Lot n° 24
Estimation :
400 - 500
EUR
A24. Alexandre LENFANT (1726-1792) a Jesuit, a protégé of Ki - Lot 24
A24. Alexandre LENFANT (1726-1792) a Jesuit, a protégé of King Stanislas and then a preacher at the court of Austria, he became confessor of Louis XVI and was a victim of the September massacres. L.A., July 24-25, 1792, to Mlle. Morlot, at Mlle. Rebouchet's in Nancy (Lorraine); 3 pages in-4, address (some passages crossed out for publication, remaining legible).
Long and interesting letter commenting on the political and military situation in France, shortly before being massacred at the Abbey.
"The present moment is always interesting. It is the one of the greatest crisis that the capital has ever been in, and fear is widespread. [...] There were still dangerous movements at the Tuileries that the brigands were trying to force. The courageous attitude of the national grenadiers, their determination to fire contained and pushed back the malicious people whose number has increased for a few days"... One must read the Annales monarchiques or the Gazette de Paris... It is "a farce" that the enlistment of vagabonds, escapees from Bicêtre and withered men, to oppose the elite of the troops of Europe, and the generals who cry misery do not ignite the courage of the "constitutional warriors. Their bravery is all in words, in bravado and in songs. They repeat that one soldier of freedom is worth a thousand slaves of despotism [...] It is certain that the Austrian troops are already on the territory of France"... And to ironize on an intervention of the general de Montesquiou in the Assembly, on the Army of the South... Resuming the pen on the 25, he believes to be able to moderate the fears inspired by the "Jacobite threats"; on the 27, the emperor of Austria, "the king of Prussia, the electors, the French princes must meet in Mayence to treat of the French revolution, and to sign, as it is pretended the terrible manifesto. The king of Sardinia is also expected there, or in his absence, the hereditary prince who married Madame Clotilde"... He echoes what he has read in the Bulletin about the affairs in Poland and the arrival of the Russians, and echoes the rumor that the French are sending children to the borders: "after having played the tragedy in the kingdom, we are going to give the comedy to the foreigners"... However some 400 Breton federates arrive in Paris, and add to the dejection and confusion of the inhabitants. "Stupidity, rage, blindness, delirium share the city"...
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