Jocaste et Le Chat maigre. Les Désirs de Jean Servien

France’s first book published by Calmann Lévy is a curious pairing of two texts, either of which would have been too brief for separate publication. By joining the tale of Le Chat maigre to Jocaste under an unusual title, France surprised the public; critics judged Le Chat maigre superior to Jocaste, which the author himself described as “a small chronicle in which there are only madmen.”

The book did not find a wide readership, but it did cause a serious and lasting rift between France and his first employer, who had become his publisher and friend, Alphonse Lemerre. During the 1911 lawsuit that would publicly pit the two men against each other, Jocaste was cited by the defense lawyer, Raymond Poincaré, as the origin of the conflict. Poincaré summarized how France had gradually become bound to Lemerre and how, in preparing to publish his first prose work, he had tried to free himself: “The men of letters who knew Anatole France and, like him, frequented the Lemerre house, had warned him against the inconceivable exploitation of which he had for some years been the all-too-resigned victim, and one of them […] had strongly advised him to approach another publisher.” France refused. So, “in order to spare him a step that made him uneasy, this friend himself approached Monsieur Calmann Lévy, who eagerly agreed to publish Jocaste.” (R. Poincaré, closing argument in the Lemerre trial.) Another publisher had thus been found for him, one who welcomed him with open arms, but France handled the matter poorly: he signed an exclusive contract with Calmann Lévy even though he was already verbally committed to Alphonse Lemerre for this first book. In the letter he sent to Lemerre explaining his decision, he cited “commitments made without my knowledge” and “necessity”: “Besides,” he wrote, “I long believed I was doing you a favor by relieving you of the burden of my little novel. […] Consider, too, that if I can give some value to my prose, your house will benefit from it, for I fully intend that we shall produce fine and successful publications together.” (8 November 1878). France signed his letter “Believe me your friend,” a closing that must not have convinced Lemerre. Lemerre sought to win back his author and, although he disliked drawing up written contracts, preferring verbal agreements, he proposed for the first time putting their affairs in order through a signed contract. On 16 November 1878, three weeks after the contract signed with Calmann Lévy, France duly signed a contract with Lemerre — thereby unwittingly setting in motion thirty years of “quarrels.”

Les Désirs de Jean Servien bears witness to this same troubled period: it too numbers among the author’s earliest novels. It was published by Alphonse Lemerre, who, furious at the success in the meantime of Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard and impatient over the other works France owed him (various prefaces, a Histoire de France…), demanded the manuscript. “The success of this work had the effect of prodigiously irritating Lemerre. He suddenly complained of the unusual delay affecting the books destined for his house and demanded, in an imperious tone, the novel Jean Servien…”