Marguerite dite Lodoïska LOUVET DE COUVRAY(1760-1827) wife o - Lot 570

Lot 570
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Marguerite dite Lodoïska LOUVET DE COUVRAY(1760-1827) wife o - Lot 570
Marguerite dite Lodoïska LOUVET DE COUVRAY(1760-1827) wife of the writer and conventionnel. L.A.S. "Louvet's wife", to Citizen Director Paul BARRAS, with apostille a.s. from Barras at the top, [ca. 1798-1799]; 3 pages in-4. Important letter about the manuscript of the Memoirs of her husband, written during the flight of the Girondins. In addition to the fugitives, and their arrest by Marc-Antoine Jullien of Paris, it is about their opponents Laurent Lecointre and André Amar, the deputies Jean-Pierre Chazal and Félix Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau, and the printer, editor of the Journal des Hommes libres, René-Charles-François Vatar, who was suspected of hiding the coveted manuscript. "You have been kind enough to tell me to send you some notes on the manuscript I am asking for. Here they are: Buzot, Petion, Salle, Barbaroux, Louvet and Guadet hid for a month in St. Emilion at the home of Guadet's sister Bouquet. The rumor of a visit to the house having spread, they left her house. Before leaving the underground passage which had served as their refuge, they left a cassette in which were enclosed the memoirs they had written since their proscription. When Julien fils had these interesting victims arrested, the underground of Mme Bouquet was denounced to him. Although the entrance was in a well, 30 feet deep, he went down there himself. He found the cassette and sent it to the Committee of General Safety with a letter that all France has read. He congratulated himself for having already in his hands a manuscript of the infamous Louvet, who was not far away without doubt since he was haunting the underground with Petion, Guadet &c. A few days after the return of the outlaws, Le Cointre of Versailles denounced the Gironde and to support his assertions, he quoted these manuscripts. My husband, after having answered as he should, asked and obtained a decree which ordered Le Cointre to deposit the manuscripts on the desk: he did not obey this decree. Since then, vain searches have been made to find the cassette in question in the committees. It had disappeared towards the end of fructidor year 5. Vatar reproduced in his newspaper the accusations of Le Cointre against the Gironde. He based himself, like him, on these manuscripts which he had, he said, in his hands. To these proofs I add the testimony of Cn Rousselin who at that time said to someone reliable that he had read at Vatar's the manuscript of Louvet. That it was locked in a drawer of Vatar's secretary. [...] Well, this manuscript, I undertake to publish it without changing, adding or deleting a single word. Louvet never had a thought that did not have as its object the happiness of his country. You, citizen director, who knew well, who were truly the friend of Louvet, you whose sight reminded me of memories so cruel that I could hardly hold back my tears, give me this consolation of not seeing in the hands of the most implacable enemies of my husband, the only writing which remains of him. All the works of his youth, 30 volumes were burned during his proscription. The ferocious Amar is the cause of this irreparable loss. Novels, poems, plays, letters, everything has perished; do not let the only writing that remains to me be entrusted any longer to those who keep it only to abuse it. How easily can they not alter it? When I no longer exist, who could discover the fraud, who would want to prove it? I have the confidence that you have the will to make me do justice "... At the top of the letter, BARRAS wrote: " She must put opposition to the lifting of the seals and ask for her presence to reclaim the manuscripts which belong to the estimable Louvet ".
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