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Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, January 25, 1924

Reparation Commission
General Secretariat
131, Champs-Élysées
Paris

Dearest Mildred.

Just a line in the middle of a hectic rush to tell you that Radiguet, the respected young author of “Le Diable au Corps” who died the other day was buried in white,The funeral took place on the morning of December 14, 1923; for the notice of the funeral, see Sidney Buckland, ed. and trans., Francis Poulenc: “Echo and Source”; Selected Correspondence, 1915–1963 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1991), 66 and 338 (letter no. 71). and that Cocteau was so much affected that he was unable to attend the funeral, and was called “Le veuf sur le toit”.In early 1923, Raymond Radiguet (1903–1923) published Le diable au corps (The Devil in the Flesh), a book about an adulterous relationship, possibly autobiographical, that was considered scandalous in France. Radiguet died on December 12, 1923, of typhoid fever, which he had contracted on a trip that he had taken with Jean Cocteau (1889–1963). The homosexual Cocteau, who had denied a romantic involvement with Radiguet, did not attend the funeral and was quickly labeled “Le veuf sur le toit” (the widower on the roof). See Dan Franck, Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Art, trans. Cynthia Hope Liebow (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 341.

Much love
R. T.

25.I.24Friday.

 
Associated Places: Paris (France)