Anatole FRANCE (1844-1924). Autograph manuscript, Venus; 2 pages small in-4. The extreme temperatures of the two sides of the planet "make Venus the most abominable and the most unsuitable place for man: "If therefore a little water vapor appears on the lighted side, hardly a current of air has carried it to the opposite side that it is immediately frozen, like the air itself. The seas on this side are only enormous crusts of ice"... A postcard (painting by Guido Reni) is attached, Bologna April 12, 1910, souvenir to Victor Prouté.