Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE, imprisoned, is worried about Lucette's situation.

Louis-Ferdinand CÉLINE (1894.1961)

Autograph letter signed to his lawyer Thorvald Mikkelsen and his wife Lucette.

Two pages in-4° on pink paper from Københavns Faengsler prison.

Copenhagen. Friday August 17, 1946.

Unpublished letter to the Pléiade correspondence.

“I am only worried about my poor Lucette and then my cat and finally my freedom. »

Interesting testimony of the prison situation of Céline overwhelmed with despair by the difficult situation experienced by her wife Lucette due to her own imprisonment.

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“My dear Master, I am now adapted to my new premises, certainly one of the best possible cells. The doctor and nurse take care of me. I feel everywhere the happy influence, the Mikkelsen providence! I am only worried about my poor Lucette and then my cat and finally my freedom. It's a lot of course, it's enormous, the prisoner only knows how to moan. Bad weather. And you don't have a minute! Well aff. Buttons].

My darling little mimi, Your poor message, so tragic and painful, fills me with sadness. How could I have been so brutal, so stupid, so unfair. You who, on the contrary, resisted so admirably, use such pitiful means to defend myself with everyone. You all alone poor cutie in this foreign city – without language […]. I overwhelm Karen [Karen Marie Jensen] she told me on the contrary that she did not want you to lack anything and besides that it was not her money but ours, that of our household. She didn't make the slightest derogatory remark, on the contrary, but I immediately concocted a monstrosity and I committed the idiocy of overwhelming you with reproaches. How stupid and crazy I am. However, I believe cohabitation with Karen is impossible. […]

Under no circumstances should you descend to the rank of Cinderella, kitchen maid, humiliated, splashed, relegated child! Never. […] She wouldn't do anything like that. I think – but we must not tempt the devil. You have your independence, she says it clearly herself. Of course I will pay her the rent and the furniture damaged by Bébert [Céline's cat] and that I will still be very grateful to her, but at no cost should we allow ourselves to be reduced to the category of scapegoat. Never. I would suffer to know you like this ten times more than just prison . You just have to calculate the money for 5 or 6 years - 7 years - and then that's it - to spend - without spending madly of course but nicely and well dressed, sleep well, eat well with Bébert. There is something . So only in this feeling of knowing you are at ease can I hold – but in no way a princess’s Cinderella, a distraught, mangy, humiliated little animal – Never . A hundred thousand times rather come back and right away and I assure you with joy .

I am suspicious of your efforts to earn a living. I'm afraid of police complications. […] If you teach more right away, jealousy will inevitably revive you. You would need proper authorization and the police! You won't get it! So go slowly and very carefully […] Don’t buy me too much food . I am filled with food . Getting fat is bad for me too! I am the best I can be, if I feel you are getting better, get fatter in turn, sleep and work on your dancing. It's good that Karen goes to see Foreign Affairs when she gets home. Maybe I'll end up knowing why I'm not being released ? It becomes almost laughable funny. The Paris policeman still hasn't arrived! you think !

I would like to know what Léon BLOY came to do in Denmark? Probably on the run. He spent his life on the run. He was a furious polemicist Catholic writer, not very scrupulous but full of talent – ​​epileptic. He deceived everyone. He wanted to blackmail the Rothschilds. [Céline was then reading, in the cell, a work on Léon Bloy]

No more than one Revue des 2 mondes – I am overloaded with books. I'll see you soon. […] Spend what it takes but authorized by the police – abstain – but do not sacrifice your hands in the service of princesses. They are the ones who should serve you. You find it too easy to submit to everything – no – even in these atrocious times and at the cost of the most precious friendship. Never give up – never – I prefer, a thousand times over, to return to Fresnes straight away than to know you are disdained, pushed aside, […] ”

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Céline took refuge in Denmark after the Liberation. He found accommodation in the apartment of a friend, the dancer Karen Marie Jensen who was then living in Madrid. The French ambassador, learning in October 1945 of Céline's presence in Denmark, inquired with the Minister of Foreign Affairs what should be done. Georges Bidault replied that an arrest warrant had been issued against Céline in April 1945 and that it was necessary to obtain her extradition. On December 17, 1945, the couple was arrested, Lucette being released a few days later. For her defense, Céline turned to Thorwald Mikkelsen in Denmark, a French-speaking and Francophile lawyer met through Danish friends, and in France to Albert Naud, a former resistance lawyer approached through his friend Antonio Zuloaga, attaché Press release at the Spanish Embassy. The Danish government, considering the complaints against Céline insufficient, refused his extradition but kept him in prison until the beginning of March 1947, when he was transferred to a hospital in Copenhagen.