KESSEL (Joseph). [Le 14 juillet]. Autograph manuscript, signed on verso of last leaf, undated (1969). 9 leaves recto (13.5 x 21 cm), cut out, numbered. First draft manuscript, with erasures and corrections. Probably for an article. Fifty years after his first reportage, reporting on the first post-war parade on 14 July 1919, Kessel gives in this account his view of the young journalist he was, and in particular of that first article published on 15 July 1919 on the front page of the Journal des Débats under the title "Sous l'Arc de Triomphe" and signed J. K. "I ingenuously believed in the splendour and justice of armies. I felt intoxicated, duplicated". (f. 3). Kessel then recounts his panic when he realised he had to hand in his article without further ado: "Where to begin? How can I express such fervour, such grandeur?" (f. 4). And he concludes: "It has been said that I was the first journalist academician. This is not true. Others, welcomed before me under the dome, have published great and beautiful reports in newspapers. But if by journalist we mean an author who for 40 years has performed the acrobatics without a net that I have just described, then it is undoubtedly true" (f. 9).