CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand (1894–1961).

First letter to the journalist from Lyon who is going to defend Céline. Céline sends him the requested text [his responses to the accusations levelled against him]: ‘There is nothing particularly mysterious or secret about it. It is the result of 17 months in a cell. My fate has not yet been decided. I have three lawyers in France – Maîtres Naud, Fourcade and Antoine – who are striving to re-establish the truth, which is quite basic, quite simple. I tried, clumsily, to the best of my meagre ability, to oppose a war that I considered ill-advised, disastrous and foolish. I meddled in matters that were none of my business. I have lost everything

lost everything—my country, my money, my health, and even my means of subsistence. They have taken everything from me; I have nothing left but my 54 years of age and a 75 per cent war injury. They have even killed my publisher, Denoël! The savagery towards me has been total. I am not, as you can well imagine, complaining of mistreatment against anyone, but I am quite forced to compare myself to Montherlant, Chadourne, La Varende, Guitry – and a hundred others who have not lost a hair’s breadth in this dreadful ordeal! And I am hounded like a leprous dog along every road in Europe, from hospital to prison cell. I am the stinking scapegoat of the envious. Drieu and Brasillach had at least written articles – I never have in my life! I have always found ‘collaboration’ idiotic, a deception. Yet I am paying a higher price for it than anyone else. It is true that the methods of ideological partisan fury are admirable for getting rid of a hated, envied colleague who has always pissed you off and whose pen you fear like thirty-six plagues!”… Lettres (Pléiade), 47-42 (p. 908).