Yves Madec professeur de collège
Yves Madec, College Professor
Brenn
A NEW JEAN COSTE
I see that the authors for whom I work as manager must forgive me a great deal these fortnights; I have not even produced the cahier on denunciation at the League of the Rights of Man as Bougle imagined it; and here today I break my word to our new collaborator Brenn.
He had asked me to present Yves Madec to the public of the cahiers; I had formally promised him; I am unable to keep my promise.
To present was not the word; such a work presents itself; in reality I proposed, on the contrary, and insidiously, to present myself in the company of Brenn; I could not find better company; I proposed, leaning on this fragment of reality that is Yves Madec, to say a little of all there would be to say about the college, about education in the college, about secondary education, about small towns, about arrondissements, about arrondissement capitals, about politics in arrondissement capitals, about local life, about local People’s Universities, about local sections of the French League for the Defense of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, about university life, about primary and secondary education, in short about all the questions treated in this novel.
It was an infinite commentary; I am not in a position even to begin it; the preceding cahiers, which were considerable, and this one, which is even more considerable, have put me far behind; I foresee that the end of the series will be no less heavy; I can see six enormous cahiers coming; I see myself at the head of fifteen or eighteen hundred pages of proofs, as they are called, to correct; if then I am permitted, we shall take advantage of the fact that these fifteen or eighteen hundred pages forbid me to write somewhat fully for three months to bring up to date a certain number of works that have remained in abeyance.
Asking our subscribers as an author for this three-month leave, I shall be able to devote these three months entirely to the duties of my management; I must ensure the manufacture of enormous cahiers; I shall try to bring my correspondence up to date, which is enormously behind, as my correspondents know; finally the time has come to proceed with a reinstallation, the definitive installation of our cahiers.
I do not hesitate to declare that the cahier one is about to read is a new Jean Coste; I mean that it is for the life of the college professor exactly what Jean Coste was for the life of the village schoolteacher.
With one reservation: Jean Coste, we have said, represented a true story of exception, but representative.
We published in our previous editions and in our first five series, 1900-1904, so great a number of cahiers of literature — short stories, novels, dramas, dialogues, poems and tales — so great a number of cahiers of history and philosophy; and these cahiers of literature, history and philosophy were so considerable that we cannot think of giving here even the most succinct statement of them; to know what has appeared in the first five series of the cahiers, it suffices to send a money order for five francs to M. Andre Bourgeois, administrator of the cahiers, 8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor, Paris, fifth arrondissement; one will receive in return the brief analytical catalogue, 1900-1904, of our first five series.