[L.a.s.] à Janine Kahn sa future épouse

In June 1920, André Breton met Simone Kahn in the Jardin du Luxembourg, in the company of Théodore Fraenkel and Bianca Maklès; a second meeting followed a month later, on 9 July 1920. Simone confided to her cousin: “Today was a good day. I saw André Breton with Fraenkel and Aragon. It is the second time I have seen Breton up close. He is Fraenkel’s friend, and he had asked him to arrange for us to meet again. You can imagine how pleased I was. He really is an interesting fellow.” (Simone Breton, Lettres à Denise Lévy, Joëlle Losfeld, 2005). Later, in 1965, she would add: “Breton was a rather gaunt and thin young man, who despite his poverty maintained a certain elegance. He already had that leonine look that contributed to his legend […]. ‘You know, I am not a Dadaist,’ I told him straightaway, after we were introduced. ‘Neither am I,’ he replied, with that smile he kept all his life whenever he expressed reservations about one of his own doctrinal positions.” Breton wrote her his first letter on 15 July: “I certainly take great pleasure in seeing you; thank you for having guessed as much.”

Fourteen months after their meeting, on 15 September 1921, André Breton married Simone Kahn at the town hall of the 17th arrondissement of Paris, with Paul Valéry as witness. Simone’s sister, Janine Kahn, was of course present, and had formed a close bond with Breton. This is attested by the present letter, remarkable in many respects, in which Simone is mentioned several times. The two lovers, both aged twenty-four, were then in the midst of preparing for their wedding. Janine herself would marry Raymond Queneau in the summer of 1926, after Antonin Artaud had written her passionate letters, to which she yielded only at the end of 1926: “I dreamed of you again with much remorse. I will write to you at greater length soon. My deepest affection,” he told her, in what would be the culmination of their relationship (card to Janine Kahn, from Toulon, 27 December 1926).