Thursday, January 21, 2016

Edmonde Charles-Roux: men and women in his life – Le Figaro

Resistant, muse of Aragon, friend of Orson Welles, Prix Goncourt and decorated with the Military Cross … The novelist and literary woman died January 20, lived thousands of lives worthy of the wildest incredible stories.

His life is a collection of anecdotes. Extinct Wednesday, January 20 at the age of 95 years, the “unruly” novelist was the heroine of Arabian epic stories, tragic and historic. “I had the desire not to be like everyone else,” answered one day Edmonde Charles-Roux to critics who castigated her not toe the line.

Monument of French publishing landscape, beautiful love letters, adventurer in the heart of steel and femme fatale who did turn heads, including that of Louis Aragon, the president of the Académie Goncourt was more than a witness of his time. She was a visionary. Edmonde Charles-Roux has collected and celebrated worldwide under his pen. Back on the men and women who have marked the “irreverent”.

Defferre

“It was just my Goncourt, j ‘was dropped in Marseille at the invitation of the municipality, with my editor. Defferre receives me at his home with his wife; have lunch, you can swim in the pool and I go to Paris. The next day, I received this telegram: “I come,” “Love at first sight is so powerful between Edmonde Charles-Roux and the legendary mayor of Marseilles and Interior Minister, he upset both their lives.. They are now linked and will not leave again. After her divorce in 1973 Defferre (he was previously married to Andrée-Defferre Aboulker) finally passes the ring finger of Edmonde Charles-Roux to make her his wife. She then declared the day of their marriage: “You shall have the right to be wrong with only one woman. Marseille” Until his last days, Edmonde Charles-Roux will combine politics, art and fashion: the three pillars who have done it, the myth that it is today.

Edmond Rostand

At birth, the novelist is predestined to literature. Dubbed Edmonde, in reference to the illustrious Cyrano de Bergerac playwright (1898), the Prix Goncourt future breathes from its earliest days the literary wind blowing on her family. Great friend of the writer, it is her grandmother she owes its name. “It was an extraordinary woman who recited poets by heart,” remembered Edmonde Charles-Roux.

The Countess Pastré

So that she began studying nursing (it will continue on the ground at Verdun), Edmonde Charles-Roux and frequent meeting in Marseille artists refugees in the South, far from polite society had accustomed to receive his family. At the Pastré countess, who will be the founder of the Festival of Aix-en-Provence, it crosses the decorator Christian Bérard, Louis Jouvet, Pablo Casals, the dancer Serge Lifar. A world is revealed to her. Moreover, the representation of the Dream of a Summer Night Shakespeare in 1942, during the war, will be one of the great experiences that will feed his libertarian aspirations.

Marshal De Lattre de Tassigny

Very rise against the horrors of war, Edmonde Charles-Roux did not hesitate a moment to join the army at 18, as a nurse to go to protect his family. Despite his injuries at Verdun and terrifying visions of the battle field, the writer is part of the resistance and follows the Lattre De Tassigny Marshal throughout the campaign of France in his Staff. “I was lucky to come across exceptional men and, one might say, feminist,” she had told Point . “Shockingly free”, she also will mark his pants that she cut skirts.

Chanel

His encounter with the seamstress Coco Chanel in 1954 was decisive in the life of the writer. Symbol same insubordination, Coco Chanel was out of her condition to work and do what she wanted deeply. As Edmonde Charles-Roux. At the time journalist for Vogue , freshly arrived in Paris, his interview with the artist with nimble fingers, will complete his stature femme fatale. “You have a style, that of peasant Arles, do not move from that, do not cut your hair, leave these cretinous talk”, she had given him as counsel. For many years, Edmonde Charles-Roux endorse the same outfit: a Chanel suit adorned with a pearl necklace

Olympe de Gouges, Isabelle Eberhardt, Simone de Beauvoir .

Spiritual mentras. “I led a life which suggests that I consider that the woman is the equal of man, if not the future!” Exclaimed Edmonde Charles Roux in 2005. Feminist, free and rebellious woman The novelist has taken most of these great female destinies (especially it will publish a biography of the desert nomad Isabelle Eberhardt in 1988) that went against the tide. “To live is to say no” dare she, quoting Kafka.

Orson Welles, Paul Eluard, Colette, Giacometti, Derain, Jean Genet …

They all loved Vogue . Past giant fashion director at 30, Edmonde Charles-Roux has returned to his artistic origins. It thus rediscovers Jouvet and his writer friends like Paul Eluard and Jean Genet, but also giants of photography: Irving Penn, Cecil Beaton, Doisneau, Helmut Newton … As the illustrious Orson Welles which it will become a close. During this period the magazine, it is the intimate painters: poses for Derain, spends his afternoons with Giacometti and attended St. Lawrence. All will have a special aura on the journalist who already wrote a lot at the time (his book Forget Palermo earned him the Prix Goncourt in 1966).

Louis Aragon

The author of Elsa Eyes was crazy about her. He reads his books, praised in the French Letters , the walk to the festival Humanity . Louis Aragon would almost Edmonde Charles-Roux’s red princess. She vowed a genuine admiration for the author of Aurélien . “I was grabbed by this book, fascinated,” she had told L’Humanité . Louis Aragon meant a lot to the journalist who admired in him the pen and “being multiple.” “The Aragon I knew (my friend) in no way resembles the friend of other people I esteem, and who had, too, the best of Aragon, but on the other Aragon “.

Maurice Druon, François Mitterrand

” It was a man who had a deep love of knowledge, reading, quality of the French language, “said in 1996 Edmonde Charles-Roux about Mitterrand. She was very friendly with the politician (who will serve as his chaperone couple) and with the Gaullist Maurice Druon, for which she wrote with others, The Cursed Kings .

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