1952
Jean Cocteau
Related to Pierre Bergé
There were only two writers whom I greatly admired and to whom I was deeply attached: Jean Giono and Jean Cocteau. I introduced them. I brought Giono to lunch at Cocteau’s house in Milly-la-Forêt. They had nothing to say to each other. They were from two completely different worlds.
Pierre Bergé, cited in L’Officiel de la couture et de la mode de Paris, 2013.
One of Pierre Bergé’s most important literary encounters was with Jean Cocteau, over whose work he now has moral rights.
When Bergé decided to part with his incredible book collection in 2015, he kept only two works. The copy of Requiem in which Cocteau wrote the following words a year before he died was one of them: “My dear Pierre, I know all too well that we must bear our own cross, mine is heavy, I send you this spit-upon saga, I send it to you in blue to express my tenderness for you.”
In June 2010, the Comité Jean Cocteau, presided over by Bergé, arranged for Cocteau’s house in Milly-la-Forêt to be opened to the public.
