JOSÉPHINE (MARIE-JOSEPH-ROSE DE TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE, KNOWN - Lot 93

Lot n° 93
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Estimation :
18000 - 20000 EUR
JOSÉPHINE (MARIE-JOSEPH-ROSE DE TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE, KNOWN - Lot 93
JOSÉPHINE (MARIE-JOSEPH-ROSE DE TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE, KNOWN AS). Autograph letter signed "Lapagerie Bonaparte", addressed to Jean Chanorier de Croissy. S.l., "this 9 ventôse" [year VII-27 February 1799]. 1 p. in-8, address on the back, traces of glue and restored tears to the address sheet, mounted on a soft cardboard sheet. DESARGENTEE, JOSEPHINE, MENETED AFTER NEGOTIATIONS TO BUY THE CASTLE IN THE ABSENCE OF HER HUSBAND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE ALSO IN EGYPT. Owners of the Château de Malmaison since 1771, the financier Jean-Jacques Le Couteulx Du Molay and his wife Geneviève-Sophie Le Couteulx de La Noraye remained firm in their demands: despite successive proposals at 280,000 livres as here, then at 310,000 and 325,000, Joséphine had to conclude an agreement with them at 330,000 livres, and the sale could be made official in April 1799 before Joséphine's Parisian notary, Maître Raguideau de La Fosse. Once he returned from Egypt and became First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte agreed in December 1799 to cover the sums adventurously incurred by his wife. "I CANNOT BETTER DO THAN TO PUT MY INTERESTS IN YOUR HANDS, MY DEAR NEIGHBOR, I GIVE YOU A CLEAR CARD, do as you do, moreover, the pleasure of being completely your neighbor is priceless to me, here are my conditions, assuming that m[a]d[am]e Dumolai asked for two hundred and eighty thousand pounds as you make me understand in your letter, I will commit myself to giving fifty thousand livres in cash, 50 thousand on the thirty germinal fixed, 50 thousand on the fifteen floreal fixed, and 50 thousand on the thirty floreal fixed, when the eighty thousand livres which would remain due, I will commit myself to paying them in six or eight months with the interest which would be agreed to pay. Greetings and friendship... "SERVING AS INTERMEDIARY IN THIS SALE, JEAN CHANORIER (1746-1806), was the mayor of Croissy, of which he had been lord before the Revolution - a place neighbouring Malmaison, on the other side of the Seine. He had been Receiver General of Finances, and was soon to be elected to the Council of Five Hundred and then appointed administrator of the Caisse d'amortissement. He was also a member of the Institute (section of mathematical and physical sciences) and was actively involved in agronomy. Letter unknown to the editors of the Correspondance de l'impératrice Joséphine, Bernard Chevallier, Maurice Catinat and Christophe Pincemaille (Paris, Payot, 1996). On the reverse side of this mount is a handwritten document (incomplete) signed by the Commissioners of the Treasury, Henry Fox, first Baron Holland, Richard Arundell and George Lyttelton (1745).
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