Georges BERNANOS (1888-1948). L.A.S., Villa Ochoenea, Cibour - Lot 4

Georges BERNANOS (1888-1948). L.A.S., Villa Ochoenea, Ciboure [summer 1926], to a journalist; 2 pages in-4 in blue ink. Beautiful letter on the violent criticism that greeted Sous le soleil de Satan (notably under the pen of René Johannet in Les Lettres). "I don't blame you at all for having counted with some joy the "harsh blows that Monsieur Johannet dealt me" if you have enough charity to lend some sort of consistency to this phantom [...No voice, moreover, has been or will ever be raised among those Christians whose right it is to judge my book unfavorably, to at least give credit to the author's intentions, and to blame the man of Letters who graciously defines my Catholicism as "a commercial variety of literary excitement". The valet who speaks like this has two careers behind him, and he is not at the end of his betrayals, if his face does not lie"... Bernanos doubts the insertion of this clarification: "You will find this latest violence from my pen deeply regrettable [...] nevertheless, you will not have had a word of reproach for the unfortunate man who accuses me without proof" and who indulges in "pure and simple defamation"...