[Félicité de LAMENNAIS (1782-1854)]. Jean DESSOLIAIRE (1811- - Lot 101

[Félicité de LAMENNAIS (1782-1854)]. Jean DESSOLIAIRE (1811-1885). 28 L.A.S., Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre (Indre) 1844-1854, to Lamennais; 93pages in-4 or in-8, 6 addresses (cracks in a few letters). Important correspondence between this Berrichon tailor and his master of thought. Born and established in Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre, this tailor was an admirer of his compatriot George Sand and a fervent disciple of Lamennais, whom he dressed and with whom he kept up a correspondence. These long letters, full of fervor for the works of Lamennais, were only partially published in the Nouvelle Revue rétrospective in 1897. It's clear that Dessoliaire formed a community of Lamennais disciples among the little people around him. He often signed his name "Jean Dessoliaire lamenniste". We can only give an overview here, with a few quotations. November 3, 1844. "You taught me temperance, sobriety, and to fulfill my duties towards my brothers; it was through your fine books that you taught me to choose a woman without fortune who makes me happy because she is virtuous. Yes, Sir, it is you who have made me happy [...] I am united to you body and soul. [...] I have a little girl and a little boy whom I will bring up according to your principles. My only books from you are the Words of a Believer and the Book of the People. [...] I propagate these two books by reading them to all the young men of my locality: everywhere I go I sow your principles and your good doctrine"... - December 29, 1844. "My good benefactor, you are more my father than my father who gave me the food of the body: you gave me the food of the soul, without which there is no real life [...] my happiness has no limit since I have seen and spoken to you! [...] I praise you with all my might. Oh! if I were rich! I would like everyone to have your works and to know his good Lamennais [...] Since my clothes touched yours when I kissed you, I want to keep them religiously like relics. [...] I inaugurated your bust at the head of my bed"... - March 26, 1846. "The distribution of each copy of the translation of the Gospels is as much leaven as will ferment at least 10 to 12 people; it is impossible to believe the pleasure I have had in giving away these good books"... - April 23, 1846, "The year 64 of your birth [...If religion were not dependent on the temporal, and if Rome practiced and taught it as you wished, yes, all men would be brothers! But no matter what, your voice will be louder than that of kings and popes, and little by little the peoples will be reunited by your paternal love and form a single, indivisible people! And he draws up a long list of his disciples (ploughmen, tailors, carpenters, etc.). - December 30, 1846, altercation with his parish priest on the subject of Lamennais. - January 23, 1847, on the hunger riots in Indre... - June 2, 1849. "I fulfill my duty as much as I understand it and as little as I can. According to my position, I fulfill it better by the gift of evangelical ideas which I propagate fraternally, than by material gifts, I mean, to give bread to the poor [...] misery is so great! Not being able to give clothes to the unfortunate, I cut off the ones they have to make for themselves [...] From Easter to Pentecost comma I have cut off, to say the least, more than 150 pieces of clothing for the poor, and my payment is the happiness of being useful to them"... Etc. Some letters are completed by fellow Lamennaisians: A. Camus (rural letter carrier), participants in the Republican banquet (March 14, 1848). We enclose 7 L.A.S. from Berrichon workers in Lamennais, Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre, Varennes and Châteauroux 1846-1847: Gabriel Limousin, Chevalier, Marcel Payat, A. Camus.