VICTOR HUGO.

Lot 35
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VICTOR HUGO.
À la colonne de la place Vendôme. Paris, Ambroise Dupont et Cie, 1827. In-8, 16 pp. paperback, printed and ornamented cover. First edition, published on February 18, 1827. Published in Le Journal des Débats of February 9, 1827, the poem is a protest against the insult made to the marshals of the Empire by the Austrian ambassador to Paris, Count Antoine Apponyi (1782-1857), during a reception in his embassy. This early work was enthusiastically received by the Bonapartists, who felt that Hugo was rallying to liberal ideas. Copy preserved as issued, paperback. (Vicaire, IV, 242. - Clouzot, 144: "Quite rare." - Bertin, Chronologie des livres de Victor Hugo, nº 24.) Attached is a beautiful autograph letter addressed by Victor Hugo to the Duchess of Abrantès: the poet offers her the manuscript of À la colo nne de la place Vendôme. "You fill me up, Madame. The little pictures are charming, the statuette is charming, the letter is even more charming. You write as you speak, a letter from you, that is you. It is witty, it is supreme, it is good. I had given this rag of paper to my father. It came to me in his estate. Allow me to lay it at your feet. It is the manuscript of the Ode to the Column. Who would I give it to but you? You are one of our military duchesses, and a first-rate woman at that, which does not spoil anything. So be good enough to keep this scribble in memory of me. [...] If I ever send you an envelope with the deep friendship I have for you, I will not write on it: fragile. I will go to see you as soon as I am out of the hellish work that obsesses me at the moment, and I will place all my most devoted tributes at your feet." (Autograph letter signed, December 8 [1830], 3 pp. in-8, "Madame la dsse d'Abrantès" on the fourth page.) Laure Permon, Duchess of Abrantès, widow of General Junot, published famous Memoirs - in spite of its improbabilities, which earned her the nickname of Duchess d'Abracadabrantès from Théophile Gautier... She was very close to the Hugos. At her death, the poet published in Les Rayons et les Ombres verses to obtain for her a suitable burial: To Laure, Duchess of A. Beautiful copy. From the Louis Barthou collection (II, 1935, no. 562-5).
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