As you thought, I have not believed a word of the stupid allegations made by the press, which is eager for the most unhealthy sensations, when it pleased the other day to impute to you -- with the thoughtlessness and falsifying rage that one has known about for so long -- an improbably series of heinous crimes.
Truly, this time the priests exaggerate: swindling? bankruptcy? And why not, while they are at it, arson, incitement to murder or attack on the security of the state? To soil [the reputations of] the most extreme revolutionaries, one begins with such nonsense and then, imperceptibly, one comes to more frightening calumnies, according to which they also practice theft from bookstores, seditious mobs, indelicacies in matters of artistic propriety, up to debauchery!
The futility of such accusations makes one smile. Who will they make believe that there even exists "legislation on construction"?[2] A single glance at what one constructs these days would instantly dissipate this sophistry. As far as the rest, one can respond, with one's head held high, that the most spectacularly maladroit swindling reigns in Paris as in Washington, Moscow and Peking; and that there is no other bankruptcy than that of the Old World in its totality.
Be sure that I keep my esteem for you and that I would loudly propose to come to the court as a witness for your morality -- so that diverse rumors, without any foundation and forged from many pieces on all subjects by I do not know which adversaries, sectarian or jealous, do not also circulate with respect to me. . . . Let us move on: the most severe innocence is unfortunately not the shield against unjust suspicions in troubled times.
See you soon,[1] Translator's note: a member of the Libertarian Group of Menilmontant in 1967, Jacques Le Glou was also part of the Council for Maintaining the Occupations during May 1968. Debord's first letter to him was dated 11 October 1967.
[2] The domestic company, Maisons sur mesure, went bankrupt after investing in construction materials that were too costly.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 5: Janvier 1973-Decembre 1978 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2005. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! March 2007. Footnotes by Alice Debord, except where noted.)