Marie-Anne de LA TOUR de FRANQUEVILLE (1730-1789) woman of letters, correspondent of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Set of autograph manuscripts and 28 L.A., plus pieces and letters addressed to her 1753-1772; about 200 pages in various formats. Very interesting set of manuscripts and letters. [Believing to recognize herself in the character of Julie in La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), Marianne de La Tour anonymously contacts Rousseau, with the complicity of her friend Madame de Bernardony, who believes to be Claire. The latter answers; a correspondence begins, which, in spite of Jean-Jacques' lack of enthusiasm, will extend until 1776. This correspondence, published in 1803, was the subject of a commentary by Sainte-Beuve in the Causeries du Lundi (1850). A woman of spirit, converted to Rousseauist ideas, she enjoyed writing essays and poems, and cultivating a beautiful correspondence with her friends. Separated from her husband in 1755, she retired to the Bon Secours convent and to the Abbaye aux Bois. She died in Saint-Mandé on September 7, 1789]. 4 autograph manuscripts: - brief biographical sketch (1 p. in-8): "I was born on November 10, 1730. Jay was married on Tuesday, July 20, 1751..." - Notebook, [ca. 1755?] (12 p. in-8 filled with a tight handwriting). The text, much corrected, is intended as an essay on generosity (published in Lias, 2012 under the title La générosité en société et le tempérament français). Let us quote the beginning: "Without being guilty of injustice and cruelty by the abusive use that one makes of a power which being sacred and respectable by itself must produce only effects which can be respected"... - Essay on the voluptuousness (notebook of 14 p. in-8). "The common man accustomed to substituting false ideas for those which are really attached to the terms has attached such coarse ones to the word voluptuousness that a decent girl would not pronounce it without blushing. Jose however to say not only that it is wrongly that it is proscribed of its mouth but also that it is more has range to define it than anybody "... - poem, Verses on the death of my father (3 p.and a half small in-4). Correspondence : 27 L.A., Paris, Orangis, Cambray, Bon Secours, l'Abbaye aux Bois, mostly undated (1753-1772), to various addressees: his neighbor M. de Chalabre (7), her friend Mme de Bernardony (about her husband and the lettre de cachet), Don Amédée master of the Novices of the Trappe (asking her to pray for his dead sister), the countess de Longueval, the chevalier de Méré, the chevalier Dassier (1772), and other correspondents with whom she exchanges in this beautiful 18th century language. She talks about literature, philosophy and poetry; in a letter from Abbaye aux Bois, December 9, she expresses her admiration for Voltaire and Mademoiselle Corneille. With her male correspondents, she plays the coquette, and grants them her "friendship"; she says her pleasure to write "If you continue to overwhelm me with flattering things about my way of writing: it is quite simple [...] you deserve much more compliments than I do you Mr. who while complaining about a language which should not yet be familiar to you, you used it in such a way as to make one think that you supposed finesses to it which it does not have [...] you prove that the spirit is citizen of the whole world, and that any idiom obeys the ideas of the one who knows how to handle it well ". She gives herself up sometimes: those "who only know my mind, could doubt the qualities of my heart, and consequently not recognize me in the perfect portrait of every point, that you made of me"; she asks consolation to her "dear Orpheus"... Etc. Copies of letters: a small notebook (23 p. in-8), copies of 8 letters to Mme de Bernardony and 2 letters to M. de Bernardony, about philosophy, metaphysics and Plato. Plus copy of a letter from Mme de La Tour to the comte d'Hérouville (January 21, 1763). Letters to her addressed. - 13 L.A. or L.A.S. from Claude-Pierre Patu (1729-1757) Paris, August 21-October 26, 1753 (34 p. various sizes). He sends to Mme de La Tour some letters and verses of love to which she replies cruelly; he sends her Crébillon's poems, and in front of her indifference asks her to send back his letters. A copy of the letters from Mme de La Tour to Patu is attached. - More style games: 6 letters to her addressed (3 of them by M. de Bernardony)... Poems addressed to her. 20 poems (verses, bouquets, songs, portraits, etc.) dedicated "To Madame de La Tour" (ca. 35 p.). By Mr. le Chevalier de F... (plus an Epitaph and an Envoi, both in verse), Bouquet à Madame de La Tour pour le jour de sa feste (2), Charmante de la Tour..., Sur le portrait de Madame de La Tour par Mr. Garand, Portrait abrégé de Mme de La Tour, Épitre, Madrigal, Chanson, Étrennes, ,par Mr. Le Brun, , par Mr de Fualdès, etc... Plus 70 other poems or gallant bills. And 3 poems dedicated to the duchess of Orleans, to the prince of Conti, to the marquis of Maille