The Will of King Krogold

Céline worked on this legendary material during the 1930s. The 2023 edition contains two versions: the earlier La Légende du Roi René and the later rewrite La Volonté du roi Krogold, composed in 1939–40.

The plot divides into interconnected strands. In one, King Krogold wages war against the rebellious Prince Gwendor. Krogold kills him. In the later version, the dying Gwendor encounters Death itself, attempts unsuccessfully to bargain for more time, and thinks of Wanda, Krogold's daughter and his beloved.

Wanda learns that Gwendor is dead. Contrary to a later reference in Death on the Installment Plan suggesting "Wanda's revenge," the recovered manuscripts do not contain that revenge episode. In the surviving material Wanda responds by placing herself under her father's authority.

A second storyline follows Thibaut / Tébaut, a wandering poet and musician, and his former school friend Joad, the son of the powerful President Morvan. Joad is himself in love with the inaccessible Wanda. Thibaut eventually murders Morvan. The two young men leave Brittany and head east and north, toward the world of Krogold.

In the later Krogold version, the legendary narrative opens with Gwendor's death. The defeated prince speaks with Death as if Death were another character. Gwendor attempts to bargain for one more day so that he can avenge himself on Krogold, but Death refuses and takes him away.

Krogold's victorious army camps after battle. The king himself has killed Gwendor. During the night Krogold discovers that a valuable golden crescent has been stolen from his tent; he pursues the thief and kills him before returning to camp.

News of Krogold's victory reaches the royal household. Wanda understands that Gwendor has died. At Christianie, news of the rebel army's defeat produces fear as inhabitants prepare for the victorious king's arrival.

The narrative then expands away from the royal conflict. The wandering troubadour Thibaut, renamed Tébaut in the later version, travels toward Rennes searching for his old school friend Joad. He survives by singing, playing music, stealing and improvising his way through difficult circumstances.

Joad lives under the authority of his father, President Morvan, an important official connected with the Parlement of Brittany. Joad is timid, restless and dissatisfied with the future planned for him.

Thibaut and Joad reunite and move through taverns, streets, festivities and a brothel run by Mère Amelot. Céline uses their adventures to build an invented medieval popular world full of musicians, thieves, prostitutes, clergy, officials, bards and travellers. Among its striking figures is the imprisoned bard Gwenchalan, punished repeatedly for his attacks on religious authority.

Joad remembers Wanda, whom he once saw and has idealised precisely because she is inaccessible and devoted to Gwendor.

President Morvan eventually invites Thibaut to perform during a dinner. Instead, Thibaut secretly waits outside the house. When Morvan appears at a window, Thibaut throws a stone that kills him. After the murder, Thibaut and Joad prepare to leave.

They set out together through Vitré and eventually into Germany, moving ever closer to the northern legendary world of Krogold. They stay at a monastery and continue their erratic journey. Near the furthest surviving point of the earlier version, their paths begin to separate. Thibaut prepares to leave on crusade, while Joad faces the prospect of remaining behind. His earlier determination to reach Wanda has begun to falter.

The surviving versions do not carry all of these strands through to a final reunion or resolution.