SAINTE-BEUVE Charles-Augustin (1804-1869) 2 L.A.S.... Lot 5

SAINTE-BEUVE Charles-Augustin (1804-1869) 2 L.A.S. (s.l.) October 29, 1858 and July 19, 1866. 2 pp. in-8. A hole in the 1866 letter with missing text. Interesting letter from 1858 "[...] I had read your serious and interesting study. And you have perfectly demonstrated to me the profound differences that separate the two peoples and their political organization, manner and procedure from the outset, - differences [...] that they have spent their lives trying to evade. I remember the country of the former prisoner of Ham, which point in the same direction [...]". Attached is a letter from Villemain to Sainte-Beuve; in July 1866, a very interesting reflection on Marie-Antoinette's letters "[...] These articles form a perfect picture in their contrast. Nothing is forgotten, and you have done well to collect them. On the delicate point you touch upon, I do believe that we have been misled. Why haven't you or I seen the text of these very first letters from the Dauphine, and how can M. d'Hunolstein's text be false from the expert's point of view, if M. Feuillet has a truer and more authentic source, which he is not showing to anyone despite all the exhortations he has received? [...] Underneath it all there is an imposture, and never (despite modern theory) is there an imposture without an impostor. [...] The portrait you painted of Marie-Antoinette survives, and the major parts of it remain completely independent of the petty fraud of a color merchant. [...]" . Sainte-Beuve accused Feuillet de Conches of imposture in connection with the letters and unpublished documents published by Plon in 1865 and the Correspondances inédites de Marie-Antoinette published on the original documents by Vogt d'Hunolstein by Dentu in 1864.