The works selected for this fourth sale of Pierre Bergé's library bore witness to the constant love he felt for the book: not only the text itself, but also the physical object. Collectors acclaimed his choices, especially this bibliophilic gem: the first copy of "Du côté de chez Swann", given to Lucien Daudet by Marcel Proust (€1,511,376). Introduced by Reynaldo Hahn to the Daudet family, who were deeply devoted to literature, Proust remained friends against all the odds with the anti-Semitic polemicist Léon and, despite a lover's quarrel, with Lucien as well. Literature from bygone times also aroused keen interest, from Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" (here those of Romulus and Cato) in an illuminated manuscript with fifty-four paintings of a French translation, which fetched €671,780, to three editions of Montaigne's "Essais", where the 1580 version came top with €690,345. 19th and 20th century literature was also popular: the working manuscript of Jean Genet's "Pompes funèbres" inspired a battle all the way up to €183,300. This period saw radical philosophica
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