Letters from great 19th century French writers such as Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, Gustave Flaubert, George Sand, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine are sold at auction in Paris. The 345 lots belong to the collection of a former university and literature lover, Jean-Luc Mercié, sold by Cornette de Saint-Cyr.
From Hugo, for example, a letter to a journalist and admirer, Auguste Vacquerie, written from Brussels in 1866, is a plea once morest the death penalty, which will once more be applied in Jersey. “Everywhere freedom is denied. Everywhere the ideal is insulted. Everywhere reaction thrives”, laments the author of Misérablesin this missive estimated 8,000 to 10,000 euros.
From Flaubert, four letters to Louise Colet between 1846 and 1853 are estimated at up to 15,000 euros each. One of them refers to the drafting of Madame Bovary. “No lyricism, no reflections, the author’s personality absent. It will be sad to read; there will be atrocious things of misery and fetidity”he promises his former lover.
A letter from George Sand was addressed to Flaubert in 1868 (6,000 to 8,000 euros), in which she complained that he was living cloistered. “You, enraged troubadour, I suspect you enjoy your profession more than anything in the world”she remarks.
The 20th century and especially surrealism are well represented in this collection. A collage by André Breton entitled Ghost team is estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 euros, as well as a book in English on Salvador Dali with a dedication drawn by the Spanish artist.
The most expensive piece (40,000 to 50,000 euros) is an original edition of Julien Gracq’s novel, Le Rivage des Syrteswith a letter from the author to Jean-Luc Mercié, which according to the auction house constitutes “a real new page”. The author explains his literary project.
Another curiosity, an original edition of the novel Emmanuelle by Emmanuelle Arsan, embellished among other things with a nude photo of the author by Pierre Molinier, is estimated between 7,000 and 8,000 euros.