BRETON André - Lot 71

BRETON André AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED to René ALLEAU. Paris, September 16, 1957. 2 pages in-4 in ink. Letter concerning objections raised by Surrealists to René Alleau's text "La Nef et la ville". Numerous erasures and corrections. René Alleau, author of numerous works on symbolism and alchemy, was close to André Breton. "It costs me a lot to have to tell you that "La Nef et la ville" raises serious objections from those of our friends who share with me the responsibility for the magazine's general tendencies"... ... "The main objection to this first part of Paris symbolique is that, in broadly corroborating the arguments of "right-wing" historians, it seems to testify to a position at odds with that of Surrealism from its very beginnings"... Page 4: "Beheading a king is one thing, defiling the heart of a nation is quite another". Despite the ambiguity of the sentence, the context suggests that they are one and the same thing, as inseparable as the obverse and reverse of a coin"... Page 5: "Paris is...the earthly sanctuary of the human soul" - such a statement, which defies the inevitable accusation of nationalism, is bound to be a stunner in a surrealist magazine"... Provenance: - André Breton sale no. 2447