While my forehead, in the Caucasus the same, / Not content with stopping the rays of the sun, / Braves the effort of the storm. / Everything is Aquilon to you; everything seems Zephyr to me.”
It's been twenty minutes since we had lunch with Francis Esménard, at the Dôme, boulevard du Montparnasse, his canteen for years, and suddenly, while he is talking about his childhood, here he is reciting
The Oak and the Reed
in one go by Jean de La Fontaine.
Without hesitation or ostentation.
But not dissatisfied with its effect.
Not unhappy to show that, behind the gruff appearance and the face of a mad negotiator, the man is much more refined than he would like us to believe.
And much more nuanced too than the full-length portrait of a “reactive editor” that some make of him.
To discover
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Former president of Albin Michel and still president of the holding company that owns this publishing house, created by his grandfather in 1900, Francis Esménard is in any case a funny animal.
An unprejudiced editor with insatiable literary curiosity.
“360 degrees.”
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