L’État de siège

Robert Chatté, one of the great figures of the clandestine book trade, specialized in erotic works at a time when censorship and the vice squad were far from idle. Jean-Jacques Pauvert recalled him in his memoirs as “the mysterious bookseller of Montmartre. Robert Chatté, tall, thin, very well mannered, with strikingly protruding ears, worked out of an apartment, taking the greatest precautions. He would only open his door if one used a certain signal. A specialist in erotica, he had also printed the first edition of Bataille’s Madame Edwarda in 1941” (in La Traversée du livre, p. 206).

He saw a great deal of Camus in the 1950s, having met him in the immediate postwar years at Éditions Gallimard, where Chatté worked as a clerk and errand boy. Their early dealings as booksellers date from this period, and a warm affection bound him to Camus. Camus would give him a good number of his books, embellished with friendly inscriptions, including one of the 10 deluxe copies of La Chute.

Robert Chatté, probably introduced through Pascal Pia, had wanted to found a review during the war, but the Vichy regime denied him authorization. His correspondence with Paulhan reveals an inveterate hunter of miscellaneous objects and first editions, which he could resell through his many networks. He once traded Paulhan an edition of Justine for a “small lot”: deluxe copies of Charles Péguy, an autograph text, a rare Larbaud edition illustrated by Laboureur, and the corrected proofs of Gide’s André Walter! He died in September 1957 at the age of fifty-six: “He was in no way a writer. In fact, who was he? He himself never sought to categorize himself. Of his extremely varied talents, he made little effort to take advantage. A bookseller without a shop, a dealer without a license, an amateur without a specialty, he did not, however, affect an air of detachment from everything. On the contrary, he let it be seen that a frenetic passion possessed him, but it was equally clear that no object could hold his passion for long. He excelled at tap dancing, card handling, the art of charming ladies of easy virtue, and also at mystification.” His relationship with Camus remained constant until his death, which the writer noted in his Carnets: “Death of Robert Chatté. Alone, at the Villejuif hospital.” (III, p. 198). His friend Pascal Pia took charge of the estate and the inventory of his apartment.

A precious and choice copy, judiciously entrusted to Pierre-Lucien Martin to be bound: the deluxe issue of L’État de siège is rare (14 copies), and this is an important item. After the publication of La Peste, Jean-Louis Barrault proposed that Camus collaborate on a stage production on this theme. On the evening of the premiere, 27 October 1948 at the Théâtre Marigny, the reviews were harsh. The bitter failure of this close collaboration affected them both for a long time. In the preface to the American edition, Camus wrote: “Certainly, few plays have benefited from such a complete drubbing. This is all the more regrettable in that I have never ceased to consider that L’État de siège, with all its faults, is perhaps the one of my writings that most resembles me. […] My avowed aim was to wrest the theater away from psychological speculation and to make resound, on our murmuring stages, the great cries that today bend or free multitudes of men. From this point of view alone, I remain convinced that my attempt deserves attention. It is interesting to note that this play about freedom was as poorly received by right-wing dictatorships as by left-wing ones. Performed without interruption for years in Germany, it has been performed neither in Spain nor behind the Iron Curtain.”