CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand (1894-1961)

CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand (1894-1961)

Autograph note signed « LF Céline » [to Roger Vailland]
[Korsør, early 1950 ?], ½ p. in-4°
On the verso of a photomechanical reproduction of an illustration, reproducing page 16 of L’Illustré national, no. 52 [1915]
Creasing and uneven margins

Violent dedication addressed to the Resistance fighter Roger Vailland, in response to his article published in La Tribune des Nations on 13 January 1950: « We would no longer spare Louis-Ferdinand Céline »

Throughout his trial and after the war, notably in interviews with journalists, Céline never ceased to recall his experience of the Great War, to which he regularly referred his detractors, claiming to have been left « seventy percent disabled », in his own words.
His virulent dedication to Roger Vailland bears witness to the polemical tone of his reactions in the postwar context and during the purge (l’épuration):

« À la Tribune des
Nations
où on a bien envie
d’assassiner des véritables
résistants français
pas occultes du tout !
LF Céline »

[On the recto:] The illustration shows the future Céline, then maréchal des logis-chef Destouches of the 12th Cuirassiers, charging under fire, which earned him the Médaille militaire.

In his article “Nous n’épargnerions plus Louis-Ferdinand Céline” (We Would No Longer Spare Louis-Ferdinand Céline), published in La Tribune des Nations on 13 January 1950, Roger Vailland looks back on the circumstances in which a group of Resistance fighters to which he belonged supposedly considered executing the writer, who then lived in the apartment above the one where they held their meetings, at 4 rue Girardon. The plan was reportedly abandoned in consideration of Céline’s literary talent. This retrospective account belongs to a postwar context marked by debates over collaboration and the purge (l’épuration). Céline quickly identified his “snotty-nosed killer,” his “so-called purger,” whom he mocks in Féerie. He would respond directly to this text only in February 1958, in Le Petit Crapouillot. Vailland’s “testimony” was denied by Robert Chamfleury, in whose home the Resistance meetings took place, and then by Jacques Francis Rolland, son of the writer Louis Francis, who frequented Gen Paul’s studio before the war.
A detailed account of the plan to assassinate the writer can be found in Céline, by Yves Buin (2022, Folio): « July 1943, one evening, ten Resistance fighters of the Champfleury-Mabille network are gathered, imprudently, in Robert Champfleury’s apartment on the fourth floor of 4 rue Girardon, below Céline’s apartment. Céline has just received the caricaturist Ralph Soupault, secretary of the Paris Federation of the P.P.F., and Alain Laubreaux, theater critic at Je suis partout. Céline sees them out. Their descent of the staircase is noisy and cannot escape the group on the fourth floor, who, from the windows, watch the trio continuing their discussion on the pavement. An idea is born, which one of the Resistance fighters, Roger Vailland, puts into words: “What if we killed Céline?” A grenade thrown from the fourth floor would do the job, but it would result in condemning Champfleury’s apartment, a hub for various Resistance channels (did it not host a meeting of the prestigious C.N.R.?), and would endanger him and his companion. Since Céline is so well spotted, on the occasion of another visit by the collaborators it would be easy, from the little square on avenue Junot, to machine-gun them and flee into the night. Two men would be enough. A classic commando operation. Neither seen nor known. Exit Céline, the infamous, and his hated accomplices. This scenario existed. As has been said, Céline, on a blacklist, received frequent anonymous threats. From the publication of Bagatelles, he foresaw a settling of scores of which he would be the victim… »