Bon-Claude CAHIER de Gerville (1751-1816) Procureur-Syndic o - Lot 85

Lot 85
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380 - 400 EUR
Bon-Claude CAHIER de Gerville (1751-1816) Procureur-Syndic o - Lot 85
Bon-Claude CAHIER de Gerville (1751-1816) Procureur-Syndic of the Paris Commune, Minister of the Interior. L.A.S., Paris April 2, 1791; 1 page in-4, letterhead and vignette Municipalité de Paris, Procureur de la Commune. Curious letter concerning the tragic events surrounding MIRABEAU's death, written on the very day of his death. [On the night of April 1 to 2, as Mirabeau lay dying on his deathbed in his hotel on the Chaussée d'Antin, his secretary Étienne de Comps was found lying on the floor of his room, bloodied and stabbed five times with a knife... Was it a failed suicide out of fanaticism for his master, or an assassination, or a plot? The mystery was never solved...] Cahier asks a justice of the peace and a commissioner to give the bearer "any information they may have on the frightening adventure that took place last night at the home of M. de Mirabeau. I do not need to make them feel how important it is to acquire evidence on the cause of the event & not to lose a single means of obtaining confessions". Response at the bottom of the letter, probably by Maugis (municipal police administrator): "We are busy with the injured man, whom we are having great difficulty hearing and cannot question immediately. It seems [...] that he had spent three days without eating, which had heated up his head, that he was always hearing about the poison that M. de Mirabeau was threatened with, and that he must even have taken some"; the interrogation is so disorganized that he cannot give any more details... ex 9785/499
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