Null An officer's alarm clock - H: 11.5

Description

An officer's alarm clock - H: 11.5

26

An officer's alarm clock - H: 11.5

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Estim. 2 500 - 3 000 EUR

Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de SADE. L.A.S., [Paris late May 1790], to Gaspard Gaufridy; 4pages in-4 filled with small, tight handwriting (slight wetness, splits, small lack at bottom of 2nd leaf affecting one word and end of signature). Long letter to his lawyer on his release from the Bastille, July 14th and the loss of his manuscripts, and the divorce requested by his wife. He tells his "dear lawyer" about Mme de Sade's "very ridiculous" behavior. He was worried and distressed when she came to see him in the Bastille: "the need I had for her made me conceal it, but everything about her alarmed me, I could clearly distinguish the instigations of a confessor, and to tell the truth, I could see that my freedom would become the time of a separation. On July 4, on the occasion of a little train I took to the Bastille for some discontent I was being given there, the governor complained to the minister, saying that I was warming the people's spirits through my window, assembling them under it, warning them of the preparations being made at the Bastille, exhorting them to come and throw down this monument of horror... all this was true.... I was transferred to the convent of the Brothers of Charity in Charenton, where those scelerats from Montreuil had the cruelty to let me languish for nine months among the lunatics and epileptics to whom this house alone is dedicated, a little more freedom there than elsewhere, however, enabled me to discover that I was no longer a prisoner except through the avarice of these monks, and that all I had to do was tell them imperiously that I wanted to get out, and they would open the door for me; my children and I did so, and I became free, long before the king's sanction concerning letters of seal [...When I left the Bastille on the night of July 3 to 4, in accordance with the old practices of ministerial despotism, I was left with nothing, naked as a hand, and all my belongings - that is, over a hundred louis worth of furniture, clothes and linens, six hundred volumes, some of them very expensive, and what's irreparable, fifteen volumes of my manuscripts ready to go to the printer, all of which I said were sealed by the commissioner of the Bastille, and Madame de Sade dined, went to the garderobe, confessed, and fell asleep. Finally, on the morning of July 14th, she thought it was time to open the seal and send me my belongings... to me, still naked (fortunately it was hot) and still vegetating among the fools. Unfortunately, the day she woke up from her lethargy was the same day that the people flocked to the Bastille, where they murdered the governor and all the officers, so there was no way of getting in, and all my belongings were looted. His wife's conduct is atrocious; she let loot "manuscripts that I weep for every day in tears of blood... works that would have made me a reputation in literature... works that would have brought me a lot... that had consoled me in my retirement and that by softening my solitude had made me say... at least I won't have wasted my time. [...] I did find something in the districts where the Bastille papers were thrown out, but nothing important... misery and not a single work of any consequence. Oh, I give up, I give up... just God! It's the greatest misfortune heaven can reserve for me... and to soften this blow, do you know what the honest and sensitive Md de Sade did? She also had many of my works... manuscripts smuggled in during her visits; she refuses them to me.... she says that in fear that these works (too firmly written) would do me harm, at the time of the revolution she entrusted them to people who burned part of them... my blood boils when I hear such answers"... What's more, the "celestial lady [...] no sooner did she know I was outside, than she had me served with an act of separation [...] All the infamies that were said against me in the cabarets, in the guardhouses, compiled in the almanacs, in the flat newspapers, form the basis of this beautiful memoir, the most atrocious indecencies are scandalously invented... slanderously reported.... It is a monument of horrors, lies and balderdash, as crude, as obscure, as flatly and blandly written"... He does not want to respond to "this monument of impudence", and he will be "condemned by default... separated from body and property"... But he hopes he will not be ruined, and that his business in Provence will give him enough to live on... He goes on to talk about his lodgings with "a charming lady" ("she is 40 years old, and I add this last circumstance to show you that she is a charming lady").

Estim. 1 000 - 1 200 EUR

Gustave Sandoz (Boulogne-Billancourt, 1836-1891).

Estim. 200 - 300 EUR

Auguste-Hilaire RODANET (1837-1907), Paris Officer's brass alarm clock Enameled dial with Roman numerals for the hours and Arabic numerals for the minutes. Signed on the dial, countersigned on the movement, and platinum numbered "R N° 4644 A ou H'. Glazed on 4 sides Second half of the 19th century 11.5 (without bezel) x 7.3 x 8 cm Auguste-Hilaire was the son of Julien-Hilaire, founder of the RODANET dynasty. The RODANET name has been inseparable from the history of precision watchmaking since the first half of the 19th century, and is associated with the great houses such as PATEK PHILIPPE, JAEGER and CARTIER.

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