"I LANGUISH IN A SAD PRISON..." - Lot 248

Lot n° 248
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Estimation :
1500 - 2000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 50 700EUR
"I LANGUISH IN A SAD PRISON..." - Lot 248
"I LANGUISH IN A SAD PRISON..." MADAME ROYALE (Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte de Bourbon, known as). Autograph manuscript. [PRISON DU TEMPLE A PARIS, 1793]. 2 pp. in-4. POEM OF CAPTIVITY WRITTEN UNDER TERROR, in two stages: first in a poised handwriting, then in a looser handwriting. This writing can probably be dated to a period between the execution of her father Louis XVI on January 21, 1793 (she speaks of him in the past tense) and that of her mother the Queen on the following October 16 (mentioned here as alive). Madame Royale chose the decasyllabic form of verse, historically used for epic works. "OF YOUR KING I WAS THE DAUGHTER, / separated from all my family / I languish in a sad prison / but, alas I say with good reason: / if I were alone unhappy / my prison would seem happy to me. / I was in these parts with my father, / this happiness, alas, hardly lasted, / Heaven of his life ends the course / and to my weeping ravishes it forever. / In vain day and night I call him, / to my voice he shuts his ear. / FROM MY MOTHER TO THE CONCIERGE / I ASK TO BE REUNITED / but for all answer my guardian / says, "it's none of my business". / Upon her pour your blessings, / God, promptly open her prison. / FROM MY ONLY AND MISLEADING BROTHER / I IGNORE THE DESTINY SO DEAR... " In the second part, she recounts an anecdote from her captivity, when she received an inspection in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Madame Royale does, however, excuse her keeper, whose "honesty" and complacency in getting her whatever she wants, "books, works and many fires", she recalls. Some of the inscriptions on the second page seem to be in her own hand, but added in the heat of the moment. They follow the last line, "C'étoit un mardi le 22 octobre...". THE ONLY ROYAL CHILD TO SURVIVE THE REVOLUTION, MARIE-THERESE-CHARLOTTE DE BOURBON (1778-1851) WAS THE ELDEST DAUGHTER OF LOUIS XVI AND MARIE-ANTOINETTE. Imprisoned at the Temple on August 13, 1792 with her parents, brother and sister, she was successively informed of the death of each of them, and held in arbitrary captivity until June 1795: first handed over to her maternal family and welcomed in Vienna, she was called by Louis XVIII to join him in Mitau in Russian Courlande (now Jelgava in Latvia). There, she was given in marriage to her first cousin the Duc d'Angoulême, Louis-Antoine de Bourbon, eldest son of the Comte d'Artois. Having resumed her place at Court during the Restoration, her father-in-law Charles X's accession to the throne in 1824 made her Dauphine of France, but the July Revolution of 1830 sent her into exile alongside her husband. On the death of Charles X in 1836, she was regarded by the Legitimists as the true Queen of France, but this remained nominal and, widowed in 1844, she died in Frohsdorf near Vienna without ever having seen French soil again. Provenance : Jutheau family estate (1986). Temporary import The buyer will have to pay an import fee of 5.5% on top of the hammer price, unless the item is immediately re-exported outside the European Union. Work in temporary import The buyer will have to pay import fees of 5.5% in addition to the hammer price, unless the buyer immediately re-exports the lot outside the European Union.
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