Nicolas-Edme RÉTIF DE LA BRETONNE (1734-1806). L.A.S. "Restif de LB", July 16, 1767, to Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret; 2 pages in-4, address. Beautiful letter from his early days, during a stay in his native village of Sacy. [Rétif has just given up his job as a typographer to devote himself to literature, after the publication of his first novel, La Famille vertueuse. He had recently made friends with the writer Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret (1742-1823), who would soon become his rival]. He arrived in Burgundy: "I stayed in Sens, in Auxerre &c. I ended up shutting myself up in La Bretonne in a small building that was once intended as an aviary. There I have the satisfaction, very great I assure you, of spending days exactly alone: but as pleasures are never pure, I do not have the satisfaction of being two when I would like to. Ah, my friend, how sweet it is to be two, after being alone for so long! For example, if I were M. Nougaret, I would be delighted at the end of eight days of solitude to find in my dungeon, in the flesh, Mademoiselle Angelique (speaking of Mademoiselle Angelique, I am quite sure that she is well, so I take the liberty of paying her a thousand compliments). The goddess who holds court here is the peaceful Uniformity. I assure you that she is not without attractions, there are days when I prefer her to her bubbly sister, the noisy Variety. However, I must confess that I am like a man who has been happy with a pretty mistress for a long time; when he sees one of these piquant beauties, who do not hide the fact that they want to please, and who always succeed, he cannot help but cast a lustful glance at these rascals; there are even moments when the esteemed object that enchains him prevails little, or not at all, over these lovable Laisons... He has no such amusements, if not to "walk every evening & very late until the entrance of a dark valley, which inspires in the soul during the darkness of the night, this secret horror which does not displease him, because it has precisely only the degree that it is necessary to astonish him, & that it is not so great to frighten him". As for the brochure of Nougaret, Rétif spoke to the printer who "asks ten louis for the printing without frame"; his wife will be able to come to take the copy, about which Rétif makes recommendations...