Guillaume APOLLINAIRE. autograph manuscript, Récit de ma dét - Lot 8

Guillaume APOLLINAIRE. autograph manuscript, Récit de ma détention à la Prison de la Santé, [September 1911]; 1 page and a half small in-4 (22 x 17 cm) on a sheet of lined paper torn from a notebook (edges frayed with tears). Account of his arrest and imprisonment at La Santé. "When the examining magistrate, Mr. Drioux, declared that I was charged with complicity in theft by receiving stolen goods, I was taken to the security inspectors' guardroom, where Messrs. Hamard Robert and a young man who was secretary to the chief of security came to pick me up and put me in a car to search my home. During the journey, these gentlemen were charming. [At home, I changed my flannel and shirt, prepared three false collars and a few handkerchiefs. The gentlemen were all kind enough to pay me a few compliments on my interior and limited the search to a summary search of the Piéret letters I had collected. [The car took me back to the prefecture, where I was entrusted to Mr. Soubeyran, inspector, a good man from Tarascon, who pitied me and consoled me with his optimism and cheerfulness. I had a light supper in the guardroom, washed down with a little wine and a little cider with ice, which did me good. Then Mr Soubeyran, another young inspector and I walked to the tobacconist's on Boulevard St Michel. I was able to buy matches, cigarette paper, a comb and soap. We took a carriage to the gate of the Santé prison. Two guards stood at the door and the heavy gate swung open. Inside, the uniforms of the prison guards gave me a sinister impression. M. Soubeyran hands me a clerk. Just then, in the sadly lit corridors, there's a thud of footsteps and rifles from the municipal guard patrol. It's ten o'clock in the evening. Various noises come from the street, but the corridors are silent and I forget the happy impression I'd had of the prison courtyard full of climbing plants. The corridors where the clerk and I go are innumerable. Then, several summary interrogations. [ ] I was given sheets, a blanket and a large linen shirt with a blue stripe down the seams. Then the clerk hands me over to another guard who takes me to cell 15 of the 11 th division, opens it and leaves me there, telling me to wait. Another guard arrives who questions me again and brusquely tells me to undress. He leaves me with only my underpants and flannel, hands me my pipe, matches and tobacco, and locks me in the cell, which is spacious. I've been dozing without sleeping, the electric light hits me in the face, this light looks like filth falling on me. Hallway noises, muffled footsteps, patrols. And in the morning, with daylight, the gloomy light fades." Apollinaire exhibition, Bibliothèque nationale, 1969, no. 260. Album Apollinaire (Pléiade 1971), p. 156-157