DEMOUSTIER (Charles-Albert) - Lot 34

DEMOUSTIER (Charles-Albert) Charles-Albert Demoustier Villers-Cotterêts, 1760 - 1801. Lawyer, man of letters, author of the famous Lettres à Émilie. Very important L.A.S. "Demoustier, homme de lettres" to citoyen Lakanal, [Paris], 18 ventôse an VII [March 8, 1799]; 1 p. 3/4 in-4 with autograph address and remainder of red wax seal. A rare and remarkable letter addressed to conventioneer and pedagogue Joseph Lakanal, then a member of the Comité d'instruction publique, in which Demoustier solicits his admission to the École normale in order to teach there. With touching sincerity, the writer expresses his desire to embark on a career devoted to moral and literary education: "I would like to be admitted as a pupil to the normal schools, to teach literature or morals later on". The most remarkable passage concerns his true pedagogical and moral program: "Morality especially would flatter me infinitely. I believe it to be more useful; and I have sketched out a plan for it, which I write more with my heart than with my mind". Demoustier also expresses the wish to obtain a position in Paris or in the Aisne, where his family lives: However, "the pleasure of being useful would lead me there". This letter sheds a particularly interesting light on the intellectual and educational ambitions of a man of letters at the end of the French Revolution, at a time when public education was being reorganized and the Écoles normales républicaines were being created. The document is enriched with his autograph address: "Rue de Harlay, près le Palais de Justice, n°1". A fine testimony to the pedagogical and moral ideals inherited from the Enlightenment on the eve of the Consulate. A rare and historically significant piece. Good overall condition, despite folds, some soiling and marginal foxing.