Alfred de VIGNY (1797-1863). 53 L.A.S. (4 initialled, 7 unsigned and 5 incomplete from end), 1841-1863, to Céline Chollet; approx. 162 pages in-8, one address (to Monsieur Chollet). A painted miniature of Céline Chollet is included (5.5 x 4.7 cm). Lot sold in collaboration with Jean-Marc DELVAUX Auctioneer Important and exceptional intimate correspondence. This mysterious privileged correspondent remained unknown until 2000, when the publication of these 53 unpublished letters by Jacques Charpentreau revealed her existence. Céline Labatut, Mme Chollet (1809-1875), born in Charleston (South Carolina) of parents expelled from Saint-Domingue, had married Auguste Chollet (1801-after 1856) in Paris in 1828, a civil servant at the Ministry of Finance and amateur musician, brother of pianist Louis Chollet. The Chollets had a son, Charles, born in 1829. Céline Chollet ran a small literary and musical salon in Paris. Her friendship with Vigny began in 1841. Céline Chollet's family was apparently related to the Clérembault family, Vigny's cousins. We can only give a brief overview of these beautiful, and often lengthy, letters. 1841. October 2. He sends the text of an "unpublished Romance by Sedaine" that Céline Chollet had sung to him with "such natural and simple talent". He remembers "our good little evening of music and intimacy"... 1842. - January 25, news of his wife Lydia; he quotes Chénier. - March 21. Lydia's health gives him "grave concern"; his presence is "necessary as master of the house and interpreter sometimes"; he is only alone and calm at "two hours after midnight"... - [May]. He is taken by the flu, "a ridiculous illness", and remains "like a wild animal and kept in my lair"; he evokes the Meudon rail disaster, "this industrial volcano"... - August 17. He brings him his work on Sedaine. - September 29. He is Lydia's nurse again. - December 28. He injured his leg; doctors forbid him to stand... 1843. - March 23? Evokes the "poor Antilles" and the "upheaval" of the February 8 earthquake... - April 10. He is very busy with business in France and England. He is looking for "a Frenchwoman with a taste for emigration to America". - April 15. Condolences on the death of Céline's mother. - October 22nd. He recounts Lydia's accident: "a candle had set fire to those useless laces"... - December 10. He is still a "sick guard". August 5, 1844. He has to find "a very beautiful Demoiselle" from Charleston. He is bedridden with aches and pains. 1845. - March 3rd. "I had every intention of going to see you on Saturday, Madame, to talk to you about France, America and the whole universe, as well as many other things, but, alas! my duties as nursemaid, which only half cease when they seem to, have kept me at home, and when I leave it is to run to a doctor"... - March 26. He recommends secrecy for Mr. and Mrs. de Pellieux: "May these poor young people at least find peace in the new world, since the old world has denied them that". - September 9th. Céline Chollet is "at the lakes. "You may be drawn to stay like the Lady of the Lake, but I'll part with the woods with a thousand times more joy than I have in seeking them out; I can vouch for that, and I'll find as many charms in the Rue St Honoré stream as Mme de Staël found in the Rue du Bac stream, which she invoked in the midst of the most beautiful Switzerland, with its glaciers and lawns and lakes like yours. He urges his friend to visit his Lovers' Inn in Montmorency... 1846. Le Maine-Giraud November 24, "From my tower in the woods". Vigny is at his estate in Charente. He recounts his journey by car through Touraine, where he has "seventy-four first cousins scattered along the course of the Loire in châteaux that are more or less unpleasant in times of flood"... He has seen Blois, Amboise, Chenonceaux, Chaumont (memory of an episode of Cinq-Mars), Chambord... He recounts the work he has undertaken at Maine-Giraud: "I know how Cognac brandy is made, and my vines and woods are next door. I had the grape harvest completed, an old tower rebuilt and covered with slates, the massive doors reinforced on their iron hinges; I examined the cellars and attics, the old oaks and meadows, the transparent fountains"... Etc... He recalls his Baraudin ancestors, the death of his cousin Bougainville. "I have three kinds of friends - those who love me, those who don't, and those who hate me. You are of the first class [...] If you want new works that touch you, wish me peace and quiet [...] Everything here revolves around me, not a minute without one.