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Anatole FRANCE

Manuscrit autographe signé abondamment corrigé : "Travaillez, travaillons de concert à la paix du monde" 

Londres 12 décembre 1913, 20x25,5cm, en feuillets.

Complete autograph manuscript in French by Anatole France, 7 pages in black ink on 7 leaves and a signed autograph note on a bifolium.

Complete and extensively corrected speech by Anatole France, on the occasion of a banquet given in his honor in London. The future Nobel Prize winner for Literature delivers a passionate appeal for peace between nations and an ode to England - its philosophy, literature and politics - less than a year before WW1.

The writer offered this manuscript with a signed note: “Keep, dear colleague and friend, keep these leaves of paper if they are of any value to you. Anatole France London, December 12, 1913”.
Anatole France's English biographer witnessed this speech which foreshadowed the absolute necessity of a close relationship between France and England based on their long and rich relationship: "In December, 1913, the Master paid a brief but memorable visit to this country. The central event of his sojourn in London was the banquet given in his honour at the Savoy Hotel. On this occasion it was apparently decided, in those remote and exalted circles where such decisions are made, that the socialist should be ignored (his turn was to come later, with the Fabians), but that honour could and should be paid to the man of genius, the foremost man of letters of the day. The feast was therefore presided over by a peer, the late Lord Redesdale, himself a gifted writer. The company was numerous and distinguished. [...] Monsieur France, though an inimitable talker, is not a speaker, and on this occasion he read his discourse. All that I now remember of it was the rich, deliberate music of the voice that uttered it, and the words which he repeated with strange insistency: 'Travaillons de concert a la paix du monde'—'Let us work together for the peace of the world.' This was in December, 1913. The exhortation, thus reiterated, seemed even then to be fraught with ominous significance, and now, looking back over the years of horror that were so soon to follow, one wonders whether this old man with his strange, inscrutable eyes and musical, melancholy voice had somehow seen the shadow of the coming catastrophe." (J. Lewis May, Anatole France, the man and his work: an essay in critical biography, p. 98-99).

The manuscript contains numerous crossed-out and rewritten passages, and shows the genesis of the writing of this beautiful speech:

“M.M.
I am not sure that I am not dreaming. Welcomed with this splendid cordiality by so many men whose names, works and thoughts represent so much greatness, strength and beauty. [...]
Your compatriots have authored masterpieces of this kind for two centuries. Need I remind you of Richardson and Fielding, Swift and Daniel Defoe, Walter Scott, Dickens and Thackeray, George Elliott [...] the novel is in England, in its favorite soil, like the apple in Normandy and the orange in Valencia. Why? It takes a large volume or a single word to explain it. Well, let's say it in a word. This word, Lord Redesdale, gave us a foretaste of it. It is that the novel is intimate, cordial and familiar by nature and that the English has a familiar, intimate and cordial spirit.
Gentlemen, I am not dreaming: it is a banquet, I see the shining cups and the benevolent faces of the guests. And I can understand why you invited me. I am a symbol, an allegory for you. I represent at this table the French literati, just as at the festivals of the French Revolution the citizen Momoro represented the goddess Reason. Without being a goddess or particularly reasonable, this idea puts me at ease and I won't quibble too much with you about the choice of your symbol. I tell myself that perhaps you didn't mind having a Frenchman at your table who, having the weakness to write, at least had the merit, which you greatly value, of never disguising his thoughts.
And what is infinitely precious to your host in the honor you do him is the opportunity he has to show you his respectful and tender love for England and to pay tribute to all of you here who represented the essence of English genius, to all of you here who, after a long succession of robust generations, gave us the vast and profound spirit of Shakespeare and Bacon.
In this English genius, whose torch you have received to pass on to the next generation, there is a continuity of strong qualities that commands admiration. Through its gravity combined with perfect good nature, through its mixture of sublime idealism, through its patience and strength for justice, through its virile energy and virtuous confidence, one can say that it is a perpetual homage to freedom and human dignity. This spirit won the esteem of the whole world and was nowhere better known or more esteemed than in France (your institutions, your public morals served as an example and an ideal for the France of the 18th century, for the France of Montesquieu and Voltaire, and that is the great, the true France) your Shakespeare renewed our poetic inspiration. Our parliamentary system emerged from yours.
[long passage crossed out]
I see here - and it is to your credit and mine - men who differ greatly in their beliefs, feelings and ideas; but who have in common the British uprightness, energy and robustness that gives them a family resemblance and holds them together by very strong bonds.
[…]
It is no longer a question of conquering the world; but of pacifying it. Work, let us work together for world peace. In speaking thus, I do not believe that I am overstepping the rights that your kindness and cordiality give me [...] This banquet was still in its original chaos when the spirit of Mr. Thomas Morclay, who presides over its organization, breathed into it his spirit of French friendship and understanding for world peace. Encouraged by this friend of France, [crossed out], I conclude by applauding the friendship between England and France with a view to universal peace.”

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