Robert de Montesquiou - Très belle lettre autographe signée à l'illustrateur Georges Barbier - 1908

Autograph letter by Robert de Montesquiou, French poet, dandy and art critic, signed with his initials "RM" and dated October 1908.

Written in grey ink on 4 sheets of fine laid vellum paper (vellum-type), and accompanied by its original autograph envelope addressed pneumatically to “Monsieur Georges Barbier, 31 rue Vaneau, Paris,” stamped with three 10c red Semeuse stamps and a 20c tax stamp, cancellations reading “Paris, av. des Champs-Élysées.”

In this letter addressed to George Barbier, Robert de Montesquiou responds to the confidences of his correspondent, offering his reflections on love-suffering and distance. In the postscript, he asks for his address in order to invite him to his lecture at the Autumn Salon.

“Neuilly, October. 08.
The augurs, in former times, conveyed their oracles through the marble mouths of hollow statues, from which the bewitched clients heard words of their destiny, which, however, remained unrelated to the marble lips and only brushed them.
Thus you render me a stone ear, the foreign disclosures of your distant confidences traverse through me without reaching them, and [?] without moving them.
Two more reflections:
The being who makes you suffer will suffer and perhaps, then, as Musset said, will understand himself ‘the price of a heart that understands us.’
But it is more likely that the external charm that enthralled you had only the mission of making you suffer, to reveal you to yourself and will henceforth be cut off from your destiny.
However, a fortuitous meeting, illuminated by time and absence, might unite you again, thanks to the gentle verse:
“We draw near, we smile, the hand touches the hand …”
And know how to make true happiness with the pieces of an old pleasure; but it is doubtful, rare and perhaps not desirable after all. Unless, of course, the distance you complain of is only a sentimental accident (shall I call it a breakdown?) that can be quickly repaired, and compensated by more speed, at the same time as more prudence...
I have seen these sorts of affinities and divellences, I have known them (shall I say tasted them?) with gentleness and pain.

P.S. / I was drafting this reply to your previous letter when the present one arrived. I continue to marvel that these beautiful things are said to me, which are not meant for me. A new form of sic vos non vobis that makes my disinterested senses taste and smell love.
There are like honeycombs fashioned by an earlier swarm, and which one gives to be filled by other bees.
Lacking an address, which you do not give me, I must send these lines on their way. - Please quickly repair this omission if you want me to invite you to my lecture on Thursday at the Autumn Salon.
Perhaps it will place me in the presence of another you, whom I shall like better than the old one, and to whom I could grant a place in my life closer than the one hitherto allotted to this penitential figure, by an imperial and impersonal pontiff, a detached confessor, a confidant unmoved.”

Dimensions: 20.7 x 26.8 cm
Condition: See photos for details.
Number of pages: 4 pages

- Count Robert de Montesquiou, born in Paris on March 19, 1855 and died in Menton on December 11, 1921, was a French man of letters, poet, dandy and critic of art and literature. “Insolent poet and dandy,” he is said to have inspired Es cintes in À Rebours by Huysmans and Monsieur de Phocas by Jean Lorrain. Wikipedia

- Georges Barbier is a French painter, fashion designer and illustrator. He also signs under the pseudonym Edward W. Larry. Wikipedia

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