VIGNY Alfred de (1797-1863). Lot n° 202

autograph manuscript, Royer-Collard, January 30, 1842; 2 1/2 pages, large folio (36 x 23 cm), paginated 9 to 11 (portrait attached). Famous account, written on the spot, of his academic visit to Royer-Collard. [The account of this visit to Pierre-Paul ROYER -COLL ARD (1763-1845) was collected in the Journal d'un poète (Bibl. de la Pléiade, p. 1163-1165).] The scene takes place in a poorly heated antechamber, between the candidate and "a poor old man, red in the nose and in the chin, his head loaded with an old black wig, and wrapped in the dressing gown of Géronte, with the towel on the collar of the Universal Legatee. Vigny is badly received and reports with verve in the form of a comedy dialogue the remarks exchanged. Royer-Collard declares to him: "My opinion is that you do not have chances", with a "certain air that he wants to make ironic and insolent". He even boasts that he does not read anything, neither newspapers, nor "anything that has been written for thirty years", he does not go to the theater, so he ignores the works of Vigny. The latter, at the moment of retiring, says: "You don't wait, I think I'll let you know my works, you'll discover them in your neighborhood, or in Russia in the Russian or German translation without me telling you: My children are as charming as the owl of Lafontaine"... And Vigny concludes: "Old man half in childhood. Embittered to see himself forgotten after having had his day of fame. Until now the academicians give me a good comedy, they would not write it so well that they play it to me without knowing it". Ph. de Flers, Th. Bodin, L'Académie française au fil des lettres, p. 196-200.