ZOLA Émile (1840-1902)

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Lot n° 204
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14000 - 15000 EUR
ZOLA Émile (1840-1902)
COLLECTION of letters, pieces and autograph notes, several of them signed, and some documents from another hand, [Notes sur François Zola], 1868 - 1899; 85 autograph pages of various sizes, and 17 non-autograph pages, all mounted on tabs and bound in a small volume in-4 purple half-maroquin (H. Jacquet-Riffieux) A very nice set of documents on François Zola, an engineer who died in 1847, whose memory Zola would like to rehabilitate. François ZOLA (Venice 1795-Marseille 1847) had joined the Foreign Legion in 1830, but had to resign in 1832, having been involved in a case of embezzlement, which ended in a dismissal. He became a civil engineer in Marseille and designed several large-scale projects, including dams and a water supply canal for the city of Aix-en-Provence, where he settled with his family in 1843. He died suddenly, leaving his family in debt. His son will write: "My father passes like a shadow in the memories of my early childhood"...During the Dreyfus Affair, Zola will defend his father, whose memory had been slandered. A. À propos d'une campagne à Aix-en-Provence, 1868. 5 autograph drafts of letters; and 4 letters addressed to Zola (We follow the chronological order of the letters here, not the order of the binding). [3 August], to REMONDET-AUBIN, director of the Mémorial d'Aix (4 p. in-4). Zola protests against the refusal of the Mémorial to insert his reply to a small article directed against himself. "Indeed, I underwent at your place a barbarity: I saw my father dying at work and then being stoned to death in his memory"... He blames the editor vigorously, then adopts an ironic tone to recognize that Le Mémorial "has not yet tried to erase my name from the cover of my books, as it has often erased it when speaking of the Zola canal"... [3 August], to Léopold ARNAUD, director of the Messager de Provence (1 p.). He asks him to insert the text of his letter to the Memorial, where he was attacked "with rudeness". [12 August], to REMONDET-AUBIN (8 p.). He notes in the Mémorial an insulting sentence: ""M. Zola fils abuses a little too much M. Zola père. How! you already have enough of my complaints! But I've only just begun. You have not understood that if I have kept silent for many years, it is because I was waiting to be strong; I have been struggling for ten years, I have grown in work and courage, I have conquered my position by fighting every day against misery and despair. And today you would like to impose silence on me [...] Ah! you say that I am abusing my father's name, the day when for the first time I severely reproach you for your forgetfulness. You lack tact, you lack heart"... [September 14], to the Mayor and the members of the City Council of the city of Aix. "My father, Mr. François Zola, gave a canal to the city you represent. I will not remind you of his long negotiations with the government, the struggles he had to support from the beginning, the successes he had obtained when death came to seize him, just as he was about to carry out his project, which was declared to be in the public interest"... So that the creator of the canal that supplies water to Aix is not forgotten, his son asks for some homage to his memory... [After December 19], to the Mayor and the members of the City Council of the city of Aix. He received a copy of their deliberations and of the decree by which they gave the boulevard du Chemin Neuf the name of François Zola. "I knew that I would not recall my father's work without your generosity being moved by the delay in rewarding the memory of a man who devoted himself to the interests of the citizens you represent. [...] Please believe in my deep gratitude. If I am not a son of your city, I grew up in Aix and I consider myself a bit like its adopted child. Today, a new link strongly attaches me to her"... Letters addressed to Zola on the same subject by REMONDETAUBIN (July 31, 1868), L. MARGUERY (Aix, August 1, 1868 and Dimanche), and Pascal ROUX, mayor of Aix (November 6, 1868, announcing the decision of the City Council to name the Boulevard Zola). B. Letters to General de Galliffet and to M. Waldeck-Rousseau, December 1899. MANUSCRIT partly autograph and signed (18 p. in-4, of which 10 are in the hand of Madame Zola, who has copied the two letters to Galliffet, at the bottom of which Zola has affixed her signature, as well as the minister's reply). This exchange of letters between Zola and the Minister of War, General de GALLIFFET, and the Minister of the Interior, WALDECK-ROUSSEAU, was published in L'Aurore of December 19, 1899 (the manuscript was cut up for printing and reassembled). December 9, to General de GALLIFFET. "An editor of the Petit Journal, Mr. Ernest Judet, at the time when I was to appear before the jury at Versailles, published two defamatory articles against the memory of my father, in which he quoted alleged letters from Colonel Combe, in which my father was accused of having been a soldier.
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