Paul ÉLUARD describes his poetry and the Resistance in times of war. 1945.

Paul ÉLUARD (1895.1952)

Autograph manuscript.

A folio page, first draft, on squared paper.

Slnd [late 1944 or early 1945]

Moving lines from the poet testifying to his commitment to the National Resistance during the Second World War. Éluard returns to the context of writing three of his most moving poems.

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Notice.

Written at the request of Jean Paulhan and intended for an underground newspaper which could not appear. But on the walls of Paris, notices were displayed which frightened and shamed everyone.

Courage.

The winter of 1940-1941 was very hard. We remained, because of the cold, a month without opening our shutters. In the queues in the metro, women and young people fainted. That we saw poor people and beautiful eyes, so sad. Courage published in No. 5 of Lettres françaises, in the honor of poets, volume and tract, in the Swiss review Traits and in Les Femmes françaises.

The beautiful scales of the enemy. Nazi song.

The first two in small numbers in the Honor of the Poets which unfortunately took me too long to compose and which only came out on July 14, 1943, the day, said to have been finished printing, of oppressed freedom. Today, sixteen months later, we are not yet allowed to say who is Gallois, who is Andier, who is Madame Camille Mennel, nor, in Europe , who are Villeserte, Isaac Laquedem, Valentin Guillois, great and pure comrades . They will return to us great and pure . The war continues and justice is not done. Our comrades, however, will be avenged and avenged all the better the longer we have been detained ...

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The poems Avis , Courage and The beautiful scales of the enemy. were written by Éluard in 1943, during the occupation. These poems, odes to the Resistance and national perseverance, illustrate the suffering caused by the German occupation.