André BRETON (1896-1966). L.A.S., Loupiac July... Lot 341

André BRETON (1896-1966). L.A.S., Loupiac July 1, 1940, [to Maud Bonneaud]; 2 1/2 pages in-8 in green ink. After the armistice (June 22, 1940), while Breton was "chief medical officer at Pilot School 31" in Loupiac de la Réole (Gironde), as he writes at the bottom of the letter. "We were excused from the Kasbah and billeted as best we could in the tobacco drying sheds"... Breton has not heard from his wife Jacqueline for a fortnight. ... "I think a rather interesting era could be about to begin, provided we can live it. It could be the monster childhood of something, or it could just be a crude disguise. The "painful stupefaction", "saddened stupor" aspect, well captured in the latest English-French antagonistic communiqués, remains absolutely predominant. So much for the state of consciousness that manifests itself here without the slightest discretion. The gentlemen are slowly turning in their khaki-colored jackets. The men are advised to be "polite" to the occupying troops. Polite "without obsequiousness", they even add, "psychologically enough". He doesn't know where to go "in case of demobilization [...] The climate in Paris with Mr. Chiappe seems to me to be the least salubrious". He tells his correspondent that he has "great memories of it [...] you are very much involved in this trickle of life, still crystalline, which is all that remains to us, until we are more certain of what awaits us"...