Autograph letter signed "Caron de Beaumarchais" to the Marquis de Lafayette.
Paris: 22 July 1789. 1 p., folded sheet with final integral leaf blank (236 x 190mm). Later pencil notation on the first page “Beaumarchais, P.A.G. Baron de.” Condition : small puncture to both pages, some slight creases, slight curling to corners. Provenance : Bloomsbury, 30 November 1983, lot 137; From Maggs, September 1984. Translation: “I have the honour to address to you my Memoire to Mms. les Electeurs [evidently the members of the National Assembly]. My request is harsh, but it is just. The more severely the enquiry is pursued, the more my patriotism will be vindicated. I therefore beg you to have it read in the Assembly, and to demand justice for a citizen who, devoted to his duties, has not had two hours sleep in the past eight days in order to fulfil them…” A vehement letter to Lafayette, written only a week after the fall of the Bastille. Beaumarchais had been involved with both the revolutionaries and the royalists, the present letter although obscure, is an evident plea for Lafayette’s support against the extremists of the Assembly. In an ironic turn of events, Beaumarchais is charged with treason in 1792. The man who inspired so much of the Revolution by his writing of “The Barber of Seville” and “The Marriage of Figaro” stood in danger of becoming one of it’s victims.
Autograph letter signed "Caron de Beaumarchais" to the Marquis de Lafayette.
Paris: 22 July 1789. 1 p., folded sheet with final integral leaf blank (236 x 190mm). Later pencil notation on the first page “Beaumarchais, P.A.G. Baron de.” Condition : small puncture to both pages, some slight creases, slight curling to corners. Provenance : Bloomsbury, 30 November 1983, lot 137; From Maggs, September 1984. Translation: “I have the honour to address to you my Memoire to Mms. les Electeurs [evidently the members of the National Assembly]. My request is harsh, but it is just. The more severely the enquiry is pursued, the more my patriotism will be vindicated. I therefore beg you to have it read in the Assembly, and to demand justice for a citizen who, devoted to his duties, has not had two hours sleep in the past eight days in order to fulfil them…” A vehement letter to Lafayette, written only a week after the fall of the Bastille. Beaumarchais had been involved with both the revolutionaries and the royalists, the present letter although obscure, is an evident plea for Lafayette’s support against the extremists of the Assembly. In an ironic turn of events, Beaumarchais is charged with treason in 1792. The man who inspired so much of the Revolution by his writing of “The Barber of Seville” and “The Marriage of Figaro” stood in danger of becoming one of it’s victims.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
