Long preface by Émile Henriot. Drawings by Jean Hélès.
Presentation copy inscribed by the author to Maurice Genevoix: “à Maurice Genevoix, en hommage d'admiration et de grande sympathie, Gaston Riou.”
First volume in the “Mémoires et récits de guerre” series, launched by Hachette in January 1916. It was that same month, January, that Maurice Genevoix signed the contract for Sous Verdun, through the intercession of Paul Dupuy, then secretary general of the École normale supérieure.
The copy originally bore Maurice Genevoix’s manuscript ownership inscription, in the upper left corner of the half-title — as was his habit. Riou’s dedication, added slightly later, then came to “enrich” this copy already owned by Genevoix.
Gaston Riou’s account, written upon his return from captivity, records his arrest in the Dieuze sector while serving with ambulance unit no. 5/15. He was interned for eleven months in Germany, at the fortress of Orff near Ingolstadt, before being repatriated via Switzerland as part of a prisoner exchange. The book contains several censored passages and was not reissued in its complete version until 1931.
The absence of this title from Jean Norton Cru’s Témoins may be explained by the fact that it is an account of captivity, which Cru considered outside the experience of the front. The historian Jean-François Jagielski further notes: “Nothing in his account explains the precise circumstances of this release. It seems that the author engaged in self-censorship, or that his manuscript underwent external censorship on this sensitive question at the time of publication, which might explain why no passage of this final chapter had to suffer the wrath of Anastasie.” (J.-F. Jagielski, in Notice du Dictionnaire et Guide des témoins de la Grande Guerre).
Rare.