SARTRE, Jean-Paul (1905-1980)

SARTRE, Jean-Paul (1905-1980)

Autograph manuscript for Le Diable et le Bon Dieu
N.p.n.d [c. 1950], 2 p. in-4° in blue ink
Small tears on folds, old paper clip mark (see scans)

First version of the beginning of Act II for his play Le Diable et le Bon Dieu

Dealing with human nature, God, the Devil, and more broadly the question of the possibility of Good, Le Diable et le Bon Dieu is Sartre’s seventh play. It was premiered at the Théâtre Antoine on 7 June 1951 with a staging by Louis Jouvet. The present manuscript corresponds, with significant variants, to scenes I and II of the fourth scene, which opens Act II, and features Karl and the peasants, with a brief appearance by Goetz.
The scene is marked by a tirade from Karl: “You leave Goetz’s lands to-night, you will enter those of Baron Schulheim, and from there you will push on to those of Nossak. Everywhere your friends will lodge you: you have their names. In every village announce the news: “Goetz the bastard gives the land of Heidenstamm to his peasants.” […] Make them mad with rage”…

Le Diable et le Bon Dieu presents a generic dossier of rare complexity. The play went through a fairly long maturation and Sartre often changed his mind during the course of its writing. Since the writer’s death in 1980, the autograph drafts of the play have been bought almost systematically by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The present folios are therefore among the few manuscripts still in private hands.