ZOLA Émile [Paris, 1840 - id., 1902], French writer. - Lot 143

ZOLA Émile [Paris, 1840 - id., 1902], French writer. Autograph manuscript signed. Undated [1892]; 11 1/4 pages in-4°. [Discours sur la tombe de Léon Cladel]. This manuscript, which contains erasures and corrections and was used for printing, is the text of the speech Zola delivered on behalf of the Société des Gens de Lettres at the tomb of the writer Léon Cladel. A friend of Baudelaire, who prefaced his Martyrs ridicules (1862), Cladel achieved notoriety when he published his novel series Mes Paysans, depicting the mores of his native Quercy, and was hailed by Barbey d'Aurevilly as "un rural écarlate". Zola, in this eulogy, while lamenting the fact that Cladel's work did not reach a wider audience (Cladel was in fact better known in Belgium than in France), praises his selflessness, his cult of art, and above all his profound human qualities. "During the thirty years of his hard and glorious work, he remained faithful to the land from which he had emerged, loving the humble and suffering people he had rubbed shoulders with in his youth. His favorite heroes are the down-and-outs of the fields and cities, all those crushed by social life; they are also the simple, the great and the tender, whose every hour in the battle of existence is a heroism [...]. It should not be forgotten that he had illustrious friendships. He was on a first-name basis with Gambetta, and could, like so many others in the aftermath of the conquest, have claimed his share. But, as a clumsy man who held his convictions dear, he chose the very day when his all-powerful friend was the master to get angry. He never took the side of the handle, never was there when the sweet rain of rewards and sinecures began [...]. Cladel only wanted to be, and was, a writer. Only, for him, being a writer demanded a superhuman amount of effort, a lifetime of conscience and relentless work, for he had made of style an idea of high perfection bristling with such difficulties to overcome, that he agonized over it." This literary ideal is close to Flaubert's: "In Flaubert, I experienced the torment of beautiful, sonorous, perfect and definitive prose. There is none more torturous or delicious. And it's becoming a great and superb example, in these days of slapdash prose, hasty journalism, articles crudely produced on table corners. The worst thing is that such noble labor is almost never rewarded during the writer's lifetime. These works, so meticulous, so deliberate, are not easily penetrated by the crowd. Their beauty needs initiation, and they remain the cult of an elite. That's why Cladel didn't enjoy the resounding success and acclaim of Paris, so quick to fall in love. I don't think he suffered for it, because his heart was strong and high. He develops these ideas, and praises Cladel as one of the most personal and probing writers of the second half of this century. A fine tribute to Léon Cladel.