FEYDEAU Georges (1862 - 1921)

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Lot n° 116
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Estimation :
3000 - 4000 EUR
FEYDEAU Georges (1862 - 1921)
43 L.A.S. "Georges Feydeau" or "Georges", [1880-1918], to HIS MOTHER Léocadie FOUQUIER (29), to his half-sister Henriette Fouquier-Ballot (8) and to her husband, the playwright Marcel BALLOT (6); about 150 pages in-8 and in-12, an envelope. Interesting family correspondence. It is mainly written from Paris, but also during trips or summer vacations. The letters to his mother (who remarried the journalist Henry FOUQUIER) are of great tenderness, and Feydeau reveals himself with sincerity. He informs her about his health, his discouragements, his money worries, his work, his failures and successes, and of course, his family life. He does not forget to mention his sisters Valentine (born in 1866) and Henriette (born in 1876) and "Papa", his father-in-law Henry Fouquier. Around 1880. He hopes to be a bachelor soon and makes many visits: Camille Doucet, Sarcey, while writing playlets. He goes to the theater (see the dress rehearsal of Maucroix by Delpit in 1883), and gave a monologue to Coquelin Cadet. 1883 - 1884, during his military service, where the exercises exhausted him, he passed an exam where he succeeded in making the jury laugh; he asked for money, supplies, and worried about his theatrical production: "Have you not yet received from Ollendorff? As soon as my proofs arrive, if he sends them home, send them to me immediately to Amiens, I would like my monologue to appear as soon as possible. Did Coquelin Cadet say Mes célèbres?" 1887, he travels to Italy, he is dazzled by Venice where he meets the baritone Victor Maurel, creator of the role of Iago in Verdi's Otello, whom he will see three times at the Fenice! They go together to Milan where he learns of the fire at the Opéra-Comique during a performance of Mignon by Ambroise Thomas : "What a jinx this Thomas is. The Opera burns with Hamlet, the Opéra-Comique with Mignon. It is to prohibit his operas by measure of public safety"... He tells of his disputes with theater directors to have his plays performed. Then came the engagement to Marie-Anne CAROLUS-DURAN (whom he married on October 14, 1889): "Marie-Anne is like you left her, loving and caressing, and we get along wonderfully, except for two or three little scenes a week that always end with a good kiss. I think I'll soon be putting my Ladies' Tailor on the stage" at the Renaissance [the play will be premiered in 1886]... "I'm up to my neck"; he is looking for an apartment... Then came the birth of his first child, Germaine (November 1890), followed by Jacques (April 1892). He spends his summers in Fitz-James at the Sterns' (Mrs. Stern and Mrs. Carolus-Duran are sisters). Duran are sisters), in Saint-Aygulf in the Villa Carolus of the Carolus-Duran, or in Le Touquet Paris-Plage where Henry Fouquier had a chalet built. 1891. He made disastrous operations on the stock market and Marie-Anne's hopes of motherhood were dashed. "Finally the mold is not lost and the workers are there!"... 1892. He is delighted with the reopening of the Palais-Royal: "My play [Monsieur chasse] has had an enormous effect [...] I have had superb press. Sarcey wrote an enthusiastic article about me which exceeds in praise everything he has ever written about me [...] At the Nouveautés I read Champignol malgré lui". 1894. He proposed Le Ruban to the Palais-Royal and to the Variétés who both accepted it, but he prefers to give it to the Palais-Royal. Summer of 1899. He does "a lot of painting and a little bit of theater, less than painting; the more I go the less I like my job"... Marie- Anne begins a third pregnancy (Michel will be born on March 13, 1900) and CAROLUS-DURAN paints a group portrait of his wife and children; he tells his mother of his distrust of Cahen d'Anvers, "a swinger who is always with the girls and who has no business being a friend to a young girl like Henriette"... In Monte Carlo, he lets himself go to play roulette, but he is anxious to return to Paris to find his wife and children: "this overheated life, intensive, irritates and wearies"... 1902. He is in Plombières where they are going to play Monsieur chasse which he has "rehearsed as well as he can for the local mutts. [...] I am working on my new play for next winter, because I absolutely have to get out of the mess". 1903. Marie-Anne is expecting their fourth child [Jean-Pierre will be born on September 30, 1903]: she "is developing in a disturbing way. She is what is called in the theater "a belly" ... "My play [La main passe] does not amuse me. I continue it because it is necessary, but I do not feel the element of the big success, then it is drudgery and that annoys me"... The last letter [April 14, 1918] is to reassure her mother who fears the bombings in Paris: "at the Terminus, if you go down into my basements you have nine floors above you, where can you be better sheltered? The letters to Henriette are affectionate; he warns her against the games of ar
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