300 - NADAR (Félix Tournachon, known as), 1820–1910.

NADAR (Félix Tournachon, known as), 1820–1910. Autograph letter signed “F. T. Nadar,” [Marseille?], May 6, 1897, 2 pp., in-8 on letterhead bearing his motto “"Quand même" and addressed to 21 rue de Noailles in Marseille, [to Baroness Hérald de Pagès (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette-Clémence de Vernède de Corneillan)]. A deeply moving letter in which Nadar makes a solemn promise to the wife of his old friend Hérald de Pagès that he will never abandon him should she die first, thereby demonstrating a true fraternal commitment: “[...] I have for our Hérald—so good, so pure, so great—all the tenderness and also the reverence of the most affectionate brother, and I am not one to desert him.” Whatever trials may lie ahead, he will share even his bare necessities with him: ““As long as I have a piece of bread and a roof over my head, half of it rightfully belongs to de Pagès.” He clarified that this promise also extended to the “two admirable beings whose lives are my own,” presumably his wife Ernestine and their son Paul. Hérald de Pagès was one of Nadar’s oldest and dearest friends. A journalist and poet with ties to the history of *Le Petit Journal*, Pagès had also contributed financially to Nadar’s photographic venture by becoming a shareholder in his *Société générale de photographie*. The letter concludes as a veritable “notarized deed” of friendship, with Nadar playfully pitting the power of his word against all “the notaries of nature” before solemnly signing his commitment. A beautiful declaration of loyalty and friendship, written in the twilight of the lives of two companions who had been close for nearly forty years. Includes its original cultural property export certificate from the Ministry of Culture.