The École Normale Supérieure 1952–1956 61
restaurants, especially the handful of cafés patronized by the stu-
dents of the École. Even though they still frequented the Mahieu
and the Capoulade, they were more often to be found in the aptly
named Normal’bar just opposite the rue d’Ulm, on the corner of the
rue des Feuillantines and the rue Gay-Lussac, whose table football
they enjoyed. They also liked Chez Guimard, commonly known
as Le Guim’s, on the small square in front of the church of Saint-
Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, right next to the rue Saint-Jacques, which
provided them with a quiet place for a leisurely talk.^4
For most students, the fi rst year at Normale Sup came as a deliver-
ance after the harsh discipline of the years in khâgne. Admittedly,
there were a few licence exams to be taken at the Sorbonne before
the summer, but they did not have to prepare for any competitive
exam or write a dissertation. It was the long-awaited moment to
enjoy life and make the most of the Latin Quarter. Now that he had
much more money at his disposal than in previous years, Derrida
could fi nally aff ord to buy books and go out whenever he wished.
He often went to the cinema, especially with Robert Abirached,
announcing in solemn tones, as if it were some piece of scientifi c
research, ‘We’re going to do some applied fi lmology’.
Politics played a major part in normaliens’ everyday life. The
quarrel between Sartre and Camus had fl ared up the previous spring,
but it continued to fuel debate. In 1952, it was an article by Francis
Jeanson, ‘Albert Camus, or the rebel soul’, which had opened up
hostilities. Disdaining to go via the author, Camus replied directly
to Sartre in his ‘Letter to the Editor of Les Temps modernes’:
What we fi nd in your article [.. .] is silence or derision vis-à-vis
any non-Marxist revolutionary tradition. [.. .] I’m starting to
get a bit tired about seeing myself, and especially seeing old
militants who have never refused to take part in any of the
struggles of their time, having to put up with endless lessons in
eff ectiveness from censorious folk who have only ever placed
their armchairs to face the way history is going, I won’t insist
on the sort of objective complicity that a similar attitude in turn
presupposes.^5Sartre replied in the same issue, even more brutally:
But tell me, Camus, for what mysterious reason can’t anyone
argue with your works without depriving mankind of its reasons
for living? [.. .] What if your book were simply evidence of your
philosophical incompetence? What if it were made up of hastily
acquired, second-hand knowledge?... Are you so scared of
being contradicted? [.. .] Our friendship wasn’t easy, but I’ll