“The events themselves are demanded as nourishment; if there is no great misfortune in the world this morning, we feel a certain emptiness.”
About Paul Valéry
30 October 1871–20 July 1945
In the autumn of 1871, as France was still reeling from the trauma of the Franco-Prussian War and the violent suppression of the Paris Commune, a child was born in the Mediterranean port town of Sète who would become one of the twentieth century's most formidable literary intellects. Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules…