Antonin ARTAUD (1896-1948). L.A.S., Rodez October 15, 1943, to Pierre Laval, Président du Conseil, in Vichy; 4pages in-4. Extraordinary letter in which Artaud denounces the Initié sect. [The letter was not sent; it was intercepted by Dr. Gaston Ferdière]. "My very dear friend However overwhelmed with preoccupations and work you may be at the moment, you cannot fail to remember the friendship that united us from 1930 to 1937, when in August of that last year I went to bring the Cane of Saint Patrick back to the Irish. This friendship was all based on extra-literary reasons". Before leaving for Ireland, he had sent her his book The New Revelations of Being. "And you know what happened to me in Ireland: after showing the Canne de Saint Patrick to the Irish, who all recognized it as such, and leaving it in Irish hands, I was arrested by order of the English police and deported to France on the pretext that I was without money"... Artaud then denounced "a group of Initiés led by Grillot de Givry" who had him interned; and in 1939, "under the impetus of an investigation conducted on my behalf by Louis Jouvet, Charles Bayard, Jean Giraudoux, Bernard Zimmer and with the support of the 2nd Bureau, a dismissal was about to be handed down in my case after 2 years of internment", when Grillot de Givry "paid off" Dr. Menuau, head physician at Villepinte. Grillot de Givry "paid" Dr. Menuau, head physician at Ville-Evrard, to "write a biased and misleading medical report against me"... Now this sect has been reconstituted; "it has a lot to do with our misfortunes. It is not for France, nor for Germany, nor for England, nor for any other country, for its aims are those of the purest individualistic egoism, but it is as much in the Gestapô as in the English Police, although it is above all the aims of England that it serves at present, and it is only in the Gestapô to introduce and maintain that paralyzing influence which is the principal weapon of the Initiates". This sect is in contact with Hindu Initiates who are due to arrive in France soon and "operate their junction with English police agents who are all Initiates". Artaud warns that this is not "a delusional story" and that "oblivion of the transcendent and the occult is one of the means of defense and the watchword most generously applied in all sects of Initiates. But all sects of Initiates are evil, and animated by the most evil spirit, for those who are on God's side, Pierre Laval, can no longer consider themselves Initiates, being no more than Returners from Heaven whom they remember directly. England, Pierre Laval, is a people of cowards [...] if the English still go up in Planes, it's because in most cases they have the impression that they will be able to strike without being struck themselves". According to Artaud, the Royal Air Force's aircraft are built according to a secret patent, "a completely new and singular principle which indicates on the part of its inventor a genius of an unusual order: [graffiti and cabalistic signs] But which rests on things very well known in the circles of the Initiates. It may be that this scheme resembles certain drawings by madmen, but it is very easy to find similarities between such occult drawings and certain drawings by madmen"... Nouveaux écrits de Rodez (Gallimard, 1977), p.128.