Jules FERRY (1832-1893). 5 L.A.S., 1862-1878 and s.d., to "m - Lot 559

Jules FERRY (1832-1893). 5 L.A.S., 1862-1878 and s.d., to "my angels", his cousins Édouard Ferry and Émilie Ferry-Schutzenberger; 29pages in-8 filled with small handwriting. Long, interesting and affectionate letters, notably on his stay in Athens, and on politics. We can only give brief extracts from these dense letters. Ferry was very close to his cousin Édouard Ferry (1820-1887), a lawyer in Saint-Dié, and his wife, née Émilie Schutzenberger (1833-1928); he called them "my angels". Sunday December 28 [1862]... "I have found again, I have resumed my life as I had left it, minus the center and the home, minus the raison d'être, that is to say cardboard-stone phantoms, faded illusions, dust-gray realities, where the ideal illuminated, reigned, transfigured"... He finds refuge in work... He evokes the rapins around the Luxembourg and the painters' studios at the Boîte à thé, the paintings of Louis [Schützenberger], and Gérôme who is to marry the daughter of the art dealer Goupil, "having his dowry in the artistic-Judaic store of the step-dad"... Finally, he talks about political propaganda: "We've made an Electoral Manual [...] It's a catechism. [...] I am convinced that just one of these little books per commune, even in our rutted and backward country, would sow good seeds"... Tuesday [end of May 1872], announcing his departure for Athens [he was appointed minister plenipotentiary there on May 12] ... "You occupy a large place on this horizon of the fatherland, which I am going to see diminish before my eyes, in this voluntary and salutary exile to which I have voluntarily condemned myself. You represent what is most faithful and sweetest about this painful homeland. [...] I need to find myself and win myself back. [...] The Republic is saved, well saved, if not founded. But I'm melted". He goes on to talk about the inquiry into the surrender of Strasbourg, his trip to the Vosges, etc. Athens March 2, 1873, to Émilie, "sorella mia"... "After my father, from whom I got the first and strong imprint of all that is good in me, there is no one to whom my mind, my heart, my moral development are more indebted than to your husband. He was the main educator of our adolescence. He taught us the path to moral heights, just as he taught us the mountain trails"... His life as a diplomatic agent is "a tourist's life in grand style". He recalls an engagement project: "If I had a family, it would be neither Catholic nor Protestant. I take as appropriate the greater open-mindedness that Protestantism gives to women, it is a precious advantage: I can promise a being known to me and chosen by me that his children will not be brought up by the hand of priests, having the firm will, if I were a father, not to let any enter my home, but if someone wanted to make me change my symbol and transplant me from one bigotism to another, I would draw my curtsy"... He has achieved "resounding success" in his mission in Greece... December 23, 1878 (on the letterhead of the Chamber of Deputies), speaking of the maneuvers of the brewers' union in the context of economic policy: he believes that the majority "is not a free trader, and that if it is not a protectionist by bias, it is strongly imbued with a feeling of distrust and disappointment, with regard to free trade, which is spreading widely in the country, and which the appalling crisis that England is going through, and whose aftermath we are cruelly feeling, justifies in the most serious way. Unemployment has begun, and is spreading like oil. Universal suffrage is a workers' suffrage. For my part, I believe that great caution should be exercised in raising the rights that protect the industries most affected by the English invasion. But there is no invasion of German beers, there is only a beautiful market, that of Paris, which your competitors would like to keep for themselves"... Etc. Épinal August 22, on the session of the General Council. He evokes the beauty of the Vosges forests, and invites his friends to join him... Enclosed is an autographed envelope to Mme Ferry-Schutzenberger (February 6, 1874).