DUROC (Géraud Christophe Michel). Autograph... - Lot 19 - Osenat

DUROC (Géraud Christophe Michel). Autograph letter signed [probably to the French ambassador in Sweden, Jean-François de Bourgoing]. Copenhagen, 20 Vendemiaire year X [12 October 1801]. 2 pp. 1/4 in-4. After the assassination of the czar Paul I, an assertive francophile, it was Alexander I, a man with quite opposite sentiments, who ascended the throne in March 1801. Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to congratulate the new master of the country and to know his disposition towards France, so he sent Colonel Duroc to St. Petersburg in May 1801. However, this one, not belonging to the high aristocracy, aroused only a distant and ironic interest at the Court. Moreover, his diplomatic dispatches being opened by the police, his frank and unfriendly remarks on the entourage of the tsar strongly displeased Alexander I and led to his recall. Leaving Russia on September 11, 1801, he returned to France via Sweden and Denmark. "Citizen, I arrived here yesterday evening, so it took me nine days to make my journey from Stockholm. I stayed only one day in Carlseroue [Karlsruhe, in the margraviate of Baden] where I was received as I should expect to be with the good recommendations I had. I sometimes found the roads spoiled by rain and the horses badly ordered. That is why my trip was not quite as you expected, but it was as pleasant as possible. I have already seen the whole diplomatic corps. MACDONALD is even more bored than he wrote to you [the future Marshal Stephen Macdonald was then Ambassador to Denmark, a country which was allied to France and which had just suffered a naval attack by the British fleet]. WE ARE ALL JOYED BY THE GOOD NEWS RECEIVED HERE OF THE PRELIMINARY PEACE BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND, which was signed on the night of the 1st to the 2nd of October by Lord HAUKESBURY and the cit[oyen] OTTO [Robert Jenkinson, Baron of Hawkesbury, and Louis-Guillaume Otto]... I do not know yet how many days I shall stay here. It will be the least I can do. I am writing you this draft in haste to take advantage of the mail of Mr. Baron d'OXENTIERN [Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden]. If Mr. the King of Sweden [Gustav IV Adolphus] makes me give here by him a snuffbox in brilliants with his figure, I send you a letter for the king in which I make him my thanks. If you believe that this manner is not suitable, burn the letter and please take care of it yourself in my name and present him with the assurance of my feelings of respect and gratitude for all the kindnesses and the welcome he has given me..." ATTACHED: an apocryphal piece signed "Surcouf," allegedly written during a privateering operation aboard the Clarisse.