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A FIRST SUMMER NIGHT'S TORMENT
Feel-good books, fun facts, wellness therapies, good vibes, body positivity, mood boosters… — in a world seeking lightness, happiness now seems to lie in Anglo-Saxon neologisms.
Yet writers rarely pursue lukewarm sentiments or the quiet chase for bland contentment. When French poets borrow from across the Channel, it is often in search of spleen rather than any easy ideal.
On this longest day, Le Feu Follet dares to hasten the sunset, that its ‘wandering fingers’ might trace the ‘bloodstain’ of the Affiche Rouge and dip into Delacroix’s darkest inks for a Shakespearean question — should Madame de Rênal be so kind as to lend us her lover’s skull.
Feel-good books, fun facts, wellness therapies, good vibes, body positivity, mood boosters… — in a world seeking lightness, happiness now seems to lie in Anglo-Saxon neologisms.
Yet writers rarely pursue lukewarm sentiments or the quiet chase for bland contentment. When French poets borrow from across the Channel, it is often in search of spleen rather than any easy ideal.
On this longest day, Le Feu Follet dares to hasten the sunset, that its ‘wandering fingers’ might trace the ‘bloodstain’ of the Affiche Rouge and dip into Delacroix’s darkest inks for a Shakespearean question — should Madame de Rênal be so kind as to lend us her lover’s skull.
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Le Feu Follet's Letter
Whimsical essays, curious histories, epic enquiries, curated selections, highlighted novelties — all seasoned with a dash of humour. A bimonthly journey across the arts and letters, from the present to the past.
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October 16, 2026
Presentation copy from Pagnol to Druon, his admirer
Idealised childhood is an age-old leitmotif, but since the 20th-century it has had a name: Marcel Pagnol. No writer has better captured a child’s sensitivity and capacity for wonder. Among his most fervent admirers is another writer, who would gladly have belonged to his large Provençal family: Maurice Druon. He crowned Pagnol the blessed king of childhood.
“How human you are beneath such pleasant appearances!
Reading you, I now feel as though I have become one of your childhood friends. And I await the sequel to La Gloire de mon père [My Father’s Glory] as a reward.
I admire you and send you a warm embrace.
Maurice”
October 16, 2026
Young heroes, old heralds...
The bridges of knowledge between generations are growing fragile, and each now sees only the gulf that separates it from the other, rather than the paths that unite them.
Yet Man is not always a wolf to the young, and many are the writings of former children that have contributed to the political and sociological awakening of those who came after them.
September 24, 2026
Catholic fervour or anticlerical fever: in the land of Bossuet and Voltaire, religion is a family affair far more than an affair of state, and many a family supper threatens to be the Last, where, happily, the breaking of bread and the miracle of wine reconcile cassocked brothers with their sans-culotte cousins...
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