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"Genèse" de Mémoires d'outre-tombe : secretarial manuscript with extensive autograph corrections and additions.

BIB_ID
453631
Accession number
MA 23899
Creator
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848, author.
Credit line
Gift of Frédéric Malle, in honor of the Morgan's Centennial, 2024.
Description
3 volumes (314 leaves); 27 cm (slipcase)
Notes
314 leaves of manuscript for sections of Chateaubriand's "Mémoires d'outre-tombe" relating to Napoleon and the Hundred Days. 18 leaves were added sometime after it passed out of the possession of Hyacinthe Pilorge.
The materials in these volumes survived the author's habit of destroying drafts of his work when they were set aside by Hyacinthe Pilorge, Chateaubriand's scretary, and removed when Pilorge was dismissed from Chateaubriand's service in 1843. The papers were discovered in a cupboard in Switzerland in 1938, and thus referred to as "the Geneva manuscript."
First volume contains manuscript material corresponding to Livre XXIII, ch. XII : Les Cent-Jours à Paris; ch. XIII : Suite des Cent-Jours. Soucis et amertumes de Bonaparte; ch. XIV : Résolution à Vienne -- Mouvement à Paris; ch. XV : Ce que nous faisons à Gand -- M. de Blacas; ch. XVI : Bataille de Waterloo; ch. XVII : Confusion à Gand -- Quelle fut la bataille de Waterloo; ch. XVIII : Retour de l'Empereur... Nouvelle abdication de Bonaparte.
Second volume contains manuscript material corresponding to Livre XXIV, ch. I : Bonaparte à la Malmaison -- Abandon général; ch. II : Départ de la Malmaison. Rambouillet -- Rochefort; ch. III : Bonaparte se réfugie sur la flotte anglaise. Il écrit au Prince Régent; ch. IV : Bonaparte sur le Bellérophon -- Acte qui confine Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène. Il passe sur le Northumberland et fait voile; ch. V : Jugement sur Bonaparte; ch. VI : Caractère de Bonaparte; ch. VII : Si Bonaparte nous a laissé en renommée, ce qu'il nous a ôté en force; ch. VIII : Inutilités des vérités cidessus exposées.
Third volume contains manscript material corresponding to Livres XXIV, ch. IX : Île de Sainte-Hélène -- Bonaparte traverse l'Atlantique; ch. X : Napoléon prend terre à Sainte-Hélène -- Son établissement à Longwood -- Précautions -- Vie à Longwood; ch. XI : Maladie de Bonaparte -- Rêveries de Napoléon à la vue de la mer -- Dernière occupation -- Il se couche et ne se relève plus -- Il dicte son testament (...) -- Il reçoit les derniers sacrements -- Il expire; ch. XII : Funérailles; ch. XIII : Destruction du monde napoléonien; ch. XIV : Mes derniers rapports avec Bonaparte; ch. XV : Sainte-Hélène depuis la mort de Napoléon; ch. XVI : Exhumation de Bonaparte.
The note on blue paper by Maurice Chalvet dated 1974 refers to a missing leaf is cited as being present at the Public and University Library of Geneva. According to the 2024 auction catalogue, this note was originally placed within the bound volume (volume I) at the point where the missing leaf should have been, but it has since been removed from that position and place between the front pastedown and free endpapers.
Inscriptions/Markings
Each manuscript leaf annotated by Maurice Chalvet in pencil specifying which parts were published in the edition published by Bibliotheque La Pléiade (1947 and 1950) and which parts are still unpublished today; a note by Bernard Malle in pencil at the beginning of volume I reads: "on the cover of the binding, the title mistakenly bears XV instead of XII."
Provenance
Hyacinthe Pilorge; Jean Dupin, a member of the Société des Amis de Chateaubriand; given as a gift to Maurice Chalvet (1888-1982); Bernard Malle (1929-2008); Frédéric Malle.