KESSEL (Joseph). [Henri Guilbeaux]. Unsigned autograph manuscript. January 1933. 3 leaves in-8, 13.5 x 21 cm, handwritten on the front. Draft of an article (?) with erasures and additions. Trace of paperclip. "Traitor or martyr?" On the occasion of the resounding trial of Henri Guilbeaux (1884-1938), Kessel paints a self-indulgent portrait and recounts the career of the anarchist and Communist writer whom he had met in Berlin in March 1932, with the aim of breaking into the world of banditry (for a series of articles for Le Matin). Regarded as the "future French Lenin", Guilbeaux was in exile at the time after being sentenced to death in absentia in 1919 by the French War Council for high treason. "A man is going on trial this week (...). I met Guilbeaux for the first time in Berlin (...). I needed him to bring me up to date on a political situation I didn't know anything about (...) I was immediately interested by the extent (...) of his information"... Kessel goes on to describe his "acute intelligence", his "rare firmness", "an acute sense of political forces, an organic need to follow and judge events (...). He is fiercely, superbly convinced that he is right (...).