SAINT-SIMON (Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de). - Lot 4

SAINT-SIMON (Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de). Autograph letter signed "Le duc de St Simon" to the Marquise and Comtesse de Saint-Simon, Catherine-Marguerite de Pineau de Viennay. Château de La Ferté-Vidame [in the present-day département of Eure-et-Loir]. One p. 1/2 in-8. BEAUTIFUL LETTER ON THE EDUCATION TO BE GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF THE ARISTOCRACY. ATTENTIVE TO THE POSTERITY OF HIS NAME, LE DUC DE SAINT-SIMON (1675-1755) had lost his eldest son in 1740, and saw his second son's health deteriorating (he died in 1754). He therefore took particular care of his distant cousins. This was particularly the case for those of the Montbléru branch: he took an interest in the daughters and sons of Louis-Gabriel de Rouvroy, comte et marquis de Saint-Simon, born since 1741, including the future grand d'Espagne Claude-Anne. "I am delighted, Madame, that M. de Rouffiac [second husband of the widow of the financial advisor to the Duc de Saint-Simon] has testified to you of all that I think of it, that you have done me the grace to be pleased with it, to speak to me with confidence. AT MY AGE, IN MY RETIREMENT, I CAN DO LITTLE OR NOTHING, BUT WHAT LITTLE I CAN DO, I OFFER TO YOU. The age of your family does not yet involve anything, but as soon as health and age permit, I KNOW NOTHING MORE PRESENT THAN TO PUT THE GIRLS INTO RELIGION, not at all in the very reprehensible hope of making them nuns, but to draw them away from objects that cannot be useful to them, to give them others where they will have instruction, education, everything that is appropriate until they are truly called to be religious, or until you are in a position to establish them. I don't know what the Abbey of Saintes is for education. If it were good, the house is beautiful, numerous, rich, on your doorstep, I would answer for all the care of m[adam]e l'abbesse my first cousin my friend, with whom I am in trade, within reach of everything [Marie de Durfort-Duras, abbess of Saintes, was in fact a first cousin of the wife of the Duc de Saint-Simon]. Vous avés, Madame, le loisir la comodité de vous en informer doucement seurement, car le grand point est que des enfans ne perdent pas leurs années dans un couvent, mais qu'ELLES Y TROUVENT CE QUI DOIT LES FORMER POUR DIEU POUR LE LE LE ESTAT SI ELLES SE MARIENT. FOR BOYS, YOU HAVE NOTHING WORTHWHILE IN THE PROVINCES. Quand l'aage la santé le permettront, IL N'Y A DE PARTI QUE CELUY DE LES ENVOYER A PARIS AU COLLEGE avec un domestique seur qui y demeure avec eux. Je m'informeray en attendant [sur] celuy où ils seront le mieux, ou les jésuittes ou autres. I will make it my business to overcome any difficulty in getting them there when you have chosen one, to keep an eye on them while they are there, and in my long absences from Paris, to have someone safe to report to me. On all this, their age gives them time to seek and choose, but the sooner that age and health can wisely allow them to be removed from where they are, the better. I CONGRATULATE YOU, MADAME, FOR THINKING OF THEM WITH AN EFFECTIVE, COURAGEOUS TENDERNESS THAT SENSES THEIR WELL-BEING AND DEPENDS ON THE PLEASURE OF KEEPING THEM IN YOUR CARE. In all that I can be good to you for something in particular, to them, be persuaded Madam that I will do it with all the affection possible, the desire to testify to you that I am very truly your very humble very obedient servant ... ". RARE.