Laure (Colette) Peignot

Laure (1903-1938) was a revolutionary poet, masochist Catholic rich girl, and world traveler. Toward the end of her life she became the lover of French writer Georges Bataille. Her writings and her real life story were remarkable in their violence...

The Collected Writings

Laure

dagonet

In a book Laure had on Theresa of Avila, page 199 was dog-eared, evidently, because of her interest in the passage extracted from Opuscules by the Caramelite Geronimo Gracian: "While Mother Teresa was alive, never did she think any more than I, that these books would be published and brought to all those who wanted to read them. We would have wanted to see these books remain in our convents. In manuscript form so that they would only be read by wise persons instructed in the manner of prayer. I have sympathy for the Pythagorean rule that required profound and sacred things to be hidden..."

A similar preoccupation—to which her anxiety was clearly linked—was often expressed by Laure, speaking in general. Before dying, she formally indicated her wish that her testimony not only remained uncommunicated, asserting, that one must not isolate oneself as only that, which exists for others can have meaning. But the misery inherent in all that is literature horrified her: for she had the greatest conceivable concern not to confide hat seemed heartrendering to her to those who cannot be moved.

Laure quotes

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