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177 - Léon Basile Guerdan (1886–1949), Armenian writer
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Estimate €300 - €600
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Léon Basile Guerdan (1886–1949), Armenian writer A collection of correspondence and 1 publication FIND THE FULL AND DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THIS LOT IN OUR ONLINE AUCTION CATALOGUE 30 letters from the author, 1934–1948, addressed to René Benjamin, regularly seeking advice as a writer, including: Letter from the author, Paris, 17 July 1935; organisation of the programme for the ‘Grandes Conférences des Ambassadeurs’, one of the think tanks and public diplomacy forums founded by the writer and journalist André David, the very first session having taken place on 21 October 1933 in Paris at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, at a very brisk pace of 8 to 10 sessions per month. The concept: a high-calibre forum where prominent figures analysed the challenges of the contemporary world L.A.S., Paris, 18 October 1938, letterhead: ‘Les Grandes Conférences des Ambassadeurs’ L.A.S., Biarritz, Majestic, 12 October 1939 L.A.S., Cannes, Hôtel Miramar, 25 July 1940; in exile L.A.S., New York, Hôtel Madison, 27 February 1947; a renewed friendship despite divergent paths in the aftermath of the 1940 defeat Letter, New York, 10 April 1948; a moving letter on the division of post-war France and the need not to look away from the absolute horror condoned by Vichy My dear friend Let me begin by saying that your inspired prose has delighted me and consoled me from so much heavy, indigestible reading that is served up to us as the products of the French literary renaissance. In *Le Divin Visage* I have rediscovered everything I have long admired in your talent: irony, raw sensitivity, a hatred of the mediocre and the vulgar, a reverence for the grand and the beautiful, for the landscapes of the Loire and the ancient stones of Paris (what a masterpiece that passage on Rubens is!), but also something new: a despair that proves just how much you have suffered and continue to suffer. Having lived far from France for the past seven years, I have heard both sides of the story and shared in the trials and tribulations of both sides — the result of a war which, at heart, was nothing more than a revolution that, to the world’s misfortune, continues with no end yet in sight. Living abroad has in no way diminished my love for France. I had chosen your country as my homeland, because I regarded it as the most humane, the most beautiful and the most cultured in the world; I had found there the atmosphere of freedom to which I had aspired from the age of reason, following an unhappy childhood on the banks of the Bosphorus, where the most abominable of regimes reigned. But experience – especially since the war – has taught me that there is a vast difference between the France of Molière, Pascal, the Crusades and the principles of 1789, and the French people themselves! To you, who are the very embodiment of kindness towards those you love (and I believe you love me a little), I shall try to speak frankly, at the risk of shocking you, about what I think. I left France a year after our disasters because I had no confidence whatsoever in its leaders and because the anti-Semitic and xenophobic atmosphere that was developing there, under Vichy’s watchful eye, horrified me. My decision to leave was made following a veterans’ rally in Cannes, which I had the misfortune to attend. The hate speech there was every bit as bad as that heard in Nuremberg or Berlin. I had shared my fears with you. In a lovely letter which I have kept, you tried to convince me that naturalised citizens like myself would not be troubled. Unfortunately, the remarks I heard in Vichy did little to confirm your optimism. In New York, amongst the émigré community, the reaction was the opposite—barely less ugly, but perhaps more excusable, since seven-eighths of the exiles were Jews, stripped of their nationality and dispossessed, even though most of them were excellent Frenchmen who had done their duty on the battlefields. I came under fire from them as soon as *Je les ai tous connus* was published. I was accused of being a Vichy agent, simply because I wanted to unite the French here against Germany. But, understanding their state of mind, I forgave them. Since the Liberation, I have had the opportunity to meet a great many of our compatriots – politicians, diplomats, military officers, industrialists, writers, journalists, shopkeepers, students, ordinary sailors – and I have noted with sorrow that the resentments on both sides have remained just as keen. On more than one occasion, I had the impression that I was no longer speaking the same language as them. No doubt because, having remained untouched by those hardships, I could still afford the luxury of impartiality...” FIND THE FULL AND DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THIS LOT IN OUR ONLINE AUCTION CATALOGUE
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About the sale René Benjamin, the 20th-century Balzac scholar
Auction location
Auction time 10/06/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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