BOURBON-CONTI (Stéphanie-Louise de). - Lot 45

BOURBON-CONTI (Stéphanie-Louise de). Manuscript entitled "Mémoires histoiriques [sic] de Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon Conti, princesse françoise ci-devant comtesse de Mont-Cair-Zain". [Circa 1791]. 260 pp. in-folio including one blank, in discontinuous and erroneous pagination, brown half-chagrin with corners, smooth spine; a few leaves missing in the third part between pp. 74 and 79, spine insolate and stained, leaves trimmed a little short with loss of a few words in the marginal notes, a few stains and wet spots (modern binding). PRIMITIVE VERSION ALMOST ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FROM THE DEFINITIVE TEXT (Paris, chez l'auteur, floréal an V - April-May 1798, v.s.). It covers a period ending in 1791, while the printed text, reworked by a "teinturier", Jacques-Corentin Royou, would be completed by 1798. MYSTIFICATE ADVENTURER OR DESEQUILIBREE MISLEADER, THIS PRETENDED PRINCESS was in fact called Anne-Louise-Françoise Delorme (1756-1825). She claimed to be the daughter of the Prince de Bourbon-Conti and the Duchesse de Mazarin, who gave her the title of Countess de Mont-Cairzain, an anagram of their two names. She claimed to have received a princely upbringing, but to have been abducted the day before the king was to legitimize her, fraudulently declared dead and buried, then forcibly married to a provincial robin, a certain Billet. She tried in vain to be recognized as a princess of the blood. GOETHE LEARNED OF THESE MEMORIES THROUGH SCHILLER, AND USED THEM TO WRITE HIS HISTORICAL DRAMA THE NATURAL GIRL (Die Natürliche Tochter, 1802). ATTACHED, A SIGNED AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM STEPHANIE-LOUISE DE BOURBON-CONTI to a general about her unfortunate situation (Paris, 1803); and a handwritten letter from the same (1794).