He was born in January 1919. It was a war child. Don’t forget it. He died on December 29, 2000. The time was quickly buried. He will come back. Jacques Laurent was a French writer ; very French. He loved the style, the freedom, the Seventeenth century, The Three Musketeers and Stendhal ; he also loved women, the whiskey, the action.

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He never hated not cross swords with the most powerful than him: Sartre, Mauriac, de Gaulle. Bright, proud, of acute intelligence, he never would have come up with the idea to stoop to attacking an opponent considered to be poor. Of those that Bernard Frank, former secretary of jean-paul Sartre, who saw them as in a mirror, described as “Hussars”, he was the one whose temperament was the most spirited. Nimier was sparks, Blondin flips, DĂ©on was the death of the soul. Contrary to the legend, these four not formed never band. But they had in common the feeling, unbearable, the end of a civilization.

Student, Jacques Laurent devour Action française daily vogue or reign insubordination, and whose feathers, Bainville to Daudet, appeal well beyond that of a public monarchist. The German rearmament is denounced tirelessly. In vain. In 1939, the war broke out. It is already lost. The blow is harsh. The young student is sent to keep the line of demarcation where there is nothing going on. He began his first novel. He already has the title: The Body quiet . After a stop in Vichy, the Liberation of the shakes. Interned for a few months, released without charges, he published his first polar under a pseudonym, The Death-to-drink .

The triumph of Cecil Saint Laurent With Martine Carol, who embodied the heroine of his novel “Caroline ChĂ©rie” at the cinema STF/AFP

Adept strokes, fascinated by its ease and its historical culture, his publisher friend, Charles FrĂ©manger, commissioned a best-seller in the u.s., on the model of gone with the wind Margaret Mitchell, or d’ Amber by Kathleen Windsor. The young man embarks upon them and dictates, such as Napoleon, the hundreds of pages of Caroline ChĂ©rie . The book, whose French Revolution is the backdrop, and seems to be the beginning of 1948, under the pseudonym Cecil Saint Laurent. In a few months, it is a triumph. An author is born, which will ensure his double fortune, glory and success worldly.

It conquers all, the cinema, where Martine Carol embodies his heroine, the press – he launched a literary journal, The Paris – the circles of paris. Other titles will follow, more lazy, The Whims of Carolina , The Son of Caroline chĂ©rie , remarkable Hortense 14-18 or first Name Clotilde which the action takes place in the France of the Occupation.

at the same time, Jacques Laurent made an entry, unobtrusive, on the literary scene. In January 1949, and seems to be The Body quiet , mind-blowing spiritual testament of a teenager mingling in a building heterogeneous adventures, sentimental, reflections on the currents of thought, events from the police, the memories of childhood. This “novel of dazzling” according to the critic, Robert Kanters goes completely unnoticed. Celebrated as much as ignored, Jacques Laurent multiplies the articles, advocated the release launches himself into the controversy with Paul and Jean-Paul , a pamphlet in which he compares the pope of the intelligentsia, Jean-Paul Sartre in a very conformist Paul Bourget. Lèse majestĂ© laws which outrage the faithful. The insolent recidivism by publishing in 1954, a short story, in the style simple and classic, The Little Duck , in which a young man engages in the LVF out of spite in love.

French Algeria, and The History of unforeseen below female

Mixing genres, multiplying pseudonyms, parading in a nice car, Jacques Laurent alias CĂ©cil Saint-Laurent, annoys his contemporaries. But the Story brings us back to the tragedy. Special envoy of The Dawn , CĂ©cil Saint-Laurent has published a series of reports on the Algeria war. Takes up the cause of French Algeria. Las, the empire collapses. There will leave its last illusions, novels – The Restless of Algiers -, countless glasses of whiskey and empty a pamphlet signed James Lawrence – Mauriac sous de Gaulle – in which the author settles accounts with two major, major figures in the decolonization. The pamphlet earned him a trial, and a conviction.

” READ ALSO – Mauriac sous de Gaulle, the offensive

Jacques Laurent received the prize for Heart steering Wheel for “The Communarde” in may 1971, he was congratulated by the dancer Janine Charrat and actress Daniele Evenou. Rue des Archives/© Rue des Archives/AGIP

At the end of the 1960s, CĂ©cil Saint Laurent released a History of unforeseen below female , Jacques Laurent flies to Vietnam. Against the current, he published an essay in which he predicted the future dark. Once again, the story leaves it on the tile. After a long eclipse, the novelist makes its return with a thick book, in part autobiographical and largely “picaresque”, written on the table of Lipp, Nonsense . The novel gets the Goncourt. This time, James has taken over the CĂ©cil. A few years later, History selfish , magnificent picture of a young man in the century, chronicles brilliantly his intellectual itinerary. Little by little, the left would forgive him. It becomes tolerable ; better, searched.
In the Novel the novel , he defends the freedom of the novelist, in The naked clothed and naked , with a nod to the late Cecil. In 1982, he published The fuzzy subsets , a novel tray in which a director fifty-year-old hand to go round the world before dying in the plane of the back, seated between two women.

He was elected to the French Academy on June 26, 1986, to the chair 15, succeeding Fernand Braudel. Rue des Archives/Credit ©Rue des Archives/AGIP

there is always a little bit of himself in his writings. And then, more lightweight, Les Dimanches de Mademoiselle Beaunon . Finally, after having paid tribute in the Stendhal as Stendhal , to his old friend, he presents himself to the French Academy. Surrender? It is a “place of civilization”, pleaded he. Elected in June 1986, he burned a cat on his sword, but refuses the Legion of Honour, it had not been considered to deserve.

” READ ALSO – When Jacques Laurent smashed Camus

Surrounded by praise, private opponents of his size, Jacques Laurent publishes some novels, The Mirror to the drawers , The Unknown of the passing of time , trial, The lie . Then he pulls his reverence, indomitable to the end.