"H.[eredia] refuse [...] la dédicace d'Aphr.[odite] parce qu'il a encore deux filles à marier."

Autograph letter signed by Pierre Louÿs, signed with his initial, addressed to Georges Louis. Four pages written in blue ink on a double sheet. Envelope enclosed bearing, on the verso, the intact wax seal with the writer's cipher. Transverse fold inherent to the mailing.
Important 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 the real identity of Pierre Louÿs' father still fascinates biographers today: "His father, Pierre Philippe Louis, [...] had married in 1842 Jeanne Constance Blanchin, who died ten years later after giving 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 towards 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 father of the writer. The exceptionally intimate and constant relationship that Pierre and Georges maintained between them all 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 seriously 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, in the midst 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 for him what you are for me.' Arguing from the close intimacy of Georges and Claire Céline during 1870, and the jealousy that the father never ceased to show towards his younger son, Claude Farrère did not hesitate to conclude in favor of Georges Louis. And what to make of this dedication by Louÿs to his brother on a Japan paper copy of the first edition of Pausole: To Georges, his eldest son / Pierre." (Jean-Paul Goujon, Pierre Louÿs)
As attested by the enclosed envelope, Pierre Louÿs sends this letter to his brother while the latter is exercising the function of France's delegate to the International Commission of Egyptian Debt and is in Cairo. Like a good socialite, Pierre tells his brother about his new encounters: "I met yesterday at a friend's house one of the sons of your minister [Marcellin Berthelot]. I have known all four of them for a long time, but I see little of them. One of them (André) is a friend of Henri Mougeot with whom he has rented, along with two or three other young men, a house in Chevreuse and a mistress in Paris. [...] The other, Daniel is a professor at the School of Pharmacy. A remarkable chemist, they say. Philippe does nothing special [...] Finally René, the youngest, is Blum's oldest friend and his great rival of former times in the general competition. [...] It is Philippe who formed five or six years ago with Léon Daudet and Georges Hugo such a famous trinity. He is also known for having written a sonnet containing six rhymes in omphe, which stupefied Heredia."
But these worldly matters do not distance Pierre Louÿs from literature. Indeed, his first novel entitled Aphrodite is about to appear and he wonders to whom he could dedicate it. He first thought of José Maria de Heredia but... "H. refuses [...] the dedication of Aphr. because he still has two daughters to marry. I myself had put a thousand reservations in my offer, and his response, after all, is not unobliging. I know on the other hand that he repeats before strangers and indifferent persons everything he told me about the book and in the same hyperbolic terms. Finally he gave me this argument: I want to write you an article in the Débats; I could not write it if the book were dedicated to me. - So I am thinking of Besnard. What do you say?"
The question takes on full importance: Louÿs had until then published only booklets printed in limited editions. The work, which will finally be dedicated to Albert Besnard, will achieve immense success, contributing greatly to the launch of the Mercure de France publishing house. We also know what other great success Pierre Louÿs will achieve with the Heredia daughters.
Very fine letter written on the eve of Pierre Louÿs' first great public success, the novel Aphrodite.