DAVID Jacques-Louis (1748-1825) Lot n° 8

L.A.S. "David", 19 germinal X (April 9, 1802), to a citizen Minister [Jean-Antoine CHAPTAL, Minister of the Interior]; 3 pages in-4. Angry letter about the allocation of a dwelling to make his workshop. He had already refused lodging at the Hotel d'Aiguillon, and he recalls the reasons for his refusal in case the architect Jallier did not do it: the distance from the neighborhood, the poor lighting, the cost of repairs. The minister seems to want to put him in the position of having to refuse, "only to go on to say that I am a difficult man and impossible to please. No, Citizen Minister, let us speak clearly. If you do not have with you a man who distracts you from the good intentions that you could have conceived for me, let us say that everything will already be over to our mutual satisfaction, but the city. Raymond [Jean-Arnaud RAYMOND (1742-1811, architect of the Louvre) a false and wicked man circumvents you, he wants to take revenge on me he must, an ignorant or better to say a mediocre and creeping man does not like to see an artist that Europe contemplates, he does his job, but you, citizen Minister, you must do yours. You must protect this talent, and not enter the artists' coteries. However, you seem to be putting yourself at the head of my envious people, and that is what emboldens them. I have already complained about this to the first Consul, and in his kindness, he answered me that he was entrusting his architects to house me properly, they are currently taking care of it, so, citizen Minister, you will not have the inconvenience of taking care of a man you hate"... He adds: "You have given the Four Nations, which is an immense palace, to the Academy [...] and to me, who has a school as numerous as all their schools put together, you have only given me a small part of the pavement, with the impossibility of making workshops there".