L’Hérésiarque et Cie

Composed of twenty-three stories written between 1902 and 1910, this hybrid volume shines through its variety of tones, in which Apollinaire summons a whole pantheon of grotesque or sublime characters: heretics, false saints, fallen messiahs, mad alchemists, illuminated criminals and murderous poets.

L’Hérésiarque & Cie very nearly won the 1910 Prix Goncourt, leading the first round with three votes — ahead of Colette (La Vagabonde, two votes), Poinsot and Marguerite Audoux (also two votes each), and Pergaud (one vote). But the outcome is well known: in the second round, the Académie finally crowned Louis Pergaud for De Goupil à Margot.

Élémir Bourges gave one of the keys to this reversal, in a confidence quoted by Robert Deffoux (Chronique de l’Académie Goncourt, 1929):

“We deliberately vote, in the first round, for those who have the least chance. — And then? — Then, we give them a little publicity… It’s a form of compensation.” No doubt the members of the Goncourt jury were also alarmed by the book’s exuberant irreverence.