"I'VE ALWAYS FOUND MYSELF SO COMFORTABLE WITH THIS FULL CONF - Lot 219

Lot 219
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"I'VE ALWAYS FOUND MYSELF SO COMFORTABLE WITH THIS FULL CONF - Lot 219
"I'VE ALWAYS FOUND MYSELF SO COMFORTABLE WITH THIS FULL CONFIDENCE IN FORTUNE...". DAVOUT (Louis-Nicolas). Autograph letter signed to his wife Aimée Leclerc. Warsaw, December 24 [1807]. 3 pp. in-4. "You must have received... already in several of my letters the advice to dispose of part of the 300,000 f. made available to me by the Emperor to buy a hotel [Aimée Leclerc was going to acquire for them the Parisian hotel then known as the "Hotel de Monaco", rue Saint-Dominique, until then occupied by the ambassador of the Sublime Porte], you must have received, I say, already the advice to dispose of part of it to satisfy your crippling debts. You will have seen, as I told you, that you will be able to replace this loan very quickly: you have already received 19,000 f.. Then I announced that I would send you 20 to 30,000 f. in January. That's almost 50,000 f. that you can use to replace the 80,000 f. you plan to take out. The rest will soon come from the savings I'll be making on my income from Poland [produced by the former principality of Łowicz, west of Warsaw, which Napoleon I had just given him as a majorat]. These revenues will amount to more than 400,000 f. I still hope to sell part of the mills at a great advantage. I also hope to sell a beautiful palace which, to all appearances, belongs to me, as it is listed in all the principality's inventories. Lastly, I will require a year's payment in advance for the renewal of the leases, and as I have already told you, this will no longer be a problem. As you can see, everything should be easy for you. I'm delighted to hear that you're no longer so worried about the future. This kind of foresight is not wisdom; it poisons the present without providing any means for the future. I have always found myself so well disposed in this full confidence in Fortune that, out of gratitude for this lady, I must preach this moral to you. I have always found myself well disposed in this way, even before I experienced any signs of benevolence from the Emperor, for since that time I would consider myself a fool if I worried for a moment about your fate and that of our children... You don't know that this character is not based on selfishness or indifference, above all: then this confidence, instead of being a quality, would be a vice all the more odious because my wife and children would be its victims... Your faithful and good husband L. Davout". On Marshal Davout's role in Poland and Aimée Leclerc, see n° 218 above.
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