MONTHERLANT – “The September Equinox” – 200 handwritten pages.

Henry de MONTHERLANT (1895.1972)

Collection of manuscripts and corrected typescripts.

Nearly 200 handwritten pages.

A fascinating dive into Montherlant's creative work.

"It's not about having hope."

It's about seeing evils, feeling ashamed of them, and then healing from them.

Don't attack those who want to shame you. We need shame. »

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I- The September Equinox .

Autograph manuscript. 42 pages in-4°. 1938.

A remarkable working manuscript of "L'Équinoxe de septembre" (September 1930), the main chapter of the collection of the same name published in January 1939. The manuscript is heavily laden with erasures and corrections, additions in the form of scribbles and collages. Some pages contain writing on the verso of drafts or typescripts, fragments of letters, leaflets, and circulars.

These are fascinating reflections by Montherlant on this period of conflict and the approach of war, written in Paris in diary form from September 12 to October 2, 1938, at the time of the Munich Agreement. The diary opens as the rumblings of war become increasingly menacing, and the French are now forced to confront reality: “ By force of circumstance, the French attitude toward war has become, despite everything, less senseless than it was ten years ago. To believe that war will break out, even if one doesn't want to prepare for it, is a less senseless attitude than to believe that it will never break out, because one doesn't want to prepare for it. Whether one likes it or not, the newspapers talk of nothing else. ”

While reservists were being called up, newspapers were headlining about Greta Garbo, with the mobilization taking a backseat to this "movie starlet"; in a fit of rage, Montherlant added this note: " Greta Garbo needs carrot juice." Well then! Let's give her the carrot, and the juice, and everything, and let it calm her down, and let her leave us in peace .

He buys himself a mask, wants " to be killed by the Germans, not by the French and their negligence, " and mentions Chamberlain's visit to Berchtesgaden. "The London Agreement, which sacrifices Czechoslovakia …"

What followed were writings on the departure of the first mobilized men, on a radio speech by Adolf Hitler, on the Munich Agreement, etc. Montherlant concluded: “ Rave your hearts out, you poor helots, manipulated and duped, weakened, slapped around, and welcoming your defeat and humiliation with the transports of joy of a slave. Trample your gas masks, you fools, for tonight, as last night, there will be steak on the table, and then bedtime, darling. But you'll tell me all about it tomorrow. Whether you like it or not, you cowardly fools, a day will come when the smell of your snot will be smothered in the smell of your blood! ”

II- The Samurai Umbrella.

Conference. Autograph manuscript. 7 pages in-4°. 1938.

This text, published in "Candide" on January 27, 1938, under the title "The Conversation Under the Umbrella," was delivered in its present form (with the exception of two displaced paragraphs) on January 11, 1938, to the "Rive Gauche" group as a preface to a lecture by the German publicist Otto Abetz on German Youth and Happiness: " This meeting is held under a solar sign. You are well aware that the swastika is derived from the four-spoked wheel and the disc that formerly represented the sun. "

III- France and the morality of a young girl.

Autograph manuscript, signed with his initials. November 1938.

14 pages large quarto written on the back of various sheets, some of which are typescripts of the Young Girls.

IV- The September Equinox . 1938.

Typescript, partly handwritten, largely revised and completed by the author in preparation for publication.

115 pages in-4°.

A very interesting preparatory copy of the work published by Gallimard in January 1939, largely in the form of a corrected typescript, with insertions of autograph manuscripts and printed excerpts. The first text (March 7, 1936) is missing; the manuscript, which begins on page 14, includes the five other texts, all from 1938.

Montherlant evokes the climate of 1938, Franco-German relations, the proximity of a probable war and what it might bring, the reasons for its "belligerence" as those who ruin peace call it, the superfluous cowardice of the Munich Agreement, and France's silly, naive morality: "It's not about having hope. It's about seeing evils, being ashamed of them, and then healing ourselves. Don't attack those who want to make you feel this shame. We need shame. "

Note: Among this collection, in addition to some typewritten pages of Montherlant's novel "Les Jeunes filles", there is a letter from Louis Aragon to Montherlant (dated 1938), letters from Costa to Thérèse Pantevin and a letter from the latter.