Jacques Doucet (1853-1929) : great fashion designer and art lover
A great tailor, Jacques Doucet is at the origin of one of the first French haute couture houses. His activity at the time and his reputation allowed him to build up a first collection in the field of art and archaeology between 1896 and 1912. He gave his entire art history library to the University of Paris in 1917, which became the art and archaeology library, now attached to the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA).
A certain interest in literature
Jacques Doucet was one of the greatest patrons and collectors of his time. After building up his art library, he assembled an exceptional literary library between 1916 and 1929. His aim was to bring together both completed works and rare editions as well as any element that would allow us to follow the formation and development of written work. This includes manuscripts, corrected proofs, or the author’s correspondences, for example. Blaise Cendrars describes this collection as the fruit of a “manuscript relationship between Jacques Doucet” and the writers he surrounded himself with, as diverse as André Suarès, Pierre Reverdy, Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire, Raymond Radiguet, André Breton, Louis Aragon and Robert Desnos.
The initiator of this new collection was André Suarès, whom Jacques Doucet met at the home of a mutual friend in February 1913. He established a regular correspondence with him in exchange for a pension. He thus increased his collection with commissioned documents: Jacques Doucet paid authors to comment on their own works and the literary production of their time.
The constitution of a new collection
In July 1914, André Suarès suggested that Doucet set up a "Montaigne-style bookstore". He set about fulfilling the suggestion in 1916, asking Suarès to further recommend authors who should appear in his library "apart from the quartet that already comprised it" (Claudel, Gide, Jammes, Suarès, to whom he added Valéry). Thus, "by going back to the source so that the collection has all its spiritual value", the library was built around the idea of modernity, supported by its precursors such as Baudelaire, Nerval, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Rimbaud and Huysmans, Jarry, Saint-Pol Roux, Paul Fort, Pierre Louÿs, Marcel Schwob.
Jacques Doucet came into contact, through his bookseller Camille Bloch, with the young writers of the Esprit nouveau whom he supported in exchange for letters of reflection on the artistic and literary movements of the time. Doucet financed Pierre Reverdy’s review, Nord Sud ; he financed Max Jacob from whom he received the manuscript of Cornet à dés ; Blaise Cendrars offered him the Prose du Transsibérien, the manuscript and the corrected proofs of Pâques. From Guillaume Apollinaire, he acquired the manuscripts of poems from Alcools, Bestiaire, Le Poète meurtre, a copy of the rare booklet Case d’Armons, published with makeshift means in the trenches, “in the armies of the Republic”.
The literary library
In December 1920, Doucet met André Breton, whom he immediately took on as an artistic and literary correspondent before hiring him as his official librarian the following summer. Louis Aragon joined him at the beginning of 1922. In 1925, André Suarès' friend, Marie Dormoy, succeeded André Breton as librarian. Their role was decisive in the orientation of the library, installed next to Jacques Doucet's house, at 2 rue de Noisiel.
Their objective was both to complete the collection put together at Suarès' initiative and to enrich it with everything that mattered in the literary creation that was taking shape. Doucet financed the journal Littérature, and commissioned Louis Aragon to write a Projet d'histoire de la littérature contemporaine. He met their Dadaist friends and the future Surrealists, Tristan Tzara, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Francis Picabia, Paul Eluard, Michel Leiris and Robert Desnos, who would be his last literary advisor. Robert Desnos is at the origin of the rich documentary collection on Surrealism, consisting of tracts, catalogues and various magazines.
From a private to public library
Jacques Doucet wanted to give future generations of readers and researchers a working tool that was essential for understanding of the literary history of his time. When he died in 1929, the library was bequeathed to the University of Paris and became a public library. It is now administered by the Chancellery of the Universities of Paris. In 1932, the library was transferred to 10 Place du Panthéon in a room in the Reserve of the Sainte-Geneviève Library. Marie Dormoy was responsible for it until 1956: she organized exhibitions and continued to enrich the collections. For example, she was responsible for the entry of the Gide and Léautaud collections.
A perpetual enrichment of the collection
His successors also followed the spirit inherited from Jacques Doucet. François Chapon, librarian from 1956, became director from 1988 to 1994. The collections then saw the entry of the collections of Mallarmé, Reverdy, Breton, Char, Tzara, Leiris, Desnos, Eluard, Péret, Ribemont-Dessaignes, Valéry, Suarès, Mauriac, Malraux, Louise de Vilmorin, Adrienne Monnier, Marcel 
Arland, Rose Adler, Henri Calet, René Clair, Derain, Marie Laurencin, André Frénaud, Marie Noël, Supervielle, Francis Ponge, Marcel Jouhandeau, Saint-Pol-Roux, Louis Pergaud, Rachilde.
The extension of the premises at 8 Place du Panthéon made it possible to reconstruct the offices of Henri Mondor, Michel Leiris, Paul Valéry and Henri Bergson with their furniture and elements of their familiar decor.
The collections have therefore continued to grow. They are also open to the archives of publishers and book artists. The Breton collection has been significantly enriched by the purchases made during the sale in 2003 of the collections at 42 Rue Fontaine, supplemented by donations from Aube Elléouët-Breton. Archives of writers, philosophers and researchers are included in the collections: Cioran, Vercors, Ghérasim Luca, Jacques Dupin, Bernard Noël, Paul Bénichou, Jean Delay, Robert Pinget, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Tortel, Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange, Louis-Paul Guigues, Pierre Oster, Pierre Humbourg, Pierre Klossowski, Claude Simon, Claude Roy, Bernard Vargaftig, Pierre Lartigue, Salah Stetié, then André Du Bouchet, Roger Munier, Ilse and Pierre Garnier, Jean Echenoz, Marcelin Pleynet - with the archives of the Tel quel magazine -, Alexandre Vialatte.
A new administration
In the fall of 2022, what has become known as the "Doucet affair" broke out: disappearances noted internally led to a complaint being filed by the library's supervisory authority. A personal tragedy followed the publication of a damaging press article. The library was then subject to an administrative closure for almost a year and put under a provisional administration, ensured by the IGESR (General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research) until April 30, 2024. The team, completely renewed, carried out a complete inventory of the collections. The library was reopened in September 2023.
The scientific and cultural project of the library is being redefined and new acquisitions are resuming: corrected proofs of The Assassinated Poet by Guillaume Apollinaire, correspondences from the philosopher Henri Bergson have been purchased; The Hungarian typographer, writer and publisher Paul Nagy donated his archives, and other collections continue to be enriched, such as those of Bernard Noël, André Breton and Max Jacob.
Bibliography
- André Suarès et Jacques Doucet, Le Condottiere et le magicien : correspondance choisie, établie et préfacée par François Chapon. Paris : Julliard, 1994.
- François Chapon, Jacques Doucet ou l'art du mécénat : 1853-1929. Paris : Perrin, 1996.
- François Chapon, C'était Jacques Doucet. Paris : Fayard, 2006.
- La Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet : archives de la modernité. Actes du Colloque tenue en Sorbonne les 5,6 et 7 février 2004. Textes réunis et présentés par Michel Collot, Yves Peyré et Maryse Vassevière. Paris : Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle - Les Éditions des Cendres, 2007.
- Édouard Graham. Les écrivains de Jacques Doucet. Paris : Éditions des Cendres, 2011.