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Lot n° 195

BARBEY D'AUREVILLY Jules (1808 - 1889)

Estimate :
800 - 1 000 EUR

MANUSCRIT autograph signed "J. Barbey d'Aurevilly", La Colonne, [1873]; 3 fol. pages in black and red inks (leaves cut out for printing and reassembled, framed). Vigorous article on the destruction of the Colonne Vendôme during the Commune and the decision to rebuild it. [In May 1873, Marshal de Mac-Mahon, President of the Republic, decided to have the Colonne Vendôme rebuilt at Gustave Courbet's expense]. Barbey's article appeared in Le Gaulois on June 6, 1873, and was collected in Dernières Polémiques (A. Savine, 1891). It is divided into four parts. The manuscript shows erasures and corrections. Some sentences are written in red ink, and Barbey has embellished his text with letters in ink of different colors (the title in gold ink). "She was a glory. She's going to be a second. It was victory that raised her, and it is victory that raises her. The victory of the last few days! Victory once again over the enemy, and what enemy? The enemy within, more odious than the enemy without! We're going to see her on her feet again! And may we press her, to crush them better, on the chest of all France's enemies, that vanquished brass, as its sublime inscription said, supplied by the Enemy and brought down by an enemy, worse than the first! Blessed be the God of France! We are going to see again that vanquished bronze - and now doubly victorious, which we might never have seen again; for the wretches who brought it down had lit enough fires in Paris to melt it in their abominable flames! [...] So it's not just a column that has been raised today... These are the raisings of France! Etc. Barbey then evokes the destruction of the Commune, and underlines the symbolism of the Column, which "is not a monument like any other. The Column is part of the honor of France, and when it is knocked down, our honor seems to be knocked down as well. [...] Its bronze is much more than mere bronze. The blood of those who took it from the enemy on the battlefield has soaked it, penetrated it, and made it human and alive. Make no mistake! It's the blood of France that's in there"... Those who destroyed it were "parricides": "An anonymous and collective crime, carried out in bright sunlight, but by beings who called themselves the mob, the irresponsible and detestable mob [...] We can raise the Column. We can't have it raised by those who brought it down! We cannot impose this vengeful and just atonement on them. [...] Only one name now stands out in the memory of the sunken crime, and that is the name of COURBET, the Erostrate of the Column, more guilty and more imbecile than the stupid Erostrates who so bestially burned Paris! Courbet, the false artist, who found ugly this proud Colonne, soaring straight up to God, like a Te Deum of victory for rapt eyes, like the flame of an inextinguishable incense burner, Courbet, who will forever remain the holder of the crime of the Colonne, in execrable immortality!" How to punish such a man: "it would be necessary," said an indignant man the other day, "to show the whole of France the citizen Courbet, sealed in an iron cage under the base of the Colonne. [...] Certainly, the weakness of our decrepit days will recoil before such a male chastisement, but History is there to take care of the cage. And I tell you, it will be made of iron!

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