LOUYS Pierre (1870-1925)

2 L.A.S. "P.", [March 1909], to his brother Georges LOUIS; 4 1/2 pages in-8 in purple ink, envelopes. Wednesday [March 10], about the bibliographer BRUNET and about a new income tax law. He sends his brother a copy of Brunet's catalogue in the 1844 edition, much better than the 1860 one: "Brunet, who is in his eighties, does not check enough and copies many mistakes that he himself would not have made. Moreover, for a man of his age, the typographical correction of this encyclopedia is an exhausting work"... Then he lists the taxpayers who will be the most taxed according to the new law: "1° The loyal man who will make an exact declaration. 2° The honest man whose income is clear", then the least taxed: "1° The fraudster. 2° The man of dubious income. It is therefore a law of encouragement for the following professions: Usurers Prostitutes Pimps Abortionists Merchants of... etc. For men of letters in particular, those who get money from publishers will pay the maximum of their class. But those who devote all their work to paid advertising [...] those will pay nothing at all, since in no case should Rumpelmayer, de Dion or Michelin communicate their trade books, chapter of publicity, and I do not see Hermant or Feydeau declaring to the finance inspector what they receive from the pastry cook"... - 14 March], giving the prices of a sale of old books, where he bought "n° 713 which had very interesting passages for the mores under Louis XV, book II of my history of the little Morphy"...