French author (1808–1889) known for his mysteries that explored hidden motivations and hinted at evil. Beautiful autograph manuscript in French, signed “J. Barbey d’Aurevilly,” three pages on two 8 x 12.25 sheets plus an 8 x 3 slip, no date but circa 1873. A dissertation entitled “The Pilgrimages,” on the return of piety in France and the rise of pilgrimages in the nineteenth century, through which we see the vivid religious convictions of the author himself. In part (translated): "Who said that religious issues were more questions and that the modern spirit, so superior to the spirit of the Middle Ages had killed them and had thrown the ashes to the winds: ludibria ventis [the playthings of the winds]!…Everyone from the day that desperate Lamenais published his indifference in matters of religion until the hour of supreme misfortune which…France, this France, as she was Catholic France, had felt more than forty years, one of those heart droughts that mystics know and that nations which were also fervent know. Certainly it was not until the atheist Marrow, that old France Clovis. But atheism, the last word of all the ungodly philosophies, Atheism, with its secular instruction at compulsory hoped it would become. Books indeed, Atheism happened in reality the Commune for priests who were no longer men but cassocks (Remember the word of Rigaud: Cassocks stand up). The Commune was the triumph of Atheism, as Robespierre himself, with his foolish feast of the Supreme Being had said God, and after the Commune was not the skeptic Voltaire who led France that was able to stop atheism, which at least says something.” The piece is heavily edited with additions, deletions, emendations, and editorial marks throughout. In very good condition, with repaired complete separations to horizontal folds, scattered soiling, and toning to edges. Barbey d'Aurevilly was a liberal atheist as a young man, generally portraying religion as a meddlesome force in his writing. However, he began attending church in the 1840s and converted to Catholicism in 1846. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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