Original edition.
Binding half old red grief with some discreet restorations, back with five nerves, when tail, paper plates to the tank, and contreplats combed guards lined paper, preserved covers, red head, contemporary binding.
Precious autograph signed by Victor Hugo Alphonse Daudet.
Buffer library of Madame Daudet on the first guard.
Victor Hugo is for Alphonse Daudet, like other writers of his generation, the undisputed master of arts Hall of Fame. His father figure sprinkles the works of Daudet, commonly called alongside those of Rousseau, Byron, Sand and Delacroix.
If during childhood and youth Daudet, Hugo, exiled giant on his island of Guernsey, remains an unattainable ideal, "almost beyond humanity," Back in France allows him to meet him someday. Around 1875, shortly after the publication of his first works, Alphonse Daudet and Julia are well received in Hugo who now lives with Juliette Drouet.
They therefore become intimate of the house until the poet's death. Victor Hugo is involved in the education of the young Léon Daudet, best friend grand-son of Hugo, George and later husband of Jeanne ephemeral.
In his Memories of a literary circle, Julia Daudet evokes friendship of ten years with the "idol of all France poetic"
"I see the great Victor Hugo end of his table; the old master, a bit isolated, a little deaf, sits with God silences, absences of a genius on the brink of immortality. The white hair, colored head, and this eye old lion that develops side with power ferocity; he listens to my husband and Catullus Mendes between which is very lively discussion about youth and celebrity known men and their attractiveness to women. [...] During the debate we went to the salon, Victor Hugo dream by the fire, and famous, universal and demigod regret perhaps his youth, while Mrs Drouet sleeping quietly. »
The friendship between the last great romantic writer and one of the masters of the early naturalist school reflects the sharpness of Victor Hugo who, at the height of his fame, and retains a special kind attention for the remote yet modern literature Hugo's lyricism.
This dedication Hugo Daudet on a skilled, with The Pope and Religions and Religion, of "philosophical testament" by Henri Guillemin, symbolically resonates as a legacy by a devout follower of the political and moral responsibility of the writer.
Provenance: Alphonse Daudet, sales Sickles (1990, IV, No. 1200) and Philippe Zoummeroff sale (2 April 2001).
Gift extract of a literary circle by Julia Daudet:
"How can we forget that first visit home, rue de Clichy, in the modest apartment so disproportionate to his glory, the idea we had of the glory that had filled palaces: He gets up the seat he occupied the fire in front of Madame Drouet, his old friend, (...) I am amazed at its size, but soon, when it will meet me and talk to me, I would find it very big, very intimidating. And this I felt so shy, I always try them in front of Victor Hugo, the result of this great admiration, respect it as an absent god, my parents instilled in me the genius of a poet. I will overcome never that trembling voice every time I answer his kind words, and I say astonish for nearly years to hear women, admitted to him, maintain their inner and their usual trivia.
That night, when he had made me quite confused, Mrs Drouet, she said with a charming good grace - Here is the corner of the old and you are too young for us. But Victor Hugo will introduce you to his daughter, Mrs. Lockroy; alone has standing to that.
And I was driving on the other side of the room, moderately large, though, but that was as divided in two by a table topped with a bronze elephant, very majestic, Japanese or Chinese, I think. It was enough to make two very distinct small groups that communicate easily, but without merging.
At the time of his return, Victor Hugo was dazzling wit, many memories and told with an inexhaustible verve when the policy is not too invading his hospitable table. And grace in the home, what noble ways, what a beautiful smile grandfather in her hair I have gradually seen to blanch the snow eighty years I poets, all the poets attending this salon on Rue de Clichy, later the hotel Avenue d'Eylau. But here it was the change of place? There was like a step down in health, and in the spirit of good old man. Yet he always loved to entertain his friends, and the hospitality of this open house was not one of his charms least because, around the table, embellished with a piece by the two grandchildren of the Master, the guests were seeking their watchword in the eyes of the host, and he sometimes found a vein of memories so vivid, so picturesquely expressed, which remained blinded entire evening. M mo Drouet slowly growing old with him, sheltered under two snow bands, a somewhat theatrical elegance and quaint, until a ruthless evil dug his face so thin, made painful effigy has painted Bastien Lepage, who was to die prey to the same torture. In the recent times, the Master looked painfully, intimate dinners, that empty plate, that noble ravaged face.
- Mrs Drouet, you do not eat, you must eat, have courage.
Eat! She was dying. Did he know? Was he trying to delude himself the fine old so tough and strong, and who saw this companion from fifty years!
In the large room where looks beautiful portrait of Bonnat, the paternal gesture, where the bust by David presides immensely; in the lounge, decorated with these striped multicolored tapestry that seemed strained to Dona Sol; in the garden come to the verandah by a flight of stairs two reappear Leconte de Lisle, Meurice and Vacquerie, Paul de Saint-Victor, smiling Banville, Flaubert and Goncourt conversing together, Mallarmé, Leon Cladel, Francois Coppe, Catullus Mendes, Clovis Hugues, shadows in a faded Eden; and Leon Glaize, Gustave Rivet, Pierre Elzéar, the tiny pink Ms Michelet offering a festive evening, and ambassadors, diplomats, Emperor of Brazil; painters, sculptors, and many politicians that I do not remember the names!
Here the immediate impression that I drew one of those evenings when we visited, Alphonse Daudet and me, a snowy evening, where during the ride our horse fell three times across the Esplanade des Invalides:
I see the great Victor Hugo end of his table; the old master, a bit isolated, a little deaf, sits with God silences, absences of a genius on the brink of immortality. The white hair, colored head, and this eye old lion that develops side with ferocity of power; he listens to my husband and Catullus Mendes between which is very lively discussion about youth and celebrity known men and their attractiveness to women. Alphonse claims that in a living room filled with all sorts of talents, of any age, a young man, the unknown author, the poet will ignored her female eyes beautiful it is. Catullus Mendes replied that he will initially unnoticed, and that all women will go to awareness: this seems true to me. Fortunately women do not have the eyes of their face, but those of the mind and heart. For the intellectual, the beauty of an artist, a poet does not count, it is the look of the thinker, the tormented face of the man who lives his feelings. They go to the talent, grief passes, they hardly thinking about physical beauty. Now one might reply that this is an ambitious sympathy they seek famous authors, but the other feeling, one that would attract to this tempting youth whose Alphonse speaks, seems less blameless.
And I laugh to this claim of two charming conversationalists, generate, analyze us. But to say the woman is like saying the bird; there are so many species and genera, warbling and plumage are so different!
During the debate we went to the salon, Victor Hugo dream by the fire, and famous, universal and demigod regret perhaps his youth, while Mrs Drouet sleeping quietly. His beautiful white hair shading his fine head like two wings of a dove, and knots of her bodice following her sweet breath, almost resigned, old woman asleep.
It was soon after this event took place the great manifestation of scrolling Paris Avenue d'Eylau, before the windows of the small room that became mortuary in May 1885 filled with roses and simply furnished, such as accounts, museum Victor Hugo, a part taken in the former apartment of the poet, Place Royale.
Although suggestive, the old home of the Marsh, "and when you think that there Victor Hugo wrote almost all his historical plays one imagines the poet, opening, the morning hours that were familiar to him, this high window on hotels all equal and same style, around the square, and remembering tournaments, duels, walks and agitations of several generations disappeared under the shadow of these ancient and solid arcades and not keeping track of the fugitive humanity.
We still had dinner at Victor Hugo week before his death. He tells us by entering paler than usual, the inflected approach:
- I will soon go, I feel it; and then relying on the shoulder of George: No 'that' a long time ago that I would be gone.
I have never forgotten the focus rather solemn and as prophetic those words, I was imbued with sadness and foreboding; I felt the dispersion of this unique center and could not re ever! "
