COLETTE is suspected of adultery by her husband Jouvenel.

Sidonie Gabrielle Colette , known as COLETTE (1873.1954)

Autograph letter signed to Philippe Berthelot.

Three quarto pages on bluish paper.

January 29, 1920.

"Prevent a bloody encounter between these two men!"

Suspected of adultery, Colette faces the despair of her husband, Henry de Jouvenel.

__________________________

"My dear friend, I come to ask your old friendship to intervene in a very painful matter. Here it is: this morning I was brought, addressed to me in my name, on Senate paper, a letter from Jonnart [Senator Célestin Jonnart], who, – in affectionate terms, and all imbued with that charm which in literature is everywhere called "the Jonnart charm", – regretted not having been able to join me for an intimate luncheon.

My husband read this letter… Ah! My poor friend, what a scene! Naturally, I cried out my innocence, and with accents that only can spring from the heart of an innocent woman! In vain: doubt has crept into Sidi's mind. A dreadful suspicion ruins my present, poisons my past. "Jonnart, Jonnart…" murmurs the wretch, who is now but a shadow of his former self.

Did I not catch him—see how far his madness and my misfortune go!—did I not catch him, in the livid dawn ( Eleven o'clock in the morning, but lyricism above all), bent over two portraits: that of Jonnart and that of his daughter! He was searching—ah, the madman!—between these two faces of such different beauty, for some fatal resemblance…

This is where I stand, my dear friend. You who have known me for two years, you who know the painful grief into which Clemenceau's death has plunged me, try to convince Sidi! Prevent a bloody encounter between these two men! I appeal to your compassion and embrace you, bathed in tears. Colette, alas, de Jouvenel.