ALS in French, signed “L. Napoleon B.,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.75 x 8, September 4, 1832. Letter to French poet and Bonapartist Louis Belmontet. In part (translated): “I have just received your letter of 1 September. lt pleases me in that it proves to me that you have not entirely forgotten me. I admit that your conduct towards me has astonished and distressed me, as I have in no way given cause for this change on your part. l am the same as last year, I feel in me the same desires, the same energy, the same principles; if you have conceived another idea of me and you have been mistaken, it is not my fault. One can only judge men on the occasions when their character [is put to the test] thus I do not wish to be judged until after the coup. I have done little up to now but nonetheless I have shown that I know how to sacrifice all my affections to the desire to be useful to a fine cause: should the circumstance present itself again, it will be seen that the sacred fire has not been extinguished in my soul and that the words country and liberty always stir my heart. lf my impressions are less lively than yours, they are at least more durable, and it will never be foolishness like idle gossip or sulkiness which will change the friendship I hold for those like you who have laid themselves open in the national interests.
You are right when you say that the century has produced only one man; the more one lives the more one is convinced of this truth. Therefore one wants today institutions which allow each person to apply his enlightenment to public matters to compensate for the lack of a great genius. I thank you for the letter you have sent me. For myself, I am now downhearted; I keep following my own line with perseverance, and when the country needs me it will find me ready…You have long been able to count on my friendship, just as l, for my part, could not doubt of yours.” In very good condition, with intersecting folds, scattered wrinkles, creases lightly affecting the signature, and toning, paper loss to the second integral page where it was once sealed, a couple small pieces of tape to the edges, and some show-through from writing on opposing sides. Accompanied by an unsigned engraved portrait.
In 1832, Louis Napoleon’s official residence was at his mother’s castle of Arenenberg in the Swiss canton of Thurgau. Unable to take advantage of the tense political scene in Italy and France, he looked towards Poland as the next possible birthplace of the new Napoleonic regime; but when the revolution there collapsed with the Russian capture of Warsaw, he resigned himself to a temporary waiting role. Determined to “keep following my own line of perseverance,” as he writes in this letter, he prepares for his opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the century’s “one man” (undoubtedly the first Emperor). His forthcoming success was largely due to a tremendous propaganda campaign to which Louis Belmontet, a friend to all Bonapartes and his correspondent in this letter, contributed several poems and political works. A passionate letter from the anxious Napoleon, showing that the Liberal spirit which shook Paris in 1830 burned strong in the future emperor’s heart. RRAuction COA.
