François Mitterrand – Autograph Letter Signed To Catherine Langeais

Autograph letter signed to Marie-Louise Terrasse, known as Catherine Langeais. (Fort d’Ivry), November 15, 1938; 4 pages in-8°.
Superb love letter from François Mitterrand, then a young loser at Fort d'Ivry, who pours out his love passion with his young fiancée and projects himself into his future life as a married man: "My darling fiancée, Forgive me if I'm not much of a talker, it's not that I don't have anything to tell you! But I'm tired and have been dragging myself since this morning. If my external mood is affected, the internal one does not move! And I love you just as much. My beloved, I am so happy to see you! Yesterday I was angry with myself for agreeing not to meet you. A lost opportunity costs me too much. And I'm not willing to give up anything. When I say nothing to you and I put on a closed air, understand that this in no way affects the love I have for you. But I admitted it to you, I'm quite moody! I will make your life very difficult, my darling! And yet, there is a remedy: your smile. I promise you that with such a weapon you can do anything for and against me! And I hope you will always use it. My little girl whom I adore, I think more every day about the future that we must build. Material side and spiritual side. And I know that I love you so much that I can't help but be happy with you. It's very boring to be condemned to happiness like this! And then time flies! The moments I spend near you, my fiancée, are so quick, but the memory they leave in me is so tenacious that the balance is easily established with the moments when I suffer from being far from you but who are forgotten so joyfully! I already live with you, in spirit, perpetually. My thoughts are continually linked to the last moment I lived against you, and to the next moment when I will again press you against me. My beloved, what amount of happiness I owe you! You taught me to believe in everything I love. My most precious possession, you cannot imagine the determination, patience and will I will put into keeping you very much my own. I could not create in my mind a life where you would not have first place, and even all the place, without fear! Also my strength is great now that I am sure of having you with me. To experience the same joys and the same sorrows as you. My Marie-Louise, I promise you that you will never have to regret your words and your gift. We must both live in beauty. You know that I don't draw a line between the present and the future. When you are my wife, everything will not be over. We will still have to taste life as it is: life which does not stop. But you and I, how could we stop loving each other, and living for each other? My darling, later I will meet you again, and I am impatiently awaiting this moment. Ah, words are not enough to express the need I have for you, the desire I have to recognize my almost ripe sin! When you have read this letter you will think of me for at least a minute, and you will answer me, I will wait for this answer tomorrow. You will write to me that you love me. And then, whatever happens, know that our love is indestructible. The bonds are knotted: no hand can separate them. We will accept any trouble with a smile. Some, that we are of us. A single wrong note might have been enough to destroy our love: but it doesn't exist. And that’s why I can tell you that I adore you. François » Catherine Langeais (1923 – 1998), born Marie-Louise Terrasse, the most popular announcer on French television from 1949 to 1975, met François Mitterrand on January 28, 1938, during the École Normale Supérieure ball, while she is only 14 years old. Love at first sight was immediate, but despite the age difference, Mitterrand was 7 years older, they decided to get engaged. Military service at Fort d'Ivry, then the war, put distance, however, Mitterrand wrote more than 200 passionate letters to his dear Zou. Out of sight, out of mind, their love fades despite the 80 letters sent by her distraught fiancé. Marie-Louise's heart burns for a Polish count whom she ends up marrying. Mitterrand, for his part, marries in 1944 the young resistance fighter Danielle Gouze, whom she met during the war.