"... Mais de l'autre côté du polygone tout change ; il y a un autre bois de Vincennes, beau comme la Muette, et d'aussi grand air..."

Autograph letter signed by Pierre Louÿs, addressed to Georges Louis. 61 lines on four pages written in violet ink on a double folio, envelope included.
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 paternal identity still fascinates biographers today: "His father, Pierre Philippe Louis, [...] had married in 1842 Jeanne Constance Blanchin, who died ten years later after bearing 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 of 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 direction. Of course, no irrefutable proof has been discovered, and none probably ever 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, 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 Japan paper copy of the first edition of Pausole: To Georges, his eldest son / Pierre." (Jean-Paul Goujon, Pierre Louÿs)
Pierre Louÿs is positively surprised by the beauty of the Vincennes woods, of which he knew only one part, Lake Daumesnil, which he detests: "I knew only Lake Daumesnil from the Woods, a sort of dump even filthier than the Bois de Boulogne, full of greasy paper, bottle bottoms, chicken bones, girls in the grass. But on the other side of the polygon everything changes; there is another Vincennes woods, beautiful as la Muette, and equally grand in appearance...", which incites him to settle very nearby: "The house I have in view is situated in Vincennes itself, avenue Marigny. From its door to the Metropolitan station = 10 minutes. From this station to Concorde = 16 minutes, total journey = 26 minutes... No, it really is a charming and suitable place of residence."
Henceforth, the only impediment to his move to Vincennes is of a pecuniary nature: "Regarding the house I am considering, the agency responded: 7000 monsieur, but the owners... I am sure you could have that for 4000. I might offer 3000, not a penny more."