BALZAC Honoré de (1799-1850). Lot n° 10

L.A.S. "from Balzac", Berditcheff October 22, 1849, to Charles SAUVAGEOT; 2 1/2 pages in-8 on fine paper, address. Beautiful letter to the violinist and collector, model of the Cousin Pons. [Charles SAUVAGEOT (1781-1860), violinist at the Opera, was also a great collector of medieval antiquities and Renaissance objects, which he donated to the Louvre. He shared with Balzac a passion for Bernard Palissy. Balzac, who lived in Wierzchownia, Ukraine, with Madame Hanska, had ordered a violin from Sauvageot for Dr. Knothe, who had treated him. He thanks him for the sending of a violin, which arrived at the right place: "finally, through so many instruments of great music which have rolled between Gallicia and Vienna, this one has emerged and has not suffered, it has come safe and sound, and it has been found perfect, excellent, and it has put the amateur, collector of violins in taste. This artist is the doctor of the family in which I live far from the storms, and I owe him almost my life, since I had a heart disease in the highest degree from which he delivered me; therefore, as I also wish to make him a gift, following the example of the two beautiful and grateful patients who had this violin brought to me; if, by chance, you find, or you hear about some masterpiece of violin making, you who know so well about it, please think of me, let me know. He soon returns to Paris, but "as I am forbidden to climb more than 20 steps, I will be carried by two commissioners in a kind of palanquin to your museum to see it and to see you. I still have your Cossack whip on my dresser, so that I think of you. What you told me about the difficulty of finding real Palissy, healthy and whole, makes me drunk. Palissy, Rabelais and Salomon de Caux without statues, in a country that raises statues to Parmentier and Monge, to Ducange and Coquille, is a fact that irritates me and makes me blush not to be rich enough to repair this ingratitude. In any case, chance is so great, especially in Paris, where cars only kill 5 or 6 people a year, that it could meet with a dish; think of me then, after you, of course... Correspondence (Pléiade), t. III, n° 49-64.