Commémoration d'un mort de printemps

Louis Chadourne's first bookappeared in May 1917. This collection of poems- Commémoration d'un mort de printemps- was printed in Belgium by Sainte Catherine Press. After his premature death on 25 March 1925, Benjamin Crémieux wrote that he remembered his friend mainly as a poet: 'Louis était tout et surtout un poète.' But after these first poems, Chadourne published only one more collection of poetry, L'amout et le sablier (1921), besides which he wrote four novels. Chadourne spent the last years of his life in the Maison de Santé d'Ivry.

At the outbreak of World War I Chardourne was stationed in Nice. He was wounded in June 1913, and some time later the doctors diagnosed him as suffering from 'psycho-névrose émotionelle', after which he stayed in various hospitals for a long time. He was occasionally able to meet his friends, like Gaston Gallimard and Valery Larbaud, and to publish magazine articles. In early 1917 he was appointed as German translator by the ministry of war.

Two copies of his first book, of which only 100 copies were printed, are in the Koopman Collection. The first (number 6) has a dedication from June 1917 that has almost been erased, to'son ami' (his friend) publisher and co-founder of the NRF, Gaston Gallimard (1881-1975)- who never served as the publisher of any of his books. The second copy bears number 16 and includes a dedication to novelist and translator Francis de Miomandre (1880-1959).