Jacques Burrs

Jacques Burrs (Barbezieux, January 2nd, 1884 in literature - the Hoop-on-Seine, May 29th, 1968 in literature), of his true name Jacques Boutelleau , is a writer French. Of a family of traders of cognac, his/her father Georges Boutelleau was itself writer. His/her mother, Quaker of American ascent, was one of the heiresses of the porcelains Haviland of Limoges. Its pseudonym originates in the commune of Chardonne in Switzerland where it remained and wrote a certain time.

It was a directing time of the Bookstore Delamain (Stock, Delamain and Boutelleau) belonging today to the group Gallimard.

Under the Occupation

Culturally germanophile, it takes part, in October 1941, with other French writers such Pierre Drieu La Rochelle and Robert Brasillach, with the voyage in Germany for the Congrès of the European Writers of Weimar. It takes part in a second voyage in 1942, always with Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The German sculptor Arno Breker, come to expose its works to Paris in 1942, called of him that it “ was always opened with the German spirit ” and that it had courage “ to see, behind the soldier which entered to Paris, the partner of tomorrow ”.

With the Release, it feared to be shot for its Vichyist engagement. Decree (like its editor Bernard Grasset) the September 12th 1944 with Jarnac, it will be led to the prison of Cognac where it will remain during a few weeks and will cotoiera some notable, before being placed under house arrest. Its books will be prohibited of sale and manufacture. It will profit from a withdrawal of case.

Its work

Regarded as an author “of right-hand side”, he is the spiritual father of those which one called Hussards “”, the writers Roger Nimier, Jacques Laurent, Antoine Blondin.

He also forms part of “the school of Barbezieux” with Genevieve Fauconnier, Henri Fauconnier, Maurice Delamain, Jacques Delamain, Germaine Boutelleau without this “geographical” group sharing the same sights.

As of its first book, the epithalamium (1921), it appears like a novelist of the couple. Come then Varais (1929), then Eva (1930) and Claire (1931). It offers with smoothness, as a novelist and moralist, of descriptions melancholic persons in the love of nearest the (1932).

Author of some: 20000 letters, those on graph paper are sincere, while in those on blank paper, he lied. His/her friends knew this convention.

François Mitterrand expressed on several occasions its admiration for Chardonne.

the love, it is much more than the love (1937)

Extracted : In Charente, spring starts with the branches of the willow and the birch with flakes of wadding or the pendeloques ones of velvet. On the slopes, one cuts the vine, one plows. Ground turned over watch its mixture: argillaceous ground frays of sand where the plow seems to leave in the furrows coldly open a steel reflection, calcareous ground which appear desiccated always a little, brittle grounds reddish, ground which fade with the sun with a bluish tone, or which keeps in moisture like a bottom of suie.

the happiness of Barbezieux (1938)

Extracted : But initially, I want to re-examine my country… Very of a blow, the sight is immense and discovers chalky peaks gently inflected, as modelled, attenuated by a long work, and, further still, of the blue undulations that the horizon dilutes. The walnut trees, bouquets of foliages piqués in the vines, the fields and their colors of old tapestry, the poplars in the hollows have I do not know what of low register under the consistent light of October. Among so much amenity one feels to sting the ground of chalk and like the nudity of the close winter. Nothing strikes initially, even the light, in this country without picturesque, at the same time green and a little desert, smiling and infinitely sad, where the invisible man if is mixed with the ground. But it is not the feeling of a secret beauty, invented a little later which I like it is the certainty of a real beauty guaranteed by its exquisite destitution. It is seized only by one long knowledge and a kind of amitié.

I was born in a small town where I lived a long time, but I was unaware of that it was a small town, one of these deadened villages, which makes pity with Parisian when it crosses them by car. It appeared vast to me, provided well and very animée.

the Summer with Maurie (1940)

This text appears in the New French Review , n°322 of December 1940. The author shows a Charente-native peasant there offering a cognac to a German officer and saying to him: “I would like to have better invited to you but… I offer it to you good heart. ” Text that Jean Paulhan will find contemptible and whose Jean Guéhenno will say that it touches with sublime slavish flattery.

Works (selection)

the Epithalamium (1921)
Claire (1931)
the sentimental Destinies (1934 - 1936)
the love, it is much more than the love (1937 - 1957)
Romanesques (1937)
Happiness of Barbezieux (1938)

On the author

Ginette Guitard-Auviste, Burrs , Olivier Orban, 1983.
pol. Vandromme, Chardonne, it is much more than Chardonne , Editions of the Rock, 2003.

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