Autograph letter signed and dated "20 floréal year 79 19 May" [19 May 1871?], 3 pages on a bifolium of blue paper. Small lack of paper affecting a few letters, usual folds from mailing.

Rare letter by painter and illustrator Gérard-Séguin, known for his portrait of Honoré de Balzac (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours). Written in the midst of the Paris Commune, as famine and fighting ravaged the capital, the artist delivers a desperate yet spirited plea from the artist.

This letter is one of the few surviving manuscripts by Gérard-Séguin whose biography remains largely unknown: "Little is known about the life and work of Jean Alfred Gérard-Séguin, except that he studied under Jérôme-Martin Langlois at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, exhibited at the Salon between 1831 and 1868, and—close to publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel—primarily worked as a book illustrator, contributing drawings for various publications, including Balzac's La Comédie Humaine, for which he also painted a portrait of the author. Working with Prosper Mérimée and the first Monuments Historiques commissions, he also copied out the church frescoes of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe" (Musée de Valence). Staunch Republican Gérard-Seguin supported the Commune and had previously painted a major historical canvas on the French Revolution of 1848, depicting a "guardian of the peace and the Republic." Severely impoverished by the siege and already 67 years old, he expresses in this letter his regret at not being able to join the ranks of the Communard fighters.

"20 floréal year 79 19 May

 

To the rescue, my dear Babik, to the rescue... if you can spare a moment amid your acts of heart and devotion, spare a thought for a friend, a quick thought for this friend...

Here's the situation: you know that, for lack of quibus, I was not exactly forced but felt I had to clear out of the studio you know, leaving behind Renaissance furniture and other trinkets. You also know that, as a refugee in the home of kind Madame Colins, we formed a trio—she, her adopted son, and myself—and we made it through the siege, despite numerous privations and annoyances, in a way that was not too dreadful.

Our friend Édouard receives 15 francs a month from the Ministry of Public Instruction, and I was getting advance payments for a painting I had previously done. We managed to eat... but everything has now changed. The young man has left for Belgium to be with Père Colins’ pupils, and Mademoiselle Colins has just gone to join him—poor girl couldn’t take it anymore. The daily slaughter of the proletariat she loves with all her soul, the sorrow of being separated from her adopted son, the constant cannon fire—all this drove her half-mad, and I took her to the Gare du Nord in a state of semi-delirium, leaving her with my last coins for the journey.

Now, aside from a few provisions I had stocked up, which allow me a meal of some kind, I have absolutely nothing left, nothing, and I don't know what to do. And so, my brave friend, I turn to you without really knowing whether my letter is truly necessary today. Ah... if we were back in '48—if I were 20 years younger—it would all be sorted soon enough. Three weeks spent not playing the fool but at target practice with a rifle... I’d be fit for duty. But now that my legs are starting to give out fast, I’d be more of a burden than a help to my brave comrades-in-arms.

So tell me, oh Babick, whether or not it’s really worth having a citizen of my kind lingering a few more years on this planet—and if so, try, if you can, to lend me a hundred francs, just enough to hold on until my friends in Belgium can send me some funds. But, dear friend, the matter is urgent... desperately urgent... I am flat broke, and if you don’t want me starving to death... act fast. Ô Baleiskos!

Let me know where, how, and when I could find you

A warm fraternal embrace, always...

Long live the République

democr... and soc...

 

Gérard Séguin

48 rue Saint-Placide