Louis PARROT
Tapuscrit avec ajouts manuscrits autographes de L'intelligence en guerre
1945, 22,3x27,9cm, (24) f., 340 feuillets.
Typescript of L'Intelligence en guerre
with handwritten manuscript additions1945 | 22.3 x 27.9 cm | (24) f. | 24 handwritten sheets hold with a pin & 340 leaves of typescript
«We can say without contradiction that this concern for the truth, this love for justice, have never been manifested so brightly as during these dark days where the French had lost the use of speech.»
340 page typescript of the work L'Intelligence en guerre by the resistant writer-journalist Louis Parrot, accompanied by handwritten notes concerning the title, half-title, preface and first bibliography pages (4 pages in total) and the index of names quoted at the end of the volume (6 pages in total). Several folds and rust marks from the metal fasteners.he typescript includes handwrittencorrections and changes, in particular 25 fully handwritten pages, and additions in the margin on several tens of pages, featuring fully in the version published in 1945 by La Jeune Parque publishers.With
L'Intelligence en guerre, writer and literary critic Louis Parrot, a leading figure of the underground press during the Second World War, friend of Eluard, Picasso, and Aragon, identifies a panorama of French resistant thought that does justice to the forgotten Maquis as well as the most emblematic writers of the underground press.
he publication, at the end of the war, of this anthology of fighting poets, where the literary chronicle meets the history book, is also a political act committed to the selection of «heroes» of the intellectual resistance and an implicit condemnation of the supporters of the 'wait and see' policy.By sending this typescript to a journalist friend, also part of the resistance, Parrot entrusts this brother in arms with the sum of a work whose visible changes and additions show the political choices of its author, as well as his aesthetic inclinations. This typescript is a unique document whose in-depth study will serve as the basis for the his
oriography of literary resistance.
he recipient of the typescript, Auguste Anglès, is one of the main players in the Lyonnaise resistance press, creator of the underground newspaper
Confluences. Parrot therefore addresses a version of his work, which highlights the difficulty as well as the need for completeness of his task, to this enlightened judge, who is very familiar with the intellectual networks, as shown by the handwritten note on the board chemise:
«My dear Angles, Here is a copy, unfortunately not with even the major changes and corrections; they have increased the book by more than 100 typed pages. There were a lot of mistakes that were fixed. So forgive me for giving you a copy on which nothing has been corrected. I hope that it will, however, help you. Best wishes, Parrot»
he handwritten note addressed to Auguste Anglès shows that it is a working document («a copy on which nothing has been corrected»), prior to the corrected proofs sent to the publisher. The typescript presents two stages of the text, increased by several marginal or full-page corrections, which, as Parrot indicates «have increased the book by more than 100 typed pages,» feature systematically in the text published in 1945.
We note some important turnarounds, in particular the replacement of Georges Duhamel by François Mauriac as the figurehead of the resistance within the Académie Française. Other bundles of typed pages are added to this, enigmatically entitled «petit blanc» «little white,» which were incorporated later - the passages on the writers Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Giraudoux (added to the chapter on the
Lettres françaises in the final version). These late additions mark the controversial inauguration at the Pantheon of the literary resistance of writers such as Saint-Exupéry (renounced by General de Gaulle) or Sartre, whose attitude during the Occupation was the subject of much controversy and who is indebted to Camus for his participation
in-extremis in the resistant press.
Louis Parrot paints those who have given their «soul» to the French resistance admirably: writers, filmmakers, musicians and actors, ambassadors of beauty and of freedom, spread across France and abroad. Written in 1945 at the time when the last acts of war were occurring,
L'Intelligence en guerre is proof of an extraordinary objectiveness, despite Parrot's active participation in the literary resistance: this unremitting working document indeed largely masks the author's own contribution to the birth of the well-known éditions de Minuit and
Lettres françaises. In 1944, Parrot ensured in the midst of the Parisian rebellion the republication of the newspaper
Ce Soir, the first copy of which he wrote entirely.
Well beyond a historical chronical, the typescript offers a selection of the most beautiful passages of resistant literature. Parrot devotes the majority of this work to poetry of the Maquis, poetry written from prison and in exile. We find the essentials such as
Le Musée Grévin by Aragon,
Le Chant des partisans, as well as poems published under his watch, such as the well-known «Courage» by éluard, given to
Lettres françaises in 1941 and cited in this typescript:
«Paris a froid Paris a faim
Paris ne mange plus de marrons dans [la rue
mis de vieux vêtements de vieille [...]»
René Char and Georges Hugnet's works feature prominently, in particular his poem
Le non-vouloir illustrated by Picasso, which according to him was the «the first resistant text that was not clandestine.» Parrot has the German poet Heinrich Heine published at Editions de Minuit, by whom the Nazis only kept the «Lorelei», and circulates the famous ode «O Star of France» by Walt Whitman, cited in this typescript:
«O Star of France
he brightness of thy hope and [strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet [so long,
Beseems today a wreck driven by the [gale, a mastless hulk;
And 'mid it's teeming, madden'd, half [drown'd crowds,
Nor helm, nor helmsman»
In addition to poetry, a large part is given to audacious political texts, which galvanised the country during its darkest hours: the
Cahier Noir by François Mauriac, which earned its author the admiration of his colleagues, is cited many times as the a founding example of resistant discourse.
It is also a work in the format of a funeral eulogy, a panegyric for the Gestapo's victims among the academics, students, lawyers, poets and writers. His thick chapter «Premiers de la classe» focuses on the chronicle's most painful memories of deportation, dedicating long pages to Benjamin Crémieux, Robert Desnos and especially Max Jacob, «one of these exceptional beings for whom poetry is the only reason for living and who sacrificed everything for poetry.» The writer does not forget the rising literary stars, such as René Char and Joël Serge, nor the martyrs of the clandestine press Jacques Decour, Gabriel Péri, as well as the students sacrificed for «roneotyped bulletins through which the voice of the University that remained free in the midst of oppression expressed itself.» In addition, his chronicle closely follows the intellectual divide that took place in the French literary field from the first months of occupation, ending with the purification organised at the end of the war by the Conseil National des écrivains, of which he was a member and ardent defender.
L'Intelligence en guerre also invites the reader into the secret of the greatest minds of resistant literature, which the author published from the free zone. Parrot recounts the life of the networks of involvement in Lyon, in Provence, in Languedoc and in the Massif Central, at times called «writers' colonies» or «spiritual islets» and which, in 1945, were only just revealed in the American and French press; thus we enter the intimacy of Paul éluard's circle, whom he met during the final moments of the Spanish Civil War. With him Parrot launched and led the three issues of
L'Éternelle Revue in June 1944 and published a monograph the same year on his work in the well-known collection «Poètes d'aujourd'hui» by Pierre Seghers. In the last chapters of the typescript he leaves a great deal of space for the officers liaising between the two zones (notably the poet Francis Ponge), for the exiled artists and sympathisers («La France africaine», «La France lointaine», «La voix de l'Europe»), as well as for the faithful who remained in Paris, such as Pablo Picasso who «through his mere presence amongst us, [...] gave hope to those who ended up doubting our
chances for salvation.»
We note the choice of vocabulary and the formulation which introduces his painter friend to the resistant fraternity without having to assign him a «feat of arms.»
With this major work Louis Parrot is indeed a true «white list» of artists during the war.
L'Intelligence en guerre thus responds to the terrible «black list» that Parrot helped to establish, several months earlier, within the Comité National des écrivains and who condemned another form of intelligence, shameful this one, intelligence with the enemy.
In a France torn apart by the betrayal of its elites, this chronicle of «contraband literature,» is in reality Louis Parrot's last fight before his premature death in 1948, for the restoration of national pride through the recognition of many artists' incredible and perilous resistance, at the root of literary achievements: «beneath each ostensibly published book, another work is circulated, more violent and sometimes more beautiful.»
And beneath the book published by Parrot that resembles a poetic anthology, this typescript acts as a more complex version and sometimes more revealing of the political stakes of French literary resistance.
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