Ernest de GENGENBACH (1903-1979). 2 L.A.S.,... - Lot 106 - Ader

Lot 106
Go to lot
Estimation :
150 - 200 EUR
Ernest de GENGENBACH (1903-1979). 2 L.A.S.,... - Lot 106 - Ader
Ernest de GENGENBACH (1903-1979). 2 L.A.S., La Tourette-Cabardès (Aude) 1956-1957, to a lady; 5 pages in-4 (business card attached). On the restoration of the village of Cabardès in Occitania, and the reception of Hungarian refugees after the Budapest uprising. 29 December 1956. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, knowing that I am in charge of the reconstruction and repopulation of an abandoned village, is considering with the National Committee for the Welcoming of Hungarian Refugees the possible accommodation of these unfortunate people in my region ... There is a lack of masons, carpenters, plasterers ... I remind you that you have promised me your help ... The Hungarians are right "to reproach the Westerners for having let them massacre them. It will be the shame of European Christianity and the Machiavellian American democracy to have let all this happen. He deplored the lack of commitment of French intellectuals, and found saddening the admission of impotence of Jean Cocteau, Honorary President of the France-Hungary Committee, "who sponsored my admission to the Société des Gens de Lettres and who is a friend". Le Figaro Littéraire did not dare to publish his appeal, to spare Sartre and Breton: "Always this cowardly opportunism of the right, literary as well as political"... 20 February 1957. It recalls that she promised her help in the restoration of this beautiful village in the Montagne Noire; Cocteau accepted the Honorary Presidency of the Association of Friends of Cabardès, "writing to me "If we cannot save the men, we at least save the landscapes". But he needed funds... A rich merchant bought back the beautiful houses of the village for a pittance: "he has fulfilled the dream that I had been begging you since June 1956 to help me realize". Gengenbach left Paris in 1953 "to bury me here". His wife, an artist, followed him and gave up her social life to "save something of the aesthetic heritage of France [...]. I am completely discouraged by the indifference of private individuals as well as by the criminal inaction of the public authorities who are allowing one after another the most beautiful villages of France to collapse"...
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue