Lucien Rebatet - Long and tragic prison letter to his wife. 1949.

Lucien Rebatet (1903.1972)

Autograph letter signed to his wife Véronique.

Six pages in-4 ° on administrative paper from Clairvaux prison.

With the nut number (1724) and workshop (Tnos III).

Central house in Clairvaux. 1 ^, 1949.

“I have the right to estimate that I pay for my taste for truth. »»

Ajected by the despair of imprisonment and lost hours, the author of the rubble writes a long and dense letter, with pathetic accents, to his wife.

Regretting Louis-Ferdinand Céline's "abandonment" of him, Rebatet obtusely defends his past anti-Semitic actions in the name of what he considers honor and truth. Without hope or future, dead to society and literature, the author-prisoner sinks inexorably into the depths of a meaningless life whose days are only saved, sometimes, by reading Dostoyevsky's masterpieces.

Initially sentenced to death and then pardoned, in 1947, by Vincent Auriol and sentenced to forced labor for life, Rebatet was locked up in Clairvaux prison until July 1952.

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"My dear little Véronique, since I unfortunately did not see you today, so I send you these lines the" Multi Ani ". It is above all for tradition! But really, I wish with all my heart that you continue this year to be healthy, and that you can have a little more money in front of you (it should not be impossible).

For other wishes, alas! I am too directly involved. Between condemned to perpetual, we do not wish ourselves. And you, you are also a little condemned to perpetual, for widowhood, troubles, unnecessary phone calls, the visiting rooms behind the grid, all the jokes that have been the ordinary of your life for more than three and a half years.

I had last night only your letter on Monday, your answer to my letters last Sunday has not yet happened to me, there is a huge delay in the mail. You tell me so kindly the traditional lyrics. But in truth, I no longer expect anything for a new year. There is no way, the last scraps of hope have disappeared. We cannot live indefinitely on expectations that always remain as vague, inconsistent. You have to miss it in resignation ; It is hardly in my nature, you do not ignore it, it is the slope of the stupidity , but there is nothing else to do.

Hardly need to tell you that, without your visit, this day of January 1 ^was most dismal, so empty, so idle, in the rain or in the boucan and the smoke. You asked me to make me a reason, not seeing you today. I am well obliged. But it is the disappointments that are added to each other. There is only that, boredom, time forever lost which flows with inexipidity . This, little by little, leads you, gets you, crushes you. And it is fatal that it is so. The moral help that I receive are too rare. I don't blame you, you do everything you can, but you are too little sustained.

Without anything administratively changed, my situation, even in Clairvaux, could be less distressing, if I had a family and friends who take care of some of the packages, which would allow you to come and see me for example twice a month, if I was expressed from time to time magazines, books that would attach me a little to what was my life, to devote some of this stroke.

remarkably demonstrated to me that, practically, no one cares about me, that my debt of gratitude will be very light! You have incriminated the quality of my friendships. I am willing to accept that this is largely true. You have above all reproached me, in short, for not having sufficiently cultivated the "successful" people. But this is to put on trial my character, my "morals" and my politics. I take the case of R [ené] Clair for example. He showed me esteem, kindness, because I spoke properly about what he was doing, because I supported him quite usefully. But there was too fundamental an antinomy in our natures, in our conceptions, for me to be able to truly hope for his friendship.  Quite frankly, what would you have thought of me, if I had been like that one, in 1940, from the small clan who fled his unhappy country, with ladies born into families of rabbis or diamond dealers?

To be really with some people, you had to build your life on cynicism, a greed that we can envy, admire even, which are perhaps the only recipes for happiness, but which we are neither you, nor I can. Since I reached the age of man, I have always sacrificed money, places, comfort, flattering relations to the ambition to leave a few truthful , and which can therefore be reread in sixty years. It seems to me, moreover, that is why you attached yourself to me (because it is neither my charms nor my approvals that I could invoke, right?)

I gladly give you that I was more naive than it is allowed, I will explain it one day publicly if I do not break here. But  I have the right to also estimate that I pay for my taste for truth , a really exorbitant price, since it is not even my freedom, my pleasures, but my health, my talent which every day becomes more cruelly compromised. This is what everyone has forgotten. I had also planned it, I wrote it to you, I am not surprised. But I cannot hide from you that this indifference contributes a lot to darken my life, to break the forces that I remained .

You no doubt experience some satisfaction to see that you had thought just about the doctor [Louis Ferdinand Céline], since he finally dropped me. I certainly do not make a drama of this drop, I take my side quite philosophically (my shoulders so loaded and I got into the habit!). You must however understand that it is for me still a little sadness, that if the doctor had remained faithful, it would be in my life so zero and so gray a small positive element.

For more than two years, the doctor's letters had been for me a significant exciting intellectual (it is not my fault if I am an intellectual). The doctor got tired. It is clear, for everyone I am scratched by papers, finished, at the bottom of my hole and it becomes more and more exact.

You will agree that it is a very depressing feeling, and one that does not compensate for the small satisfaction of saying to oneself sometimes: "I'm screwing them over." I don't understand what you want to tell me, by writing to me last Monday "in six months at the most." I imagine that it is a little word of comfort that you wanted to slip me for the New Year, like a sweet treat in a package. But in all sincerity, my darling, it is useless. Because it can no longer "take" (Put yourself in my place!). If it "took," it would be very regrettable because my imagination would risk getting going, to ultimately make a new leap, a little lower into the hole.

I want to hope that your current steps will not be in vain, that you will achieve some small results. But so small according to the most favorable forecasts! What do you want! I note that the written testimonies, legal, diplomatic, financial evidence, etc. of the injustice of which we are the victims, me and a number of others .

But what does this vigorous concert translate into, practically? Zero. I am still waiting for the eminent jurist, the lecturer, the lawyer who knows so well how to demonstrate that I served and followed a legal government, that the judgment that struck me is null and void in true law, but who will also come and tell you: "Madam, your husband is one of these victims. What can I do to alleviate his fate?" Historically speaking, my situation is becoming improbable ; legally too (after so many verdicts that you know as well as I do, so many releases, etc. etc.). But it is an improbability that lasts. And meanwhile, I am leaving little by little, with what remains of my future ...

My darling kitten, what you wrote to me on your situation on Monday to you hugs me. That you can no longer even acquire the essential for you, that you are increasingly reduced to this existence of poor. And to say that if I was outside, in 15 days, I could change it at all! I am very tormented about you. Where will it lead you? Seriously, what are you shy? I am afraid that you will not live on illusions […] You will not be able to last for a long time. There must still be remedies. As I would like after having obtained a positive or negative result in your current procedures, you can finally, for a few months, take care of yourself, only .

I devote a few lines to a less sad subject. I saw on an illustrated that there is at the moment, at the Petit Palais I believe, an exhibition of the most beautiful paintings of the Pinacotèque de Munich as those of Vienna last year. I am urging you to inform you immediately on the duration of this exhibition, which has been open for some time now, and to devote two or three hours to it as quickly as possible. The Pinacotèque was one of the most beautiful museums in the world. I saw it for a long time in winter 37, while you were at the Mont-Blanc hotel. You may never have the opportunity to review these paintings. I want you to have the memory like me, that we can talk about it together for some day. I especially recommend the Rubens, the most beautiful existing collection, the battle of the Amazons, the kidnapping of the sons of Leucippe , the judgment of the innocents […]

After having detailed by the menu the treasures of the Pinacotèque exhibited in Paris, the Rembrandt, Dürer and Cranach " with a very boche taste, but so filled with fantasy ", but also tintoretous, tiepolo, goya, Greco, Botticelli, the Flemish primitives, etc. " My pictorial memory is still quite good ", Rebatet ends the first part of this letter initiated on ¹ :

" I will write to you tomorrow morning [...] Good evening, my dear kitten, I kiss you. See you tomorrow. Lucien. »»

My dear little Véronique, I continue my letter last night. I will scrupulously take a remedy for the tension, if you send me a chaucharol prescription. But tell yourself that it is almost useless to take care of my health as long as my living conditions cannot be changed, and that I cannot have the teeth repaired. The unfortunate fading that I was put last year is chatting on the camp. I have a dull teeth two days a week. Nothing is more depressing. You sometimes surprise that I never tell you anything about my daily life. This is that it is unspeakable in current circumstances anyway. All I can tell you is that in fat, from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m., it is impossible for me to do anything. Very often, I end up tampling myself in my corner , drowsiness is worth it, because it is still the best solution. What is annoying is that in these cases I can no longer sleep at night.

You must be tired of hearing my whining, and I'm tired of complaining myself. But I have so little to talk about! I'm finally thinking it would be more dignified to keep my mouth shut , even with you. As I've already said, the only pleasure in my life lately has been reading Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment , and Karamazov . I've noticed how much a great read, I mean a great book, can help me detach myself from my sad "environment," help me overcome it. But this increases my resentment against the indifferent who could lighten my lot by half if they would only supply me with a little intellectual nourishment.

I would have liked this winter this winter to at least push the search for Dostoyevski, which I have not done for over twenty years, and for which I have been in remarkable receptivity arrangements. There would be no way to obtain from a generous donor the idiot and the possessed , in the edition of the NRF , the only complete and good, as well as the French biography of Dostoyevski […] 

I left a few lines on this page, hoping to have your reply to my Sunday letters, but the mail has just been delivered and there is nothing for me . I would have been really spoiled for the "holidays". I know it's not your fault, there is a traffic jam of letters. I'm glad you wrote me a little note on Monday, without waiting for my letters, otherwise I would have spent the whole week without any news? I am certainly among those who receive the least mail. I beg you, do not fail to always send me two little notes a week[…]

Task of coming to see me one of these Sundays. It's not until I can't wait to have details on your efforts, but I would like to see you. Try to heat yourself, take care of yourself, do not make reckless. We become more and more unhappy both. How far will it go?[…]

Quickly respond to these letters, that we can restore normal correspondence. Do not fail to go to the exhibition of the Pinacotèque. I love you with all my heart, my dear kitten, but our shoulders both are really too busy. I don't live anymore, I hang out. I kiss you for a long time, but sadly. Lucien . »»

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In 1942, Lucien Rebatet published the rubble, pamphleteary pinnacle of anti -Semitic abjection. Critique, writer, journalist, his lines transpire, during Vichy hours, a furious hatred of the Jews accusing them of the national debacle of 1940.

While Nazi Germany collapses, Rebatet flees in Germany and joins Sigmaringen with other collaborators and exiles, notably Louis-Ferdinand Céline. He was arrested in Austria on May 8, 1945, the very day of the armistice, and tried on November 18, 1946. Rebatet was sentenced to death.

Thanks to a petition of writers including in particular the names of Camus, Mauriac, Paulhan, Bernanos, Aymé and Anouilh, Rebatet was pardoned on April 12, 1947 by President Vincent Auriol. His death sentence is commissioned as a forced labor sentence.

He completed in prison a novel started in Sigmaringen, the two standards , published by Gallimard in 1952 thanks to the support of Jean Paulhan. This work remains considered as a masterpiece by many readers and criticisms. François Mitterrand would have said on this subject: "There are two kinds of men: those who read the two standards , and the others. »»