DUMAS père Alexandre (1802-1870). Lot n° 45

autograph manuscript signed "ADumas," [Lettres d'Italie], 1861; 113 folios in-fol. (27 x 21.5 cm) mounted and pasted by the edges on wove paper leaves, with added calligraphic title page; all bound in one folio volume, black half calf with corners, double gilt fillet at the spines, green paper boards embossed with vine leaves, four-ribbed spine underlined with three gilt fillets, six-filleted boxes including one large one, author's name in gilt gothic letters, gilt title and edges, slipcase (Lavaux, 1942). A fascinating and unpublished set of ten articles in the form of letters written from Italy the day after the foundation of the Kingdom by Victor Emmanuel II. These letters are addressed to Gustave CLAUDIN (1819-1896), editor of the Moniteur universel. They were not inserted in the newspaper, probably for fear of the censorship. Dating from September and October 1861, they are written from Turin, Naples and Avezzano. In 1860, Alexandre Dumas had left France and joined in May the expedition of the "Thousand" led by Garibaldi in Sicily. A supporter of the revolutionary ideas of Italian unity, Dumas supported Garibladi by participating in a smuggling operation of rifles. Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed King of Italy on March 14, 1861. To thank Dumas for his loyalty, Garibaldi appointed him by decree as director of the excavations and museums, with accommodation in Naples. Dumas stayed in Naples for four years and, as usual, was extraordinarily active: he founded the Neapolitan daily L'Indipendente, dedicated to the Garibaldi cause, while continuing to publish his Parisian newspaper Le Monte Cristo. Dumas will follow the events closely and comment on them in this series of letters that form real little essays whose material was perhaps used in his Causeries or his Italian articles in L'Indipendente. However, the whole seems to have remained unpublished, at least in this form. The letters refer to the difficult period that followed the great years of the Risorgimento, on the way to the complete unification of Italy, and denounce the collusion of the brigands and the Camorra with the Bourbon reaction. These letters are written in black ink on the front of 113 sheets of blue laid paper, the first of which bear the letterhead of the Hotel Feder in Turin. At the bottom of page 78 (end of the 6th letter), Dumas has pasted a propaganda vignette representing Garibaldi. The letters are numbered in blue pencil, the 2nd numbered 1 b, the 3rd numbered 2, etc. The first letter [1] is written from Turin: "My dear Claudin I write you from Turin instead of from Naples. I wanted to give you a sign of life; moreover, while passing by, I am witnessing the fall of Mr. Minghetti, which you already know and which is the news of the day here".... It is dated September 1, 1861. Dumas retraces the career of the prime minister Marco Minghetti, who was one of the main artisans of the Risorgimento alongside Cavour, and proposes a political analysis of the project of unifying the country... (6 p.). The second letter [1 b] bears the supertitle Le Brigandage. "I do not know if one still occupies itself in Paris with the political fires of Ponte Lanfolfo and Casalduni [bloody repression of the Italian army, on August 14, 1861, following the assassination by brigands of an officer and soldiers], but one continues to occupy itself enormously here to the great detriment of the popularity of the General Cialdini and of the Piedmontese sympathy. The Piedmontese occupation took today the character of an invasion [...] in Naples the brigandage is the safeguard of the independence of the soil"... (14 p.). The third letter [2], dated September 7, is dedicated to the Camorra, "a limited partnership for the exploitation of evil. The Camorrists are the pimps of Evil"... They can be recognized "by their velvet jackets, their brightly colored ties, their chains of watches crossing in all directions on their chests, their fingers loaded with rings up to the first phalanx" .... (18 p.). The 4th letter [3] is dated from Avezzano on September 16. "I write to you from the small town of Avezzano, center of the reaction, homeland, more or less, of Chiavone and Georgi - during the day with a telescope we can see the brigands - at night without a telescope we can see their fires"... (10 p.). The 5th [4] is from September 17, still from Avezzano. "Dear friend, The eccentricities of Monseigneur de Pora made me make to the detriment of our account an excursion in the fields of the picturesque, let us return to our San Fédistes in the process of organizing Bourbonnian municipalities instead of the literal municipalities which they had found "... (12 p.). 6th [5], Avezzano September 21. "Dear friend Let us take again the history of the reaction where we left it in our last letter. I especially want to make you see that