Camille DESMOULINS (1760-1794). L.A.S., Paris October 27, 17 - Lot 16

Camille DESMOULINS (1760-1794). L.A.S., Paris October 27, 1787, to his friend Grasset; 4 pages in-4 filled with his fine handwriting (slight foxing, small tear repaired). Thorek coll. stamp. A long, rare letter that provides valuable testimony to Camille Desmoulins' public debut as a lawyer. Desmoulins rejoices in the prosperity and fortune of his friend, the only friend he can remember... "Tu scais que je ne suis pas bien chaud en amitié, ma sensibilité n'est guere que dans le fond de mon cœur, et je deviens encor moins demonstratif, a mesure que les annees s'accumulent. [...] At the moment, I'm still a lawyer in parliament, and I'm nearing the end of my internship. The frankness and honesty of my character have been lost; [...] I was attached to Target, I displeased the boss, because I didn't have the strength to praise like all the guests, whose sycophancy made me look like a heron. Since I was not the son, brother or nephew of a prosecutor, I had two options left to me: to become a valet in a law firm, or to make a cuckold of the prosecutor; there were some cases where I would have used the second, but I lacked opportunities, and the other was not suitable for the son of a Lieutenant General, and for a man of letters. I wanted to make a name for myself in my profession, not to be looked up to, but to be able to choose a wife, Melle xx. This taste for Marriage, and the desire to have the one you know, have lost me more than anything else". Desmoulins, for example, was chased out of a house where they wanted him to marry his lame niece... "cetoit le temps où lesperance elevoit devant moi ses nuages dorés [...] et ou commencé a voir Mr Target, et nos autres aigles, et venant ensuite a me tater, je ne m'puisse empecher de me croire d'une telle bonne pate"... In an attempt to marry the woman he loves, Desmoulins takes a room in the house: "I couldn't imagine that by courting the girl the mother would like me, and that she would want to take me on [...] the scales fell from my eyes". The breakup is complete. Desmoulins then recounts the "great trial" he won, and how in Laon he defended a priest sentenced to the galleys and accused of having set fire to his village... "I do scenes in the palace [...] I play the great role I've taken over". He was dining at Target when news came through that the Baillage of Guise [where Camille's father was Lieutenant General] had registered the May 8th edicts "with acclamations": "All the lawyers who were at the table, fell on me, and treated my father with half indignity, I could not contain myself and I pleaded the cause of the new courts, then I thought they were going to tear off their clothes"... Desmoulins and a friend then drafted a document in support of the edicts; the document never appeared, but is well known enough to have definitively put Desmoulins at odds with the lawyers. But he met another wealthy companion who welcomed him: "we have a servant, the pot au feu, and daughters. I'm still composing, I'm even being printed at the moment [...] we each expect to get about thirty louis out of the booklet now in press. So be it. But it's a nasty business to base your income on the spirit you have"...