François-Joseph TALMA (1763-1826). L.A.S., Paris April 10, 1814, [to Baron Prosper de Barante]; 2pages in-4. Beautiful letter about Schiller's Marie Stuart. [Baron Prosper de Barante (1782-1866), a friend of Mme de Staël and one of Schiller's first translators, had been prefect of Loire-inférieure since 1809. Talma came to Nantes on one of his dramatic tours. He played Orestes in Andromache on October 15, 1813. On this occasion, probably, he met Barante, and borrowed Marie Stuart from him, of which he made a copy]. He was slow to reply to Barante... "the war then coming to our gates interrupted the Capital's communications with Nantes. How much in these circumstances I thought of you and Madame de Barante, of all the anxieties to which you must have been subjected! How often my thoughts went back to you in the accumulation of so many events! I have not yet had the tragedies you were kind enough to entrust to me delivered to Madame de La Briche. I have taken the liberty, and I believe I have asked your permission, of having Marie Stuart copied for me. If it is an indiscretion, one word from you, and this copy will be burned, or rather given to you. [...] I read a few scenes from this play to several of my friends, and we were always choked with tears. My God, what heartbreak these simple accents of grief can bring to the soul! How much more it touches the heart than our big words and stilts! When will we be reasonable enough to add to our beauties that naturalness, that simplicity, those naïve details that alone can move or bring tears to the eyes. I very much hope that circumstances will bring you back to Paris, at least for a while, and give me the opportunity to cultivate your acquaintance; it is still my intention to return to Nantes as soon as I am able. The welcome I have received from you is not the least of the reasons why I should return to this country. I assume that events will soon bring back to Paris the person of whom you spoke and whose absence I so much regretted [Mme de Staël]. This hope consoles me at least for the evils that are inseparable from such a great change. May this new order of things give us a long and lasting peace, and return us to the cultivation of the arts and letters!"...