Lot n° 539
Estimation :
700 - 800
EUR
Manon Phlipon, Madame ROLAND (1754-1793) the muse of the Gir - Lot 539
Manon Phlipon, Madame ROLAND (1754-1793) the muse of the Girondins; wife (1780) of Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière (1734-1793), she was guillotined. L.A.S. "Phlipon", Paris April 20, 1770, to Mademoiselle Sophie Cannet "la cadette" in Amiens; 2 1/2 pages in-4, addressed with red wax seal with her figure crowned with roses (broken; small tear due to broken seal with loss of some letters).
Very beautiful unpublished letter from her youth, at sixteen years old, to her friend from boarding school, the very first of the letters to the Cannet girls (it does not appear in the partly unpublished Lettres de Madame Roland aux demoiselles Cannet, H. Plon, 1867). Manon Phlipon had studied with the sisters Sophie and Henriette Cannet at the convent of the Ladies of the Congregation; she testifies here to her deep attachment to and confidence in her friend Sophie.
"You have thus finally yielded, dear friend, to the repeated urgings of your heart and your laziness, expiring under the efforts of friendship, has been forced to recognize its empire and to submit to these laws. This triumph is glorious for him [...] but what do I say, I am wrong, the silence that we know how to keep so well is a proof of the intimate conviction where we are, one and the other of the truth of our feelings and we do not taste less the sweetnesses of it our hearts closely united know how to cross with a fast flight the space which separates us. [...] Let us enjoy, my dear friend, the pure pleasure that such a beautiful friendship gives us, and let us not forget that the charming knots that bind us may be even closer than those of blood could ever be. [...] To what satisfaction can one be more reasonably sensitive than to that which two hearts that are one obtain. If one has some pain, it is relieved by the share the other takes in it; if a sweet joy is felt, it increases by the joy he finds in sharing it with his faithful companion. What a sweetness it is to communicate one's thoughts without reserve, without fear, without worry... You gave me a taste of these pleasures in your letter by the confidence you show me, and you can expect the same from me. She evokes the faithful "hurrying to come and render to the divine majesty their prayers and their vows [...] perhaps alas we will still regret this sincerity and this innocence which seemed to make the principal character of the old times, where a heap of stone or grass were the rustic monuments that the innocent hands of our first fathers raised to the supreme being [...Since mortals have erected temples to the divinity who deigns to enclose his immensity within their narrow bounds and resides in an admirable manner, and for this reason seems to attract an even deeper respect, his very goodness seems to give more boldness to offend him, and one is not afraid to go to his sanctuary to outrage him in a way that must shame humans. Ah, how happy we are, my dear friend, to be able to communicate our reflections to each other in this way. Some people would find them ridiculous because we look at things in a very different way"... She ends with protests of friendship...
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