Le mot de Cambronne by Sacha Guitry (Le Livre de Poche, 1972)
Le mot de Cambronne (literally, “the word of Cambronne”) is named after General Pierre Cambronne, who supposedly made a one-word response to the British request that he surrender at the Battle of Waterloo. In his cover design, Jean-Pierre Rosier revealed the non-euphemistic version by highlighting the included letters in Thorowgood Sans Shaded.
Sacha Guitry’s Le mot de Cambronne is a comedy in one act and one verse, written in 1936 for the Théâtre de la Madeleine. The play was also made into a film, directed by Guitry and released in 1937. In the play, Madame Cambronne – i.e. Mary Osburn, the Scottish nurse who had cared for Cambronne after Waterloo – wants to learn about the famous word named after her husband, but General Cambronne obstinately refuses to repeat it.
