Manon Phlipon, Madame ROLAND (1754-1793)... - Lot 280 - Ader

Manon Phlipon, Madame ROLAND (1754-1793) the muse of the Girondins; wife (1780) of Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière (1734-1793), she was guillotined. L.A.S. "Phlipon", Paris April 20, 1770, to Mademoiselle Sophie Cannet "la cadette" in Amiens; 2 pages and a half in-4, address with red wax stamp to her figure crowned with roses (broken; small tear by breaking of stamp with loss of some letters). Very beautiful letter of youth, unpublished, at the age of sixteen to her friend from her boarding school, the very first of the letters to the Cannet girls (it does not appear in the partly unpublished Letters from Madame Roland to the Cannet girls, H. Plon, 1867). Manon Phlipon had studied with Sisters Sophie and Henriette Cannet at the convent of the Ladies of the Congregation; she testifies here to her deep attachment and confidence in her friend Sophie. "You have therefore finally given in dear friend to the repeated instances of your heart and your laziness expiring under the efforts of friendship has been forced to reconnoitre her empire and to submit to these laws. This triumph is glorious to her [...] but what am I saying, I am mistaken, the silence that we are so well able to keep is a proof of the intimate conviction where we are, one and the other of the truth of our feelings and we do not taste any less the sweetness our hearts closely united know how to cross in a fast flight the space that separates us. ...] Let us enjoy, my dear friend, the pure pleasure of a friendship so beautiful and so dark that the charming knots that bind us together are perhaps even more tightly tied than those of blood. ...] to what satisfaction one can be more reasonably sensitive than to the satisfaction of two hearts that are one. If one has some sorrow, it is relieved by the part that the other takes in it; if a sweet joy is felt, it is increased by the joy he finds in sharing it with his faithful companion; what a sweetness it is to communicate one's thoughts without reserve without fear without anxiety; you have made me taste these pleasures in your letter by the confidence you have shown me and you can expect the same from me. It evokes the faithful "eager to come and give back to the divine majesty their prayers and vows [...] perhaps, alas, we will still regret this sincerity and innocence which seemed to be the main character of the ancient tems, or a heap of stone or grass let the rustic monumens which the innocent hands of our first fathers raise to the supreme being [...] Ever since mortals have raised temples to the divinity who deigns to confine his immensity within their narrow limits ÿ to reside In an admirable way and seems to have to attract an even deeper respect for his goodness, it seems to give even more boldness to loffenser and one is not afraid to go to his sanctuary to outrage him in a way that must put humans to shame. Oh how happy we are, my dear friend, to be able to communicate our reflections to each other in this way; they would be considered ridiculous by some people because we look at things in a very different way.... She ends with protests of friendship...