Nov 26 Sat.

To Paris at 2.30 am
Laura decided to come, though she had no prelimin[RG]ary sleep as I & Beryl & David had. M. [Monsieur] Priour drove us. We had rugs, cigarettes & a bottle of Calvados1. It blew and rained violently all the way. We stopped for breakfast at a village inn, but it stank so and was so filthy and night-before-lastish that we only had coffee & went straight on to Paris. We went by Laval, Le Mans, Chartres2. At Le Mans saw a tall man running in the rain: he was le mans to us. At 9.30 arrived at the outskirts where Priour wanted to put us down and let us go on by taxi. However, we went on to Café Bel-Air a Breton Café and freshened up. Then we[RG] went to 66 rue Mirò Mesnil3 where Miss Nernie should have been. I was there all day waiting: she sent an unintelligible wire from the boat. It appears that instead of going the quickest way she had gone by Havre, so as not to arrive in Paris too early. The boat had not sailed until next morning. At 5.30 she arrived & I had signed the T.E. sheets by 7. But they will not go off till [until] Tuesday after all. Oh, I had had lunch with the others & Joyce Reeves at the Du Quesclin in Montparnasse4. Beryl spent the morning with Cecily Scott, an Oxford friend married to the Paris D. [Daily] Express correspondent & had champagne. Denise Clairouin the literary agent in whose office in Miro Mesnil5 I spent the day was very hospitable & a very good person I thought. For a moment I also saw Jewel (?) one of[RG] Morrow6's people. Laura bought me a blue scarf & we got cakes for David & a candlestick for Dorothy.

Editorial Notes

1liqueuer eds.
2French cities eds.
3Miromesnil Street, Paris eds.
4district of Paris eds.
5Miromesnil Street eds.
6U.S. Publisher KG

Hands Referenced

    • Annotation: ink correction
    • Character: regular
    • Ink: black

Places Mentioned

  • Oxford

    England
    home of Oxford University eds.

  • Paris

    France

  • Havre

    Le Havre, France

People Mentioned

  • David Reeves

    Reeves, David
    Brother of James Reeves [and Ethel Herdman] RPG 292.

  • Laura

    Riding, Laura
    (1901-91) American poet. Laura Riding (née Reichenthal; then Laura Gottschalk).

  • Dorothy

    Simmons, Dorothy
    Sculptor associated with the Graves-Riding inner circle (1938-39). Married to Montague Simmons. eds

  • T.E.

    Lawrence, T. E.
    'Lawrence of Arabia.' Met Robert in Oxford in the early twenties. Made Robert his biographer and had him write "Lawrence and the Arabs." WG

  • Beryl

    Pritchard, Beryl
    daughter of Harry and Amy Pritchard, R.G.'s second wife. Formerly married to Alan Hodge. Robert and Beryl had four children: William, Lucia, Juan and Tomas. eds

  • Priour

    Priour, Monsieur
    a character associated with activities around La Chevrie: apparently he was proprietor of the local café (diary Nov. 26, 1938). eds.

  • Miss Nernie

    Nernie, Miss
    Associated with A.S. Watt publishing of T.E. Lawrence Biography eds.

  • Joyce Reeves

    Reeves, Joyce
    Sister of James Reeves. AMG 287.