Pierre-Jean de BÉRANGER (1780-1857). L.A.S., [La Grenadière near Tours] January 24, 1837, to François Mignet; 3 pages in-4, address. Beautiful letter to the historian, during his stay at La Grenadière. He reassures Mignet: "I like my shack very much and in spite of the glory that M. de Balzac has given it, I see that one can live there safe from intruders. [La Grenadière is a short story by Balzac, inspired by his stay in this house in 1830]. He encourages Mignet to follow his example: "The love of retirement is enough for me to feel good about it [...] in such solitude, your work would have been finished a long time ago and I would not always be saying to myself: but when will I read it? Hurry up, we old people, we have to fear not that what is good and well will not happen, but that we will not be there when the time comes"... From his retreat, he follows politics: "Thiers, whose words I have read and reread, seems to me to have placed himself higher than he had been before... Never had he shown such a great talent applied to such a great strength of reasoning". However, he should not be able to return to power for a long time. About the notice that Mignet has just written on Sieyès, it is "a perfect appreciation of the great role of this revolutionary oracle. I found there with pleasure the little anecdote that M. de T. [Talleyrand] told us at M. Laffitte's house [...] Thus Sieyès thought of the national guard before Lafayette. He evokes his friend Fabreguettes in search of a post of consul, and finishes on his little inspiration: "shapeless essays, produced in a hurry, here is at most what I can be capable of, songs in prose, good or bad, here is all. [...] And then I hardly believe any more in the possibility of writing history. His time has come for us and you are going to give us new proofs of it "... He congratulates Mignet for his recent election to the French Academy (December 29, 1836) : " I figured that you were going to block the way to Hugo, who doubly needs the academy. What was my surprise to see that it is to C. Bonjour that you had the door shut in his face. I don't know if I should congratulate you for being from a body which was about to prefer you to Bonjour and that all of you would have preferred him to Hugo "... A L.A.S (1 p. in-8) to Rousselin de Saint-Albin is attached.