SARTRE Jean-Paul (1905-1980)

Lot 207
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Estimation :
4000 - 5000 EUR
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Result : 4 940EUR
SARTRE Jean-Paul (1905-1980)
AUTHORIZED MANUSCRIPT, Diable et Bon Dieu, [1951]; 51 sheets in-4 (27 x 21 cm) of a Diane block forming a folder. First draft and working manuscripts for his play Le Diable et le Bon Dieu. Begun in early 1951, the play premiered at the Théâtre Antoine on June 7, 1951, directed by Louis Jouvet (with Pierre Brasseur, Jean Vilar, Maria Casarès...), and published in Les Temps modernes in June, July and August 1951, and in volume by Gallimard in October 1951. The manuscript, in blue-black ink on squared or lined block pages, written on the front (2 are also written on the back) and unevenly filled, sometimes presents several versions of the same text, Sartre not liking to cross out and preferring to rework his text on a new page; some, however, present erasures and corrections. These worksheets present a very different version of the printed text. The scenes in this dossier relate to the beginning of the play, to the first two tables of Act I. We quickly learn of the death of Conrad, killed by his brother, during the rebellion of the army of the poor. The account of this taking up of arms is given to the archbishop and the banker Foucre by an envoy who witnessed the fighting. We can still see the aggression of the bishop by the crowd, followed by the stormy conversation between the people and the priest Heinrich, then the one between the latter and Goetz. In these pages, Sartre stages the main protagonists of the play: the priest Heinrich, the Bishop and the Archbishop, the banker Foucre, Nasty and Goetz. Many passages will not be retained by Sartre; let us quote for example this tirade of the banker, in his interview with the Archbishop: "I hate swordsmen. They are misplaced drafts in our century and only make a mess of it. It is a hundred years since war was replaced by big business and they continue to fight as if they did not realize it. All this absurd agitation, looting and massacres hide the profound truth of the times, which is peace. (A time) At last, it looks like a war in the open country: it only destroys the harvest. But the cities! The cities must not be touched. Your good city of Worms, it is not Conrad who is besieging it, it is you. Why should I? Who will pay your taxes? Who will repay me if you murder your bourgeois like an old Tiberius?"
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