Saint-Just
Rare pamphlet, entirely hors commerce, printed in [80] copies (no. 42).
Presentation inscription, signed: “Exemplaire de Monsieur R. Boussion, André Malraux.”
This is the offprint, marked “H.C.” on the title, of the preface to Albert Ollivier’s book published by Gallimard in January 1955, Saint-Just et la force des choses. This text was later reprinted in Le Triangle noir.
During the Occupation, Ollivier took part in the Resistance movement within French radio, alongside Maurice Bourdet and Pierre Schaeffer, and became friends with André Malraux and Albert Camus. Working in a semi-clandestine studio in Paris, this team of journalists prepared broadcasts for the future free radio while also contributing to Combat, the clandestine Resistance newspaper, of which he became, alongside Camus, editor-in-chief at the Liberation in 1944.
Saint-Just et la force des choses was begun as early as 1943, at a time when Ollivier himself was known as “Saint-Just” within the Resistance networks.