Francis JAMMES (1868-1938). Autograph manuscript, [L'Auberge sur la route]; 47 small in-4 leaves (22 x 16 cm), followed by the typed text, then the printed text, all bound in a small in-4 volume in full red morocco with decoration on the first cover continuing onto the second of a triple row of flowers drawn by gilt or cold fillets with gilt dotted lines and green morocco inlays for the petals, on a semiset of gilt dotted lines, title in gilt letters on the first cover, smooth spine; wide red morocco inner frame, blue morocco listel with gilded stippling, white brocaded silk lining and endpapers with floral decoration, painted and varnished paper counterguards with floral decoration; case decorated with the same paper (M. Oudard). Working manuscript of this story. L'Auberge sur la route was collected in Feuilles dans le vent (Mercure de France, 1913), where it is dedicated to Teodor de Wyzewa. Of Feuilles dans le vent, F. Jammes' best exegete, Robert Mallet, writes: "It could have been dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi, so filled is it with the charity and simplicity of the Poverello". He adds that L'Auberge sur la route presents a vagabond "happier with his free destitution than with the riches that captivate". A fine working manuscript, with numerous erasures and corrections. The first page bears the original crossed-out title: "Manuscrit trouvé [au fond d'une musette rayé] sous une paillasse", then Un pauvre (another title, at the beginning of the story, had been Un pauvre poète); follows the introductory text: "The following pages are by a beggar who twice came to be stranded at the Hospice d'Orthez. He began writing them during his last stay, but death interrupted them. They recount his adventures from the time he first left the Hospice. These memoirs, traced in pencil, are fading like footprints on the dust of a beautiful day". Against the first page of the story, Jammes has noted in pencil: "né en 43 / A 65 ans / ruiné entre 25 et 30". Very attractive binding with bucolic decor and refined craftsmanship.