Emmanuela POTOCKA

Autograph letter-card signed by Guy de Maupassant to Countess Potocka, 13 lines in black ink, on letterhead « GM 10, rue Montchanin ».
Published in Marlo Johnston, « Lettres inédites de Maupassant à la comtesse Potocka », Histoires littéraires, no. 40, October-November-December 2009.
From 1877 onwards, Maupassant’s health underwent continuous decline, beginning that year with the contraction of syphilis. In addition, he had to contend with hereditary dementia within the family. Subject to violent migraines, his sociability sometimes suffered:
« Je dois vous prévenir que je suis plus muet et plus ennuyeux que jamais, je le sais, vous pouvez donc ne pas

Autograph manuscript by Guy de Maupassant to Countess Potocka, 36 lines in ink on one page. Horizontal fold at center. Published in Philippe Dahhan, "Guy de Maupassant et les femmes : essai", Bertout, 1996.
Unusual manuscript by Maupassant, giving a false rabies vaccine formula he calls "Élixir Pasteur", made with namely "seven tears of a rejected academic candidate", "five drops of journalist's drool" and "one centimeter of novelist's pride".
This amusing prescription is addressed to Countess Potocka, a wealthy aristocratic socialite and intellectual whose beauty and fickle personality greatly inspired feminine Maupassant

Signed autograph letter from Guy de Maupassant to the Countess Potocka, 67 lines in black ink on a letterhead "GM 83, rue Dulong", envelope attached.
This long letter begins with a commission that was made to Maupassant: " I immediately pay for a commission for which I am charged, although I seem to find a little irony in it. The Princess Ourosow, who has just written to me to ask to see her this evening, begs me, in postscript, to remind her of your memory when I see you. Princess Ourosov was the wife of the Russian ambassador to Paris. With the Countess she was part of that worldly gotha ​​that surrounded authors and artists.
The irony he mention

Signed autograph letter of Guy de Maupassant to Countess Potocka, 26 lines in black ink on a sheet of laid paper headed "GM 83 Dulong Street".
Maupassant evokes the episode that marks his entry into familiarity with the countess: the famous story of dolls. Following a lost bet, the Countess Potocka sent Maupassant rag dolls representing the ladies invited to a future dinner. By play, Maupassant took six of them and stuffed them with the belly of cloth before autograph dedication of the author them back to the countess. In a word that accompanied the mail, Maupassant boasted of having them all engrossed in one night.
To get out of an evening that he would prefer to

Autograph letter signed by Guy de Maupassant to Countess Potocka, 38 lines in black ink on a double sheet.
Published in Marlo Johnston, "Lettres inédites de Maupassant à la comtesse Potocka," Histoires littéraires, no. 40, October-November-December 2009.
Darker than usual, Maupassant seems troubled by some incident he does not mention but for which he apologizes to the Countess: "Je vous demande encore pardon, ce qui du reste n'atténue pas mon remords ; et je vous assure qu'il est cuisant car j'ai cette arrière-pensée que cous m'en voudrez un peu pendant longtemps." ["I ask your pardon once again, which moreover does not diminish my remorse; and I

Autograph letter-card signed by Guy de Maupassant to Countess Potocka, 19 lines in black ink, on letterhead "GM 83, rue Dulong".
Published in Marlo Johnston, "Lettres inédites de Maupassant à la comtesse Potocka", Histoires littéraires, n°40, October-November-December 2009.
Maupassant was part of the circle of suitors of Countess Potocka whom she had nicknamed the "Macchabées". The author was much in social demand and this created scheduling problems for him: "Or, voici le cas [...] Legrand m'avait recommandé de ne pas m'engager [...] à ce dîner en m'annonçant une invitation de sa belle-soeur, invitation qui n'est pas venue