FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880). - Lot 82

Lot n° 82
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FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880). - Lot 82
FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880). AUTOGRAPHIC MANUSCRIT for The Temptation of Saint Anthony, [ca. 1869]; 2 pages in-fol. (2 small cracks at top and bottom of folio). Notes for La Tentation de saint Antoine, taken from the Histoire ecclésiastique by Abbé Fleury. The Temptation of Saint Anthony, "the work of my whole life", according to Flaubert who worked on it from 1846 to 1849 for the first version, before reworking it from 1869 to 1872 to write the definitive version published in 1874 and nourished by the erudite readings of 1869, as here the Histoire ecclésiastique of the abbé Claude FLEURY (36 vol., 1691-1738). Flaubert has taken from Book V the passages which have most impressed him, and has made striking summaries or literal copies of them, on the Fathers and Saints of the third century, in Carthage and in the Egypt of Saint Anthony, who lived there from about 251 to 356. He first focuses on the martyrdom, under Severus, of Leonides, father of Origen; and he quotes Tertullian's Apology, on the God of Christians caricatured as an ass, and on the eternity of the Roman Empire which "supports the world". He then dwells on the history of Saint Perpetua and her martyrdom in Carthage, her visions during her imprisonment: "First vision. A golden ladder surrounded on the sides by ferremens and stakes - a dragon guarding the bottom. Perpetua climbs up and sets foot on it - she arrives in a large plain where an old man was milking his sheep. [...] Third vision. She sees herself fighting with a very ugly Egyptian and defeating him. Then he is interested in Felicity, another Carthaginian Saint: "eight months pregnant, she was distressed that her martyrdom was delayed because it was not permitted to execute pregnant women before their term"...
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