COCTEAU Jean Autograph MANUSCRIT signed "Jean Cocteau", Paroles en l'air,[1948]; 35 pages in-4 in night blue ink and blue ballpoint pen on letterhead from the Maison du Bailli in Milly. Complete manuscript of a conference on France and the French spirit, reused in the Letter to the Americans. The original title of this conference, deleted and replaced by Words in the Air, was Reflections on France. It is likely that this conference, written in 1948 (the date is given on p. 15: "I know well that in 1948"...), was given to be delivered in New York, where Cocteau left at the end of December to present his film The Two-headed Eagle; on the plane home, during the night of 12 to 13 January 1949, he wrote the Letter to the Americans (Grasset, 1949), where this conference is almost entirely reused (pp. 92-104 in Volume II of Critical Poetry). The actual text of the conference, paginated from 1 to[30], is preceded by 5 un-paginated introductory pages: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Before you take the floor"..., with an indication of a text by Baudelaire to be read in the introduction (not copied), with a brief commentary on Baudelaire and Edgar Poe. These pages are an exciting and brilliant reflection on the uniqueness of France, crossed by anecdotes, digressions, personal memories. Cocteau explains and justifies this: "I know the grievance that is opposed to texts such as the one I am reading to you. They are blamed for the lack of gravity. But I fear the air of gravity. I don't think anything can be and look like it. I fear the man who wants to be serious with all his strength and whose blood is freezing instead of circulating joyfully. I like to be exposed. I like that we don't confuse what is serious and what is boring"... From the outset, Cocteau points out what is for him the characteristic feature of his country: "The great French tradition is a tradition of anarchy. It is the most solid of all. Disorder allows France to live as order is es