LE ROUX [Dean of the Paris Faculty of Medicine]. - Lot 91

LE ROUX [Dean of the Paris Faculty of Medicine]. L.A.S. "Le Roux" to "Monseigneur" [General Clarke, Minister of War]. Paris, February 7, 1814. 2 pp. in-folio on wove paper with "NAPOLÉON EMPEREUR" watermark. Ministry of War letterhead. Important letter concerning student unrest at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris during the final months of the Empire, at the time of the 1814 French campaign and the conscription drive to reinforce the artillery. Dean Le Roux reported to the Minister of War a particularly violent scene of agitation that broke out when students were called up to form new companies: "A factious and punishable scene (...) has just occurred in the schools of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris." He describes the eruption of a crowd of medical students, law students and outsiders, causing a considerable uproar: "There was such a considerable uproar, there was such loud booing, that General de Lespinasse was unable to complete the roll call of those on Monseigneur the Grand Master's lists..." The general was forced to leave the amphitheatre in a hurry under the insults: "The general, having left the amphitheatre, was unable to get to his carriage (...); the crowd rushed after him (...) I have just learned that the general had been insulted (...) all sorts of insults were hurled at him". Against the backdrop of the extreme military crisis preceding the fall of the Empire, Le Roux tried to exonerate the medical students, most of whom he judged to have remained calm, and asked the Minister for an audience to prevent the whole Faculty from being compromised by the disorder. A very interesting account of the tensions caused by military requisitions in Parisian universities on the eve of the First Restoration. Beautiful piece on imperial paper watermarked "Napoleon Emperor". Very good condition.