183 - Jules BRETON (1827-1906), painter and... - Lot 183 - Vermot et Associés

Lot 183
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200 - 300 EUR
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Result : 120EUR
183 - Jules BRETON (1827-1906), painter and... - Lot 183 - Vermot et Associés
183 - Jules BRETON (1827-1906), painter and poet. Autograph letter signed from youth to Victor Hugo, 3 pages in-8 plus address page with postage. Victor Hugo wrote at the top his "r" for "répondu", stamp and initial of Maître Gustave Gatine, notary of Victor Hugo's estate. Amazing letter from the young Jules Breton, that we can date from 1847, year of his arrival in Paris (not later, since after 1848, the postage bears a stamp). One can only be astonished by the freedom of tone of this 20 year old with regard to a French Peer and French Academician! Don't you think, Sir, that everything here below is vain and miserable? yes, everything is vain; God himself is vanity, for what is the use of his work, what is the use of the worlds, what is the use of himself? what is the use of the universe? nothing. All being is nothingness. Yes, the best, the most divine: life, love, all that is vanity, God is vanity. Ah, I am sick and bored; I am bored to see that everything is matter, fatality! [...] Ah, if I loved, I would be less bored. If I loved! that is to say, if I lived! ah! life, life and love and love this ray of life! oh my God give me life! but bah! is what must end so quickly worthy of envy... oh! I don't care, I'd like to be happy! to be happy! that would make Democritus or Voltaire laugh, that would make Heraclitus or Rousseau burst into tears. What a strange madman man is! O Pascal! O laborious madman! What do you say? [Forgive me, Sir, for these musings, but I am so sad, I am suffering so much, and I have no friend to console me, poor unfortunate patient! So in spite of my pride as a man, my pride that groans, I beg you for alms, for the charity of a little consolation. Ah, if I believed in Jesus - the god-man, the brotherly god, the sympathetic god, the god who suffered, the god son of a woman, the god dove for the spirit, lamb for the heart, if I had the happiness of believing in Him, I would not go to implore you, You whose pride will perhaps reject me. Yet I hope you will deign to receive me, for I am a sick and earnest traveller who needs hope, and, who knows, you may bring it down into my heart - ah! the unfortunate clings to every branch of salvation."
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