Saint-Germain ou la négociation
One of the press copies, stamped as such.
Signed presentation inscription: “Pour Madame Carmen Tessier, en respectueux hommage, Francis Walder.”
Prix Goncourt 1958. A senior Belgian civil servant and former diplomat, Francis Walder (1906–1997) transposes into this novel the subtle games of sixteenth-century diplomacy, through the negotiations conducted at the château of Saint-Germain in 1570 between Catholics and Protestants. In this remarkable historical chamber piece, Walder, writing in a precise, muted, almost “classical” style, depicts the arcana of power, the fragility of political balance and the primacy of cunning over brute force: all the subtleties and ambiguities of negotiation.
In honoring Saint-Germain ou la négociation, the Académie Goncourt recognized a novel of intelligence and elegance, heir to the Enlightenment and the art of conversation, and only the second foreign author to receive the Prix Goncourt, after his fellow Belgian Charles Plisnier in 1937 for Faux passeports.
Accompanied by a period gelatin silver print (90 x 140 mm) with gouache retouching and cropping marks on the verso.
Stamp “Bibliothèque Goncourt. Eure-et-Loire” on the first leaf.
Rare.