DANTON (Georges-Jacques). Autograph letter signed... Lot 3

DANTON (Georges-Jacques). Autograph letter signed "Danton" to his wife Gabrielle Charpentier. Liege, December 17, 1792. 3 pp. in-4. 50.000/60.000 VERY PRECIOUS DOCUMENT OF ONE OF THE GREAT PROTAGONISTS OF THE REVOLUTION, ILLUSTRATING HIS POLITICAL COMMITMENT AND HIS PRIVATE LIFE. "The courier who brought me your letter, my dear Gabrielle, leaves in the minute and I have only a moment to let you know how pleased I am to receive news from you; do not forget to watch over the sending of my trees to Arcis [his house in Arcis-sur-Aube] and to urge your father to hurry up the arrangement of my lodging in his greenhouse house; give a thousand kisses to my little Danton [his son Antoine, born in 1790]. Tell him that his father will try not to be long at dada. I have just received the second letter by which I see that you have fulfilled what I wanted to recommend to you. I also find that L'AMI BRUNE has exaggerated things a bit [the future marshal Guillaume-Marie-Anne Brune, then a member of the Cordeliers club like Danton, and a close friend of Danton] by giving you reason to believe that I will be detained for more than two months by my mission. I hope to embrace you on January 1st after having spent a day or two in Arcis. I read in a public paper that a certain RIVAROL, in a conversation with Laporte, did me the honor of classifying me as one of those they could win with dinners. Would you be weak enough to have been worried about such nonsense; YOU KNOW THAT IF IN ORDER TO SERVE MY COUNTRY BETTER I HAVE RUN THE HAZARD OF DINING WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE, I HAVE WORKED SO WELL TO MAKE THEM GIVE THE BAL THAT WE ARE COMPLETELY QUIT. In addition, you should be wiser than anyone else about all the bad comments; you know how much my whole life and the battles I have waged against the main enemies of freedom put me in a position to confound all the malicious ones. All yours for life... Write me always "Army of Dumouriez". I receive Brune's coat just as I have bought one. Hello to all our friends after dear father." Then a representative of Paris at the Convention and a very listened member of the Jacobin Club, Georges-Danton defended the idea of an extension of France within the limits of its "natural borders". Between November and March 1793, he participated with other members of the Convention in three missions intended to organize the territories conquered in what is now Belgium, after the victory of Jemmapes won by General Dumouriez (November 6, 1792). Danton was extraordinarily attached to his wife Gabrielle, and received a terrible blow when, on a mission outside Paris for the Convention, he learned that she had died in childbirth in his absence (February 10, 1793): he returned hastily, and had her dug up to have her face molded by the sculptor Deseine, in order to preserve her features forever. ANTOINE DE RIVAROL (1753-1801), an anti-revolutionary essayist and pamphleteer, was also the brother of General Dumouriez's mistress. Danton, who had favored the career of the latter, was very venal and would have received, like Rivarol's sister, secret commissions in supply contracts for Dumouriez's army. FRIEND OF DUMOURIEZ AND CLOSE TO RIVAROL, ARNAUD DE LAPORTE (1737-1792), intendant of the Civil List (dependent on the King's Household), was also the leader of the monarchist club "Le National", and was responsible for financially supporting royalist propaganda. He was also the one who distributed the funds used to organize the escape of the royal family to Varennes. Rare "THE PRIVATE LETTERS OF DANTON ARE VERY RARE: ONLY THREE OR FOUR OF THEM ARE KNOWN AT ALL" (Charles Vellay, in "Lettres inédites de Danton", Revue historique de la Révolution française, n° 10, Paris, April-June 1912, p. 177). His official autograph letters are also mostly preserved in public repositories. Provenance : former collections of Alfred SENSIER (Paris, Librairie Charavay frères, 1878, notices of Étienne Charavay, n° 201, " autograph of the greatest rarity ", with partial reproduction p. 32), Alfred MORRISON (1891, vol. II, p. 5, n° 2, with complete reproduction pl. 60), Arthur MEYER (Paris, Drouot, Francisque Lefrançois et Noël Charavay experts, June 3-6, 1924, n° 129/autographs-3°) ; Christian Lazard (Paris, Drouot, Pierre Cornuau et Claude Guérin experts, May 19, 1967, n° 62) ; Robert Gérard.