I haven’t any news from Editions Buchet Chastel, to which I wrote, moreover, to indicate to them that your address as it is mentioned in the Summons must be corrected.

I think that we must send them a Demand that says to them that you will present yourself at their offices, on a determined day, to take delivery of the stock of books[1] and immediately settle the matter. This alone, in my opinion, would oblige them to react on principle or on the price that I proposed to them in the Demand.

Are you in agreement on this idea?

Could you communicate to me the date on which you would be ready to appear at the headquarters of Editions Buchet Chastel?

Faithfully yours,

[1] Copies of Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, which Buchet Chastel published in 1967. After the publication of the book by Editions Champ Libre, Debord won a judgment against Buchet Chastel. See letter dated 31 December 1972.

The method that you have proposed to me to be done with Buchet is, no doubt, the most direct. If I myself show up on the rue de Condé to command the place, and if the enemy refuses me access to the stock of old paper that I claim to be buying from him,[1] it will very probably be him who will be ridiculous. I am not lacking the resources to maintain this quarrel among rag-and-bone sellers, and in a more up-to-date fashion: to occupy his offices at the head of a band of rowdy characters, to pitch my tent in his court, [and] to sacrifice a bonze.

Your scenario thus appears to me rigorous and pleasant, but unfortunately the role isn’t for me, principally because I will not be returning to Paris before December.

As a result, if it isn’t at present possible to resort to some more impersonal means of summons, delegation, proxy, etc., I would be brought to conclude, despite my very deep love for Editions Champ Libre, that it would be better to cease this persecution of the abusive Buchet.

[1] In accordance with a court order.

I have enclosed copies of my most recent exchange of letters with Guy Debord.

Don’t you think that, keeping his position in mind, the most simple thing would be if you bought his works through a wholesaler, with the biggest possible margin? After which Buchet Chastel would have to pay its share of the author’s royalties to Debord and he could ascertain that the stock was exhausted.

I am at your disposal to speak of this again.

To ask a wholesaler, on our behalf, to buy the stock of La Société du Spectacle held by Buchet seems to me a difficult commercial operation. Why don’t you employ the solution proposed by Guy Debord in the last paragraph of his letter of 8 June? If it doesn’t present any legal difficulty, it is the simplest and most effective way to make that scoundrel Buchet yield.

One can of course envision, but without any certainty concerning the results, a request for a legal administrator who would be tasked with supervising the purchase of the residual stock and, in any case, give all the information to him. But the judge who made the ruling might say to us that this supposes an interpretation of the Transactional Protocol that leaves to Buchet Chastel a certain amount of time to sell off its stock.

You would have to demonstrate to me, due to your own experience, that his sales are greater than yours (to which he will respond that one must take account of your own sales) and that Debord effectively suffers from a difficulty at the level of references in the publications at a completely different level (confusion of orders, etc.). Can you give me justifications of this kind?

Finally, it is obvious that this operation is becoming uselessly costly (beyond what the purchase of the stock by a wholesaler would cost).

If you want us to undertake this measure, you must send to me a check for 5,000 francs made out to CARPA.[1] After which you must envision a payment of 2,000 to 3,000 francs for the legal proxy possibly designated by the court.

Best wishes,

[1] Caisses des Règlements Pécuniaires des Avocats (Lawyers’ Bank for Monetary Settlements).

Enclosed you will find a copy of the letter that I sent to the attorney for Editions Buchet Chastel.[1]

This said, I think that it won’t be necessary to persist in demanding to be paid your author’s royalties or to have them deducted from the purchase price of the books.

If we really want to gain ownership of them, perhaps it might be necessary to put off this contentious point until later. What do you think? I ask Gérard Lebovici by also sending him a copy of my letter.

P.S. Enclosed you will find a circular that Editions Buchet Chastel asked me to give you.[2]

[1] Not included in the volume being translated here.

[2] Not included in the volume being translated here.

Seeing the list of your impertinences grow, I think that you – perhaps fearing that several of them weren’t understood – have sought to strengthen their quality through abundance. I can reassure you in this respect: I understand your intentions without difficulty – as I believe you know, thanks to my letter of 8 June – when you give, as the sole solution to the small problem posed by the Buchet affair, my direct participation in an attempt to remove a stock of books, and when you write to me care of Artmedia, though you have two of my personal addresses and that of my current publisher, as if I were an employee of Lebovici, who seems to obsess you.

If a [lawyer like] Berryer[1] addressed me in such an improper fashion, I would no doubt console myself by attributing your hostility to political passions. But you are only Kiejman, and thus, just as the motives for your hostility are inevitably more vulgar, your sentiments leave everyone indifferent, except on the professional plane, that is, at least as far as the affairs that one has confided in you.

And, if you knew how to write better, you would perhaps have the talent to brighten up your professional correspondence, without, for all that, causing you to lose all legal coherence and the appearance of good faith, by vigorously venting – here and there – your petty bitterness towards those who have more money than you, or more culture, or whatever it is? But these [outbursts] would only be responses outside the subject, clumsy sophisms, paralogisms of the government spokesperson, the insolences of a waiter. Your frequent pretentions to bursts of brilliance in illogic and incompetence do not even appear to be sincere, because I don’t believe that you possess these two qualities in any degree beyond the mediocre.

I suppose that you have not pushed your short-sightedness as far as estimating that you will keep the clients whom you treat in this way; it would assuredly would be more dignified if they refused the causes of it right away. Thus you will be relieved to learn that the pleasantries stop here. Please transmit to Lebovici the accounting of your fees, and the dossier concerning me to Champ Libre’s current attorney, who will be indicated to you.

[1] Perhaps Nicolas René Berryer (1703-1762) or Antoine Pierre Berryer (1790-1868).

As far as your activities with respect to Debord and Elisabeth Gruet,[1] I have nothing to add to what they have written to you. For me, this is [even] more serious, because it was on my advice that they contacted you.

For the rest, a humorist would amuse himself quite pleasantly if he could observe his own attorney plead against him through an interposed Ciliga.[2] In this circumstance, I must confess that, fortunately, I totally lack the traditional quality of the British mind that allows one to joyously appreciate such poor comedy.

Therefore, it would be better if our relations remain there.

P.S. You can transmit the Debord dossier to Thierry Lévy.

[1] An assistant director for Debord’s film In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (1978).

[2] A reference to Kiejman’s role in the “Ciliga problems.” See letters to and from UGE 10/18.

It is good to have the honor of being the addressee of [one of] your exercises in style.

To do justice to the letter dated 22 August, I will simply send to you a copy of your letter of 8 June 1977.

For the rest, I leave to you the responsibility for suggesting that I might have thought that you were Lebovici’s employee. I have not thought so. I am sure that he would have the courage to insult me himself.

You invite me to address to him the accounting of my fees. This isn’t a duty for me. You ask me to address your dossier to the attorney that he will indicate to me. This will be done.

(Published in Editions Champ Libre, Correspondance, Vol. 1, Editions Champ Libre, Paris, 1978. Translated from the French and footnoted by NOT BORED! June 2012.)