BERLIOZ Hector (1803-1869) Lot n° 3

L.A.S. "H B.", Paris 26 September [1843], to his sister Nanci PAL at La Côte Saint-André; 4 pages in-8 with address (small tear from broken seal). Nice family letter, talking about his music criticism feuilletons. [On September 19 his uncle Auguste Berlioz died. During this month of September Berlioz composed the Overture to the Roman Carnival, and the Journal des Débats published in serial form his Voyage musical en Germany]. He was expecting "the sad news [...] our poor uncle was already in a very sad state several days before leaving Paris; when he then found himself unable to leave his bed, he did not want to let anyone know of this aggravation of his illness, and from that moment on he could not be seen. [...] I hope that our poor father will have endured this new blow with the resignation that he has had to exercise so often in recent years, and that in any case, you and Camille will have supported him as best you could. Will Adèle [Suat, his other sister] be able to come and spend a few days at least at the Côte? I doubt it. As for me, I am too far away, too enslaved and too sad; I would be bad company for my father, whose philosophy is already not very cheerful and does not need to be turned towards the dark side of things. His wife Henriette [Harriet] is ill "and is very worried although her condition is not serious". Then he refutes Adèle's calculation about the proceeds of his articles: "How is it that you still don't know that I am paid at the Jal des Débats per article and not per line? A serial of 8 (or 12) columns is worth a hundred francs to me, but if it has only 4 columns it is paid only fifty francs. I was paid formerly by Europe Literary 50c the line; this generous newspaper did not live a long time. The Jal des Débats is however the one of all the sheets of this kind which pays the best; DUMAS will have perhaps made some particular conventions with the Press, conventions that I cannot nor must impose to the Jal des Débats ". The public believes that he receives large sums for his articles: "These letters have a great vogue among the artistic and literate world, one says to me from all sides: You have in your turn Your small mysteries of Paris, it is a success in the manner of SUE, etc.; - and I cannot still find a bookseller to buy me two volumes where these letters must appear. Most of these prudent industrialists find that it is addressed to too small an audience, the musical and literate public. If it were a novel in the manner of Paul de Kock, readable especially for cooks, I would already have made a very good deal. They are right. In the meantime there are already six or seven translations and forgeries of these letters in Belgium and Germany. It is always pleasant to know that one is useful to others when one cannot be useful to oneself"... Correspondence, t. III, n° 851.