Alexandre DUMAS père (1802-1870). Autograph manuscript signe - Lot 189

Alexandre DUMAS père (1802-1870). Autograph manuscript signed, [Madame Lafarge], September 1863; 47 folios in-4 written recto on blue paper (split and small tear to last leaf). Interesting reminiscences on Madame Lafarge. Manuscript of an article for Dumas's Neapolitan newspaper, L'Indipendente, where it was published, on the 4-column "front page", dated "Napoli, 16 settembre 1863" (anno III, no. 208, September 17, 1863, pages 1-4), in Italian: Al Signor Antonio Ranieri; the article was collected (in a translation from the Italian) by Claude Schopp in Cahiers Alexandre Dumas, n° 31, La peine de mort, 2004, p.174-198; the French version, in accordance with Dumas' text, is unpublished. Antonio Ranieri (1806-1888), a Neapolitan man of letters, liberal, friend and biographer of Leopardi, whose works he edited, had published an open letter to Dumas in the newspaper Il Pungolo, on the subject of the death penalty, which he called for to be abolished; Dumas replied in three issues of L'Indipendente on September 12, 16 and 17; Ranieri had alluded, in his article, to the trial of Madame Lafarge and the extenuating circumstances retained by the jurors. Mme Lafarge, née Marie Capelle (1816-1852), accused of having poisoned her husband, was sentenced in 1840 to life imprisonment at hard labor, after a resounding trial. She was pardoned in 1852, a few months before her death. Dumas reused this article in his book Marie Cappelle (Souvenirs intimes), published in 35 feuilletons in Les Nouvelles (September 26-November 2, 1866), then collected in volume form by Claude Schopp (Madame Lafarge, Pygmalion, 2005). The manuscript, on blue paper and in fine handwriting, shows very few erasures; a few words are occasionally added in line spaces. It bears no title, but only the date: "Tuesday 15th 11 p.m.". It is paginated 1 to 39, then, after a small gap (corresponding to a few retorts between Dumas and Félix Deviolaine), 36 to 43. On page 3, a blank space corresponds to a quotation in Italian from Ranieri's article. Page 43, after the final signature, Dumas has inscribed this dispatch: "A mon bon ami Paillard de Villeneuve / Naples 25 7bre 1863 A. Dumas" [Adolphe Paillard de Villeneuve (1804-1874) was a lawyer who defended literary figures and was editor-in-chief of the Gazette des Tribunaux]. Dumas knows Madame Lafarge's story well, and tells it at length, beginning with the birth in London in 1777 of Herminie, daughter of Madame de Genlis and the Duc d'Orléans, Philippe-Égalité. Talleyrand arranged Herminie's marriage to his friend Collard, who was also a friend of General Dumas. After the general's death, Collard became Alexandre's guardian, taking in the young orphan and his mother at his château de Villers-Hélon, near Villers-Cotterêts, where, after 1815, the Duc d'Orléans (future Louis-Philippe) came as family. One of Collard's daughters, Caroline, married Baron Cappelle, and had two daughters raised at Villers-Hélon: "I saw these two children grow up before my eyes. Marie was the eldest - she was ten years younger than me". The younger daughter, Antonine, was the first to marry Félix Deviolaine, a cousin of Dumas. After her mother's death, Marie moved to Paris to live with her aunt, Mme Garat, wife of the bank manager, who welcomed Dumas, who had become a fashionable author. There he meets Marie again, even though Louise Garat has told him that Marie is a thief: "Marie Capelle, though gifted with a powerful seduction, was not beautiful, she was only charming. She resembled Rachel and, like her, had the enchantments of both ancient magicians and modern bohemians". She confesses her theft to him, as a way of provoking an explanation with her aunt. Dumas then recounts how Marie's marriage to a M. Lafarge, "master of forges", was arranged. Lafarge, "master of forges near Tulle [...an industrialist of the lowest order, with dirty hands, a vulgar face, a coarse spirit, without a penny of fortune, owning only a factory whose work had been interrupted for lack of money, and on the proceeds of which he lied impudently, with no home other than a hovel he called a château"; This was the marriage of "a young girl with a dowry of one hundred thousand francs, niece of the Portuguese ambassador, of the regent of the Bank of France, and grand-niece of King Louis-Philippe, who, by dowering her, almost publicly recognized this kinship [...].] Marie Capelle was married - imprudently - and in the haste to get her married - to a man who was inferior to her in every way - inferior in birth, inferior in mind, inferior in fortune". Lafarge took Marie to the Glandier, "a m