BARBEY D'AUREVILLY JULES (1808-1889)

Lot 314
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1000 - 1500 EUR
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Result : 975EUR
BARBEY D'AUREVILLY JULES (1808-1889)
Autograph letter signed to Jules GUÉRIN, Valognes, October 1890; 2 pages in-4 (edges tidied up with slight lack of text). Superb letter from Barbey d'Aurevilly, in purple ink, to Jules Guérin, secretary of the editorial staff of Gil Blas, defending himself, vigorously and with contempt, from the attacks of the critic Armand de Pontmartin. "I would have written to our director of Gilblas - M. Dumont - but I do not believe that he is in Paris, and it is therefore you, my dear Mr. Guérin, who, in his absence, must replace him. Be good enough, therefore, to pass on all my thanks to the one of your writers who has signed an article about me, "L'Ensorcelé," with a mysterious and charming grace, the delicate fl attery of which I have felt. It is a fl attery - but the article, signed thus, was not a fl attery... I usually read little of M. de Pontmartin, but I was not at all surprised at the attack of a man who, when it is a question of literature, begins to talk politics. All I know from the Gilblas is that, out of the question of an article, already far removed, published by the Gilblas on Monseigneur de Chambord, and in which my royalism, absolutely desperate, expressed the most respectful regrets about politics, which has for thirty years nailed to the scabbard a sword that another politics could have drawn, M. de Pontmartin had the logic to reproach me for not having been a pontifical zouave or a franc tireur, in the war of 1870, as if, literally, that was the question! M. de Pontmartin is no more a logician than he is a devil. Only, since he wants to know what I did in 1870, have one of your office boys tell him, my dear Monsieur Guérin, that at that time I was in Paris, with my rifle on my shoulder, doing my voluntary national guard service, under the shells which were not lacking in my neighbourhood. One does not boast about such things. It is too simple. I don't ask M. de Pontmartin what he did in 1870. That does not matter to me! Nor does it matter to France! That is what I had to tell you, my dear Monsieur Guérin, as for the literature of M. de Pontmartin, which I reserve for Gilblas, I have not yet spoken of it anywhere. However, I have already published six volumes of criticism, entitled Les oeuvres et les hommes, in which, while awaiting the others that will follow, I have listed the men and works of the 19th century... Mr. de Pontmartin is not included. To put him there, I gave him time to grow, but he did not take advantage of the patience that I put into it. Today, the people who employ him find him talented. We'll see, one day, what it is... And my goodness, since neither of us is young, and death can interrupt all accounts, I promise not to keep him waiting long... All yours for the taking, my dear Monsieur Guérin. Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly."
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