La Maison-Dieu, vie de Saint-Robert

New edition.
Autograph inscription dated and signed by Henri Pourrat to his Auvergnat friend Robert Garric on a leaf printed on Auvergne paper: "... cette histoire d'un homme du Cantal qui sut tant faire pour le pays, en très particulier hommage d'admiration, de dévouement et d'amitié..." ["... this story of a man from Cantal who knew how to do so much for the country, in very particular tribute of admiration, devotion and friendship..."]
A reformist Catholic, he was the founder of the "Équipes sociales" in 1920, which aimed to form a social elite and bring the good word about the fraternity born in the trenches to workers, in the tradition of patronages. Simone de Beauvoir, then a student of Robert Garric in philosophy at the Institut Sainte-Marie de Neuilly, remembers him in her "Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée": "Garric parut ; j'oubliai tout le reste et moi-même ; l'autorité de sa voix me subjugua. À vingt ans, nous expliqua-t-il, il avait découvert dans les tranchées les joies d'une camaraderie qui supprimait les barrières sociales. [...] Nier toutes les limites et toutes les séparations, sortir de ma classe, sortir de ma peau : ce mot d'ordre m'électrisa. [...] Il faut que ma vie serve ! Il faut que dans ma vie tout serve !" ["Garric appeared; I forgot everything else and myself; the authority of his voice subjugated me. At twenty, he explained to us, he had discovered in the trenches the joys of a camaraderie that eliminated social barriers. [...] To deny all limits and all separations, to get out of my class, to get out of my skin: this watchword electrified me. [...] My life must serve! Everything in my life must serve!"]
Spine and covers lightly and marginally sunned, front cover stained and with corner lacks.