Dominique-Joseph GARAT (1749-1833) lawyer,... - Lot 458 - Rossini

Lot 458
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Dominique-Joseph GARAT (1749-1833) lawyer,... - Lot 458 - Rossini
Dominique-Joseph GARAT (1749-1833) lawyer, deputy and minister. 38 L.A.S., 1794-1822, mostly to Alexandre Rousselin de Saint-Albin; about 45 pages in various sizes, addresses and 2 envelopes. Friendly correspondence with his former collaborator: recommendations, appointments, invitations to dinner (notably with Marbot and Bernadotte, with Madame de Coigny and her son Maillia). In a long letter (Ustaritz, July 24), he anticipates the trip he is to make with his wife, from Bayonne to Paris, by wanting to show her the countries of the South-West: he likes these landscapes but he is "not so crazy about them as to prefer them to the society of my friends [...] Any other society soon tires me, in all this worldly noise, there are very few things that one likes to hear and that one cares to remember. Is there anything more boring than commonplaces eternally repeated, nothing more revolting than absurdities always put back in vogue and in triumph. This is the talk of the towns of Europe, large and small. All these people, who call themselves literary people, because they know how to read and write, I look upon them today as the most fatal enemies of human reason. Almost always, even talent has turned its power against the truth; one appears sublime by dint of lacking common sense, and like debauchery, reason in delirium enjoys what kills it. I don't want to hear any more about all this; I want to live and die. It is necessary that I find the phisical nature mute [...] All that speaks, and the most beautiful of languages, that of Horace and Virgil", that he rereads "with a kind of enchantment and in this edition which is indeed the edition princeps".Often withdrawn to the Basque country (several letters are written from Ustaritz and from his castle of Urdaïns), Garat asks for pamphlets (that of Lanjuinais which "becomes in appearing a historical movement which will live for centuries" February 3, 1818, the complete collection of La Clef du Cabinet), newspapers (a subscription to La Quotidienne) and books (of which the Life of Jean-Jacques). He works, corrects proofs and sends articles (on Ange Pithou). He evokes Mme de Staël, to whom he will bring the "duplicate of the note". He received (September 13, 1821) the two volumes of the Mémoires de l'abbé Morellets sur le 18ème siècle: "What a deplorable work, both for the content of things and for the form! I am the only one in the world, it seems to me, who can have some pleasure in reading it, but the greatest pleasure it has given me is to have imposed upon me the necessity of noting several of his inane misunderstandings, his furious impostures [...] I believe I have some rather curious things to say and to have read about this philosopher who knew licentiousness and who became a priest while laughing..." We also note some letters or bills to various people:Mme de Rougeville, abbé Grégoire, Gérando... We join a L.A.S. of his son Maillia Garat, 29 nivôse IV, to Rousselin, recommending him the citizen Cardot "who exposed his life to save that of the unhappy Condorcet", who received a summons to pay a sum which would ruin him; "the Cesse of Condorcet will still pay you of the care that you will have taken for that".
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