D'ABRANTÈS (Laure Constance, 1784-1838, French writer, wife of Marshal Junot, Duchesse)

AN unsigned, in French with translation, to 'Monsieur Sainte Barbe', the political writer and poet Joseph Auburtin, saying "the reading is not for today. I spent the night finishing the article which I am giving to the sale for the Poles, ... and I am Dead ... Last year's was worth 1,800 fr. to them", she could not "have given a reading without you!", she asks him whether "Adolphe" has been "put out" by her making the article, "I will get down to work straight away ... and my charming old beau ['céladon'] makes me very happy. I hope he realises that", she will "ask M. d'Amberieux", probably the novelist son of Pierre d'Ambérieux, (1732-1821), "to come too ... bring your stories and you and they will be welcome", 2 sides 16mo with envelope front and seal on separate flap bearing crowned 'C.A.', no place, no date, c.

A friend in childhood of Napoleon, who courted her mother, she was married to Junot and accompanied him to Spain and Portugal, giving birth during the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. She and Balzac met in the mid 1820s, both staving off their creditors by writing, and they inspired each other to cope. Her Memoirs (18 vols., 1831-1834) cover the whole period from the Revolution to Louis Philippe I, and some of Balzac's stories can be traced to them. Balzac negotiated 70,000 fr. for her for a second edition (1835), but it still left her in debt. She also wrote for the Revue de Paris and published novels and tales. See her Histoire des Salons de Paris (6 vols., 1837-1838), her accounts of her time in Spain and Portugal, and especially Gabriel Ferry, 'Balzac et ses amis' (1888), ch. IV.
Joseph Auburtin wrote passionately on liberty and fought in the July 1830 revolution. In 1842 he published a 'New Theory of the Universe' in metre, maintaining a fixed earth and denying Newton's laws.
From the collection begun by Martha Spriggs, mother-in-law of William Pengelly, F.R.S., with pencilled identification. (Her cousin was in Paris about this time).

Item Date:  1835

Stock No:  18842      £95

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