"il s'assurera que toutes choses sont dans l'état où il les a laissées"

Autograph letter signed by Alexandre Dumas to his mistress Marie Richon. 6 lines on one page of a bifolium of laid paper, with the writer's crowned initials.

« Chère amoi [sic]
Ton ami arrivé moulu brisé de deux nuits de voitures et de chemins de fer. Il t'attend demain soir mardi. Oh ce sera avec grand bonheur qu'il s'assurera que toutes choses sont dans l'état où il les a laissées
a toi »

Nothing is known of this affair with Marie Richon, addressed to this mistress evidently sensitive to literature ("Fais-moi de bons vers pour mon retour," he requests of her in another note). Actress, society woman or woman of learning, the mystery remains complete around this character who inspires in the insatiable Dumas a torrid correspondence. He notably arranged meetings with his mysterious conquest at his residence on Boulevard Haussmann, where he had settled from 1865 onwards. A sentence from Dumas in another note tells us that she even met Dumas's daughter, who lived with her father and endured the visits of his mistresses ("elle t'adore - ou plutôt nous t'adorons" he would write to her). This missive can probably be situated during 1866, when the writer was preparing the theatrical adaptation of his novel Gabriel Lambert and mentions in a letter a reading of the play, created at the Ambigu-Comique on March 16, 1866. The last years of his life did not belie his immeasurable love of women; during this period rich in adventures, he also shared his nights with the feminist and gerontophile Olympe Audouard, as well as the famous Adah Isaacs Menken, whose portraits alongside the writer were divulged by their indiscreet photographer.

Handsome letter filled with anticipation, from the hand of the great writer and addressed to a mysterious mistress still unknown to biographers.