Jacques-Nicolas BILLAUD-VARENNE (1756-1819)... - Lot 611 - Rossini

Lot 611
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Jacques-Nicolas BILLAUD-VARENNE (1756-1819)... - Lot 611 - Rossini
Jacques-Nicolas BILLAUD-VARENNE (1756-1819) conventionnel (Paris), member of the Comité de Salut public, he was deported. L.A.S., 27 Floréal XIII (17 May 1805), to his father; 7 pages in-4. A long and very interesting letter from his exile in French Guiana, about the death of his mother, the hardships he went through, his business, his slaves, his life in Guyana since he refused the pardon granted by Napoleon in 1800, where he lives modestly as a farmer with his Guadeloupean companion... The first part of the letter, in a tender and respectful tone, is devoted to the death of his mother that his father informed him of in his last letter: he expresses all his sorrow, "The inconveniences that had beset me for eighteen months seemed to foreshadow an infinitely more bitter and overwhelming misfortune. He comforts his father, and refuses any inheritance, and not wanting to deprive his father of any income: "enough and too long time I was with your load, so that today I dispense myself to restrict your faculties. The son who has arms and who is capable of stripping his father and mother, although authorized by written law [...] is in my opinion a barbarian who outrages nature and dishonors humanity. [...] I am certainly not rich; and I think I have proved that my ambition was not that of fortune". He only asks for the affection of his dear father, whom he begs to spare his health... As for his unfortunate brother Henri, who did not marry and who had children with a woman of color: "they cannot in any case disturb your peace, because it is against the laws of the colonies to be able to legitimize such children.All that is permitted to do in their favor is, if they were all born in slavery, to give them freedom and to bequeath to them portions of the property enjoyed in the colony where one resides only"... As for himself, he congratulates himself on not having children: "I have been in the face of so many setbacks in my life"; and he reassures his father about his fate. He first suffered from the new regime set up in the colonies, which left him in the most embarrassing situation: his farm of Dorvillier, which he wanted to buy, was cancelled like all the others: he lost all the expenses he had been foolish enough to make on these lands; he had to buy another estate, "so that while I lacked the resource of my farm, I had an additional expense, both for the purchase of my new asylum, and for the acquisition of the negroes necessary for its cultivation. He bought the bare land which represents a painful undertaking, "but the work does not frighten me". He had to sue an illegal occupant who had taken advantage of the abandonment of the property to invade half of it; it turned out that the seller did not have the right to sell it to him, and a second lawsuit ensued. In addition, he had left a bursar in Dorvillier to whom he had entrusted his property: "he got along with the negroes and they stole almost all my crop. He nevertheless managed to triumph over all these annoyances and losses: the two lawsuits were judged in his favor, and he has been for 4 months "peaceful and immutable possessor of the totality of my hermitage"... He proceeds to various transactions with the "negroes conceded by the government", reselling some, buying others, etc.; he paid the entire cost of his dwelling, and bought ten head of cattle, because he has very good pastures... If we add the value of his slaves to the value of the land and the house, he manages to balance his budget. In addition, his situation is very pleasant, the landscape very pretty, although it is only three leagues from Cayenne, and life is easy thanks to the abundance of game and fish: he is as well "as one can be in such a country"... He also informs his father of his marital situation: "I have had with me for eight years a housekeeper to whom I owe the prolongation of my sad existence, by the unheard-of care she has taken of me [...] so as soon as the return from slavery came, I bought her and paid her in cash; and I immediately gave her freedom. I do not presume, therefore, that my family will find it wrong, after the services this girl has rendered me, and continues to render me daily, by the order and economy she keeps in the house, and by the supervision and good behavior she maintains among my negroes, that I should try to save her from misery, in case she should lose me, by assuring her the enjoyment of the property [...He regrets that the distances and the war have kept him so far from his dear father, "since for ten years since I have been living in this colony, I have only received nine letters from you", he wishes for his
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