Description
FIRST EDITION.
Current edition after 13 copies on hollande.
Precious autograph signed letter to Octave Mirbeau :
"to Octave Mirbeau
his admirer
Georges d'Esparbès
The copy, bound for Mirbeau in full percaline signed by Paul Vié, includes the following long autograph satirical note by the author of Garden of torment :
"Biographical note
For a moment, with La Légende de L'Aigle, we could have believed that Georges d'Esparbès would one day become an interesting epic storyteller. But since then, all he has done is tediously rework the same stories.
He is narrow-minded, crude, envious, timid, a peasant and completely unintelligent.
One day, when a group of friends were talking about the refinements of love, d'Esparbès, scandalised, exclaimed in an angry voice and gesture:
- You're all bastards! ... Well, I fuck my wife, every day, standing against the wall ... like an honest man ... yes ... heap of pigs, dammit!
which was his usual way of speaking.
O.M. "
Mirbeau was clearly not fond of d'Esparbès. He invoked him to mock the Belgian army in The 628-E8 The most comical thing - everything is always the most comical in Belgium - is the Belgian army. The Belgian army is much more terrible to watch than the German army, not because of the number of its soldiers, but because of the gaudiness of its uniforms. It is reminiscent - but much more hippodrome-like - of the most splendid moments of the Napoleonic epic. All it lacks are its wars and its victories, and Monsieur d'Esparbès to sing them. The Belgians didn't dare go that far...".