MIRBEAU OCTAVE (1848-1917)

Lot 176
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Estimation :
300 - 400 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 329EUR
MIRBEAU OCTAVE (1848-1917)
MANUSCRIPT autograph signed "Octave Mirbeau", Souls of War, [1904]; 2 pages and a half small in-4 filled with a tight handwriting (trace of scotch tape on the left edge of each sheet; bottom of the 2nd f. cut out but the text is complete). Anti-militarist article, published in L'Humanité, October 23, 1904. Journey with the Count de C., "former colonel of dragons". They talk about "the Russo-Japanese war", then about Manchuria: "You may take me for a revolutionary, but really these wars between foreign nations disgust me a little. Most of the time, the causes are so complicated and even so unknown, that you never know what you are fighting for. And the pleasure of fighting is seriously diminished". The colonel thinks of his youth, with "the floating mane of his helmet, his blood-red sword". He understands "war only between people of the same country. We know each other like the devil! We fight and kill in defence of a prerogative, a habit, the conquest of a new right, the maintenance of a class interest. That is clear, that is right". He claims "the formal right of society to declare a merciless war against those who seek to disrupt the established order: strikers, for example"; and to castigate "this despicable government, this government of pigs, grave robbers, freemasons [...] What is France today? A huge strike, a huge riot. And not the slightest firing squad, not the slightest bleeding, nothing! It's like the Jews... the Dreyfusards! To think that there's an army, a great army, that doesn't do anything from morning to night, and that they didn't give him all these people to gut with bayonets! And you call that a government?"... Finally, the colonel recounts his exploits against "the Commune, I can say that I knew there the best days of my life as a soldier", notably by helping the Whale, "a casserole dish that was famous in the last days of the Empire", to get rid of his creditors: "We grabbed them, we glued them to the wall. Brran! I shipped six of them that way. That was war!"
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