Mathieu-Guillaume VILLENAVE (1762-1846) journalist, member of the Court of Nantes, defender of the Vendéens, he gathered an enormous collection of autographs, in particular on the Revolution. Autograph manuscript, Chronique secrette, [1790]; 32 pages in-4 in 2 quires. Curious gazette whose full title is:, Chronique Secrette ou Supplément à tous les papiers et particulièrement au R. pour l'année 1790, qui informe de tous les potins mondains et autres de l'année 1790. A note states, "This chronicle is without date order up to and including February 24. "January 1, 1790. Mme la Mise de Condorcet is said to be the goddess of M. le Mis de La Fayette, and it is assured that she is not insensitive to the wishes of this hero. [...] Mme la baronne de Staël, daughter of the first Minister of Finance, read at Mme la Mise de Courteilles [...] a drama of her own entitled Sophie ou les Sentimens secrets", in front of an audience of admirers or flatterers, whom Villenave names in detail and about whom he does not refrain from badmouthing: "she was slammed and complimented excessively. [...] The play seemed to us to be very bad. Its versification was loose and often defective for the rhymes, its plot null ". We also learn that she is working on a new tragedy entitled Rosemonde, writes her Journal and has composed a Declaration of the Rights of Man... He alludes to the liaisons of famous actresses, including Mme Gonthier "crazy creature", with great lords, and transcribes an amusing couplet inspired by the large chest of the Swedish ambassador; one read at MmeDuu Bourg's a pamphlet of the Count of Ségur "full of wit and a little bit of cheerful polish"... Necker is furious against Marat, whose slander he despises: "he could not conceive that the Paris Commune left him under the special protection of the District of Cordeliers and that it did not send 40 thousand men to break this district, in case of resistance and refusal to hand over the so-called friend of the people"... La Fayette often comes to the National Assembly as a deputy, "where he shows the greatest popularity", which gives him "such a great influence on the movements of the people that he can flatter himself at present to direct them as he pleases. As for the violinist and composer Viotti, "a greater violinist than Jarnowick", the latter being considered "the people's violin" of whom M. de Montagnac claims that he "plays from the ass while Viotti plays from the heart"... - "The Queen had the ladies of the Visitation tell her how satisfied she was that the National Assembly had allowed them to keep their house"... - On February 14, the deputies went to Notre-Dame to hear the singing of the Te Deum: "They crossed half of Paris in procession [...] without receiving any applause. The people were mute in their presence"... - April 3. The Prince of Conti arrived at his hotel "the fishwives came to compliment him. He had them give him 50 louis [...] and he sent to his District of the Jacobins 2000 francs to be distributed to the poor"... "Fire hydrants" appear in Paris, "all the citizens can carry there incognito [...] letters, motions, calumnies, denunciations"... April 7. A foot race is planned at La Muette... The Bois de Boulogne becomes again a fashionable walk, one meets Mme de Broglie, Mme de Laval, Mme des Cars...Etc.