Les Rois maudits
First edition [for the seventh volume]. One of 70 copies on vergé, from the deluxe issue.
Signed presentation inscriptions on each volume to Madeleine Mérignac, who became Madame Druon in 1968.
A wonderful copy, presented volume by volume, over the course of publication, to the woman who evolved from a devoted collaborator into a devoted wife.
Vol. I: “Merci, chère Madeleine de toute l’aide que vous m’avez donnée pour cette nouvelle édition. Je vous embrasse, Maurice.”
Vol. II: “Pour vous, chère Madeleine, sans qui [La Reine étranglée] ne serait pas ce qu’elle est devenue, dans sa robe tissée de neuf. Très affectueusement, Maurice.”
Vol. III: “Pour Sainte Madeleine de Grenelle, patronne des correcteurs d’épreuves, consolatrice des écrivains en mal de révision, auxiliatrice des Rois Maudits, en signe de bonne fête, Maurice, 22 juillet 1966.”
Vol. IV: “Merci chère Madeleine qui m’avez si bien secondé pour apporter à [La Loi des mâles] de nécessaire ‘amendements’. Affectueusement, tendrement, Maurice.”
Vol. V: “Pour ma chère Madeleine qui fut de toutes les aventures de cette ‘Louve’, première et seconde manière, her tender boss and grateful too, Maurice.”
Vol. VI: “À vous, chère Madeleine, pour le grand ‘ouf’ que nous poussâmes quand ce sixième Roi de papier fut achevé, en souvenir des quatorze mille pages d’épreuves nécessaires… sur le chemin du quai Conti. Tendrement, Maurice.”
The last volume, published in 1977, is one of only 70 deluxe-paper copies of the first edition. It too is inscribed to the woman who, by then, had been his wife for nearly ten years; this final volume carries an inscription summing up Madeleine’s involvement in the whole epic of Les Rois maudits: “Merci, merci, merveilleuse Madeleine! Maurice, 20.II.77.”
Born in Spain into a peasant family from the southwest of France, Madeleine Mérignac was the daughter of an officer of the Légion d’honneur who died prematurely. Strictly raised, she received a demanding education at the Maison d’éducation des Demoiselles de la Légion d’honneur, before training as a secretary at Pigier. Soon independent, she lived modestly on rue de Grenelle, a few streets from Maurice Druon.
She met Druon at the publication of Les Grandes Familles and became his secretary, typing his manuscripts and later correcting his proofs. Present at every stage of the writing of Les Rois maudits, she became a discreet but constant collaborator. Her name appears from volume I through volume VI — a distinction she shares only with Pierre de Lacretelle and Georges Kessel.
Over the years she became his confidante, then his mistress, supplanting Edmonde Charles-Roux in Druon’s affections. The relationship became public in 1967, when he was elected to the Académie française, and the couple married the following year.
Excellent condition; all volumes are first printings of this second edition of Les Rois maudits (for the first six volumes), the first collected edition. This is, moreover, the first time we have encountered the review-copy dust jackets, which differ slightly from those issued for sale.