SAND (Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, known as George). - Lot 285

SAND (Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, known as George). Born in Paris. 1804–1876. Novelist. Autograph letter signed “George Sand” to Ernest FEYDEAU. Nohant, January 30, 1857. 2 pages, in-8 format, with her embossed initials. A BEAUTIFUL LETTER IN WHICH GEORGE SAND EXPRESSES HER SUPPORT FOR ERNEST FEYDEAU. George Sand responds to the three articles that Feydeau had just published in *La Presse* titled “Letters on Cremation.” The novelist herself had, the previous year, written an article on the issue of the cremation of corpses (an article also published in *La Presse* on October 25, 1856): …I thank you very much for quoting me sympathetically and correcting my error. Above all, I thank you for having argued the case so well, and I hope that, despite the little hope you have of engaging the eternally ungrateful entity known as the public, you will leave a stronger impression on them than all those who tried before you… She regrets …that work of a different nature, which takes up all my time, prevented me from continuing this crusade; but I am now delighted by it, since Mr. Bonneau [an editor at *La Presse*, who had written on the same subject] has come forward to take up the cause once more, and you, in turn, have done so even more effectively. Indeed, you have said everything there is to say on this subject, and the argument is complete. You have spoken the final and most striking word: the inevitable necessity, sooner or later, of a desecrating, hideous relocation. I didn’t know all this myself, and here I am, thanks to you, far more convinced than I already was… After offering him her compliments, she invites him to send her his argument… If you publish it as a pamphlet, since I am far from Paris and most of the time do not know when my own works are published, I ask you to keep me in mind and send me a copy…Flattered by George Sand’s letter, Ernest Feydeau replied on February 2 in the most gracious terms. The son of a Napoleonic officer, ERNEST-AIMÉ FEYDEAU [1821–1873] made a name for himself in literature in 1858 with the publication of *Fanny*, a popular novel that enjoyed immense success amid scandal and ensured his author a measure of posterity. But what makes Ernest Feydeau particularly interesting to us is his membership in the close circle of friends of GUSTAVE FLAUBERT: THÉOPHILE GAUTIER, the GONCOURT BROTHERS, who mention him several times in their *Journal*, and GEORGE SAND, with whom he exchanged numerous letters. Having remarried Léocadie Bogaslawa Zelewska, niece of the Viscount de Calonne, he was the father of the famous vaudeville writer GEORGES FEYDEAU.