FRONDE. Jean-François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de RETZ (1613-1679). Period manuscript, December 14, 1654; small folio of 27 pages. Period copy of the famous letter of Cardinal de Retz to the archbishops and bishops of France, written from his Roman exile after his spectacular escape from the prison of Nantes. Champollion-Figeac, in the "Complément de la vie du cardinal de Retz" which follows the new edition of the Mémoires du cardinal de Retz, in 1837, specifies that it was published clandestinely at the time but immediately condemned to be burned by the hand of the executioner, and seems to no longer exist. The first editors of the Mémoires du cardinal de Retz published one, but on the date of May 22, 1655, "although similar in some ideas and sentences to that of December 14, 1654, but which is not the same piece" probably composed by some of the cardinal's friends at Port-Royal. "But the real letter of the cardinal of Retz, that of December 14, had been suppressed with so much care, that it would be lost today for the history, without the copy, unique until now, which is in the historical collections of the department of the Manuscripts of the Library of the King ". We thus have here probably the only known copy in private hands.