performed at the Comédie-Française, which celebrated its 100th performance on 17 December. Moreover, Sartre was publicly in an oppositional position to Mauriac following the interview he gave Claudine Chonez in Marianne on 23 November 1938. A five-act play first staged in November 1937 at the Comédie-Française, Asmodée is linked to Mauriac’s discovery of Mozart’s Don Giovanni conducted by Bruno Walter at the Salzburg Festival in August 1934. Later, conversations with Édouard Bourdet, administrator of the Comédie-Française, led the novelist to begin writing for the stage. Mauriac would write three other plays, the last of which, Le Feu sur la terre, was first performed in 1950.