Pierre LOUŸS
Lettre autographe signée de 20 pages adressée à Georges Louis : "Et j'ai une grande nouvelle à t'annoncer, qui décidera du bonheur de ma vie : je me marie."
Dizy [Dizy-le-Gros] samedi 15 septembre 1888|13.70 x 21.20 cm|20 pages sur 5 doubles feuillets & une enveloppe
Very long autograph letter signed by Pierre Louÿs, addressed to Georges Louis. Twenty pages written in blue ink on five double sheets of graph paper. Enclosed is an envelope on which is written in pencil in Pierre Louÿs's hand: "Letter of 20 pages about my stay in Limé"
Amusing letter addressed to his brother Georges Louis with whom Pierre Louÿs maintained a very intimate relationship and whom he considered as his own father.
The question of Pierre Louÿs's real father's identity still fascinates biographers today: "His father, Pierre Philippe Louis, [...] had married in 1842 Jeanne Constance Blanchin, who died ten years later after having given him two children, Lucie and Georges. In 1855, he remarried Claire Céline Maldan, and from this union was born, in 1857, a son, Paul; then, in 1870, our writer, who received the first names Pierre Félix. This late birth, the differences in character between father and son, the former's disaffection toward the latter, the profound intimacy that always reigned between Louÿs and his brother Georges, all this has led certain biographers and critics to suspect that the latter was in reality the writer's father. The exceptionally intimate and constant relationship that Pierre and Georges maintained between them throughout their lives could be an argument in this sense. Of course, no irrefutable proof has been discovered, and probably never will be. Nevertheless, certain letters [...] are quite troubling. In 1895, for example, Louÿs writes gravely to his brother that he knows the answer to 'the most poignant question' he could ask him, a question he has had 'on his lips for ten years.' The following year, at the height of Aphrodite's triumph, he thanks Georges effusively and ends his letter with this sentence: 'Not one of my friends has a FATHER who is to him what you are to me.' Arguing from the close intimacy between Georges and Claire Céline during the year 1870, and from the jealousy that the father never ceased to show toward his younger son, Claude Farrère did not hesitate to conclude in favor of Georges Louis. And what to think of this dedication by Louÿs to his brother on a deluxe copy of the first edition of Pausole: To Georges, his eldest son / Pierre." (Jean-Paul Goujon, Pierre Louÿs)
In this titillating letter bearing at the top the mention "Papa doesn't know I'm writing you this letter" underlined three times, young Pierre Louÿs (eighteen years old) tells his elder about his vacation in Limé (Aisne) with the Glatron family. Visibly very excited, he announces to his brother after some brief family news: "And I have great news to announce to you, which will decide the happiness of my life: I'm getting married. Don't look for a match for me anymore: I've found one." In order to keep his reader in suspense, he first tells him at length about his stay in Limé and paints a portrait of the Glatron family: "Here first is the introduction to the little work I'm sending you by way of a letter, and which may be very boring. It's the tableau of the Glatron family; it amused me to study them a bit while I was there. I wanted to find for each of them three or four words to paint them completely but I soon realized that I couldn't do so for any of them." Far from being "boring," this very long passage allows Pierre Louÿs to deploy his talents as storyteller and caricaturist. Each member receives a colorful description ("the queen mother," "a nonentity," "a very special character," "petrified phlegm," "a repetitive Paulus," "the little invalid"...) and Louÿs also gives pride of place to dialogues which he deliberately exaggerates: "'I tell you that you took her by the waist! I saw you! Don't say no, I saw you!'" These humorous observations continue with the quasi-anthropological description of a village festival in Limé: "I arrived in Limé the day before the patron saint's festival. [...] For orchestra, two good pig merchants with big chins and black mustaches, who blow outrageously into a cornet and a clarinet. [...] The lighting consists of the good Lord's stars, and six Venetian lanterns trembling on two wires. It was there that I developed [...] the notions of choreography that good Madame Gendron instilled in me last year. [...] For I must tell you that the Limé women have a way of dancing which, while being less elegant, is nonetheless very attractive." Then come the first emotions produced by this local dance: "The female dancer grips her two hands (without gloves naturally) on the dancer's shoulders, while he places his hands around her waist [...] I bet you think me capable of having danced with just anyone? Undeceive yourself. I had only three dancing partners [...] Or else we go to 'suck a quadrille.' This picturesque expression which is missing from the Academy dictionary, means that one 'pays' one's dancing partner a barley sugar worth a sou and...that each sucks it from one end as a sign of union and good understanding." He confides to his brother his first kiss with his fiancée, a certain Jeanne Bécret: "One of my dancing partners (the one I kissed) is a little jewel. She is tall, well-made, with a Louis XV face, exactly like the sanguine drawing in the salon. (Pay close attention, it's my wife I'm describing to you)." The young man then relates at length his marriage proposal before concluding with assurance: "And thus we are getting married, in the second half of December. That will make a young couple, won't it?" The marriage will never take place and even in the author's biography, this vacation romance will only be very briefly mentioned.
Amusing letter addressed to his brother Georges Louis with whom Pierre Louÿs maintained a very intimate relationship and whom he considered as his own father.
The question of Pierre Louÿs's real father's identity still fascinates biographers today: "His father, Pierre Philippe Louis, [...] had married in 1842 Jeanne Constance Blanchin, who died ten years later after having given him two children, Lucie and Georges. In 1855, he remarried Claire Céline Maldan, and from this union was born, in 1857, a son, Paul; then, in 1870, our writer, who received the first names Pierre Félix. This late birth, the differences in character between father and son, the former's disaffection toward the latter, the profound intimacy that always reigned between Louÿs and his brother Georges, all this has led certain biographers and critics to suspect that the latter was in reality the writer's father. The exceptionally intimate and constant relationship that Pierre and Georges maintained between them throughout their lives could be an argument in this sense. Of course, no irrefutable proof has been discovered, and probably never will be. Nevertheless, certain letters [...] are quite troubling. In 1895, for example, Louÿs writes gravely to his brother that he knows the answer to 'the most poignant question' he could ask him, a question he has had 'on his lips for ten years.' The following year, at the height of Aphrodite's triumph, he thanks Georges effusively and ends his letter with this sentence: 'Not one of my friends has a FATHER who is to him what you are to me.' Arguing from the close intimacy between Georges and Claire Céline during the year 1870, and from the jealousy that the father never ceased to show toward his younger son, Claude Farrère did not hesitate to conclude in favor of Georges Louis. And what to think of this dedication by Louÿs to his brother on a deluxe copy of the first edition of Pausole: To Georges, his eldest son / Pierre." (Jean-Paul Goujon, Pierre Louÿs)
In this titillating letter bearing at the top the mention "Papa doesn't know I'm writing you this letter" underlined three times, young Pierre Louÿs (eighteen years old) tells his elder about his vacation in Limé (Aisne) with the Glatron family. Visibly very excited, he announces to his brother after some brief family news: "And I have great news to announce to you, which will decide the happiness of my life: I'm getting married. Don't look for a match for me anymore: I've found one." In order to keep his reader in suspense, he first tells him at length about his stay in Limé and paints a portrait of the Glatron family: "Here first is the introduction to the little work I'm sending you by way of a letter, and which may be very boring. It's the tableau of the Glatron family; it amused me to study them a bit while I was there. I wanted to find for each of them three or four words to paint them completely but I soon realized that I couldn't do so for any of them." Far from being "boring," this very long passage allows Pierre Louÿs to deploy his talents as storyteller and caricaturist. Each member receives a colorful description ("the queen mother," "a nonentity," "a very special character," "petrified phlegm," "a repetitive Paulus," "the little invalid"...) and Louÿs also gives pride of place to dialogues which he deliberately exaggerates: "'I tell you that you took her by the waist! I saw you! Don't say no, I saw you!'" These humorous observations continue with the quasi-anthropological description of a village festival in Limé: "I arrived in Limé the day before the patron saint's festival. [...] For orchestra, two good pig merchants with big chins and black mustaches, who blow outrageously into a cornet and a clarinet. [...] The lighting consists of the good Lord's stars, and six Venetian lanterns trembling on two wires. It was there that I developed [...] the notions of choreography that good Madame Gendron instilled in me last year. [...] For I must tell you that the Limé women have a way of dancing which, while being less elegant, is nonetheless very attractive." Then come the first emotions produced by this local dance: "The female dancer grips her two hands (without gloves naturally) on the dancer's shoulders, while he places his hands around her waist [...] I bet you think me capable of having danced with just anyone? Undeceive yourself. I had only three dancing partners [...] Or else we go to 'suck a quadrille.' This picturesque expression which is missing from the Academy dictionary, means that one 'pays' one's dancing partner a barley sugar worth a sou and...that each sucks it from one end as a sign of union and good understanding." He confides to his brother his first kiss with his fiancée, a certain Jeanne Bécret: "One of my dancing partners (the one I kissed) is a little jewel. She is tall, well-made, with a Louis XV face, exactly like the sanguine drawing in the salon. (Pay close attention, it's my wife I'm describing to you)." The young man then relates at length his marriage proposal before concluding with assurance: "And thus we are getting married, in the second half of December. That will make a young couple, won't it?" The marriage will never take place and even in the author's biography, this vacation romance will only be very briefly mentioned.
€2,800