4 - BARBEY D’AUREVILLY, Jules (1808–1889).

BARBEY D’AUREVILLY, Jules (1808–1889). Autograph letter signed “Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly,” Saint-Sauveur, Wednesday at noon [October 21, 1868], to Arnold MORTIER; 3 pages, in-8 format, in brown ink (repaired with tape at the bottom of the center fold). A superb letter written during the composition of *Les Diaboliques*. Note: Barbey instructs Arnold MORTIER (1843–1885, then editor-in-chief of *La Veilleuse*) to compliment Gaston JOLLIVET on his article about Cora PEARL: “ He has even more talent in him than lead [during a duel, he had been shot]. His article is very good;—one senses the man who knows how to write verse beneath the prose writer, & in my opinion, a prose writer is only worth that much. I am doubly pleased with his article. The man who wrote this must be in excellent health, And have no other concern Than to beat and break bones! Unfortunately, Cora’s bones aren’t much fun; they aren’t padded enough”… He’d love to send him an article about the actress Eugénie DOCHE: “But would you believe it? The savage that I am has only ever seen Mme. Doche once, in *The Lady of the Camellias* (I mentioned her in *Le Nain jaune*). I like her very much. A woman’s age is a ridiculous prejudice for true libertines who know their stuff. Age is just nonsense for the bourgeois.” He therefore promises an article for *La Veilleuse*, but first he wants to see the actress again: “I’ll be back, though I don’t yet know the day I’ll leave this country that intoxicates me so much—I love it!—and where I’m held back by family matters [his father’s estate] that ensure my future. Perhaps tonight I’ll send you something about the vanity of the ham actors, who can’t stand criticism—but don’t count on it. I spend my life on business, and when business is done, running around this country, which is the Rubens of all countries! In the evening, once I’m back home, I work on my *Diaboliques* and read Saint Chrysostom. Now there’s a fine journalist! What fine fellows those Church Fathers were! And how they would have added fuel to our *Veilleuse* if they’d been in our time!”… General Correspondence 1868/16.