Jean-Marc Rochette climbs his Everest

Jean-Marc Rochette says it himself: the album has “bankrupt [le] kill “. Three years of work. Months of documentary research. Nearly two hundred and forty pages to be inked. “I was finishing the last plank when a drop of blood fell from my nose, then two, then three. I hemorrhaged. We were in the middle of winter, the road was blocked by snow, we had to call a helicopter to evacuate mesays the 66-year-old author, who lives on the heights of the Ecrins massif (Isère). My body said stop. But I was not afraid. I thought to myself that I could stop there. I had done what I had to do…”

The artist has happily recovered, hair and beard a little whiter, his best album in his hands. Conceived as the third part of an alpine trilogy – after Ailefroide. Elevation 3,954 and The wolf (Casterman, 2018 and 2019) –, The Last Queen (Casterman, 240 pages, 30 euros. In bookstores October 5) is much more than a book on the mountain. “It’s a love storysays Rochette. The love between a man and a woman, a man’s love for his mountains, a woman’s love for art… This is my Everest. I don’t think I will ever do better. »

A custom mask

The Last Queen follows the tragic fate of Edouard Roux, a colossus projected in 1916 from the Vercors plateau to the trenches of the Somme, where a German shell left him disfigured. Forced to live with a bag on his head after the war, he goes to Paris to meet Jeanne Sauvage, an animal sculptor who takes care of broken mouths. Touched by the red-haired giant, the young woman makes him a custom-made mask. In exchange, he agrees to pose for her. The beginning of an intense love story, magnificent because improbable, total and universal.

The author also summons his admiration. Throughout the pages, we come across Cocteau, Picasso, the sculptor Pompon

Rochette of course evokes her love of the mountains, magnified in boards with dry lines. “I live here, it’s my element. » But he also summons his admiration. That for the painter Soutine, for example, this “guy who holds up” and give everything to his art. Throughout the pages, we come across Cocteau, Picasso, the sculptor Pompon… “Everything I say about the artistic milieu of the interwar period is true. It was an exciting period, when France attracted artists. »

The author’s dislikes are also present. That for an overly materialistic civilization, which has closed itself to “wonder at the world”. “For me, there is no hierarchy between men and animals. I see spirit everywhere”explains the one who says to himself “Spinozist”. Throughout the album, flashbacks recount the struggle of Edouard Roux’s ancestors against the rigorists of their time. A process that evokes The Timursa series created in the 1950s by Siriuswhich featured red-haired colossi from different eras. “I have no recollection of having read it! », laughs the author. A sign ? “I think everything that has been experienced is forever etched in our minds. It’s a little mystical but I believe in it. »

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