Lettre autographe à Roger Nimier

bear the brunt of his devastating wit. He is not merely a pamphleteer or chronicler: this stylist is also searching for a way to live, and this cruel wit also captures moments of grace. To be savored like a glass of Cognac.

Cocteau here refers to the publication of Lettres à Roger Nimier, published by Chardonne, patron of the “hussards,” in September 1954: “Roger Nimier is my friend; I love his talent and his character; I see him rarely but I write to him, almost every day, for years now, three lines or three pages. This book grew out of that friendship and that habit” (preface). Despite its title, the volume is not strictly a collection of correspondence: it is a novel composed in letter form, and Nimier only read it once it was finished. The form allowed for great naturalness and freedom — Chardonne spares none of his contemporaries in it, especially Gide, Mauriac and Montherlant — and this seems to be what Cocteau objects to in his reading.

Between February 1949 and October 1951, Roger Nimier published some thirty pieces in the review; then only two afterward: one in February 1952, the other in October 1954, the one Cocteau refers to here. In that same issue, Cocteau published a poem, “Contre le doute.”