COLETTE (Sidonie Gabrielle). - Lot 72

COLETTE (Sidonie Gabrielle). 1873–1954. Born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye. Novelist. Autograph letter signed “Colette de Jouvenel” to a lady. [Paris] 9 Bd Suchet, undated (World War I, from 1916 onward). 1 folio page. Slate-colored paper. Colette received a note from her husband: ...He has been granted an unexpected 48-hour leave and is leaving on Sunday. “I find myself in a bit of a bind,” she continues, “having arranged to meet Mrs. Lota Besnard on Saturday, though I don’t know her address. Might I call upon your extreme kindness? Would she be willing to come on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.?”... In 1914, Colette was 40 years old and divorced from Willy, her first husband. The days of *Claudine* were over. Colette was now writing columns for *Le Matin*, whose editor-in-chief, Henri de Jouvenel, had become her husband in 1912. Mobilized in 1914, Jouvenel was sent to Verdun. After the men were mobilized, Colette wrote about the women who were working and the wounded in the capital, which had been deserted by its inhabitants. In 1915, she went to see Henri de Jouvenel in Verdun and ventured a little further into the Argonne region. She brought back war reports for *Le Matin*, which were published in *Les Heures Longues* in 1917. La République, L’Éclair, La Vie parisienne, Marie-Claire, and Paris-Soir all sought Colette’s byline. She even published in Le Figaro. Colette left an exceptional account of life on the home front in a collection titled *La chambre éclairée*, published in 1922, which brings together texts that appeared in the press between 1917 and 1918.In November 1916, Colette had moved to 69 Boulevard Suchet, into a house that had belonged to the actress Ève Lavallière.