Lot n° 352
Estimation :
200 - 300
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FEUILLET DE CONCHES, Félix-Sébastien (1798-1887), diplomat a - Lot 352
FEUILLET DE CONCHES, Félix-Sébastien (1798-1887), diplomat and major French collector. He was also a brilliant forger of rare letters and manuscripts: he created forgeries and inserted them to replace certain documents in collections or archives lent to him for his work, thus stealing the originals, and also created forged autographs to exchange with other collectors. His main specialties were Racine, Boileau, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, and La Fontaine.
Set of 10 documents: 9 L.A.S. and 1 L.S., some addressed to Armand Baschet (1829-1886). 1852 to 1871 and n.d. Approx. 24 pp. folio, in-4 or in-8.
Feuillet de Conches looks back on his career at the Affaires étrangères and the internal struggles over the archives, notably over the preservation of Saint-Simon's Mémoires; their move after Louis XVIII's death to the Hôtel d'Etchegoyen (and not to the Hôtel de Wagram, unfit to house them) and relates a number of anecdotes: the removal of a "Boucher door top" that the archives' custodian, M. Cintrat, "had transported into the archives". Cintrat, "had it transported to his salon"; the arrival of Mignet; the academician Jean-Louis Bergeret, friend of Racine, Boileau and Colbert; Venice (Baschet's specialty); the Gospels of St. Mark; the papers of the Count of Esterhazy; a heated quarrel caused by quibbling over the price of a piece of jewelry; he transcribes a scene from the end of Jérôme Bonaparte supported by "the young Princess Bonaparte" supporting him; etc.
To Fougère. L.A.S. S.l.n.d. "Here is a new notebook I found and bought yesterday. It is in Malebranche's hand [...]. Notice the C's, the h's, the double p's. Notice also how the r's, in the middle of words, will loop with the letters that deprive them. But is it his? Or a copy of Descartes [or a copy of Feuillet de Conches!] I remember reading, some ten years ago, Méditations métaphysiques [...]. You will find at the bottom [...] an absurd (pardon the word) thought on the soul of beasts. It smacks of Descartes [...]".
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