EUGÈNE SUE.

Fragment of the Mysteries of the People. No place or date [ca. 1850]. Partly autograph manuscript; 17 folio pages mounted on interleaves; red half-maroquin with corners, smooth spine, slipcase (C. de Seguier). Rare fragment of Les Mystères du Peuple: manuscript of 17 leaves paginated 600 to 616, of which six are entirely autograph. A novel undertaken in the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution and published in sixteen volumes from 1849 to 1856, Les Mystères du Peuple ou Histoire d'une famille de prolétaires à travers les âges depicts the opposition of a proletarian family and an aristocratic house. The fragment restores here the end of the diary of the commander of arms Jean Lebrenn, telling the "legend of the Golden Sabre" and recounting the main events of the Revolution during the months of September and October 1793: Beginning of the Terror, capture of Lyon by Republican troops, Saint-Just's speech and the Convention's decree of October 10 instituting that "the government of France will be revolutionary until peace", condemnation and execution of Marie-Antoinette on October 16, adoption of the revolutionary calendar, trial and execution of Girondin deputies, etc. The manuscript illustrates the novelist's particular working method: from precise historical documentation transcribed by a copyist (texts of laws, list of convicts, rulings of the Revolutionary Tribunal, etc.), Eugène Sue selects passages which he interweaves with his own text. The manuscript appeared in an anonymous sale at Drouot (17 December 2001, no. 222: Thierry Bodin expert).