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a handwritten letter written in black ink on a piece of papera black and white photo of a handwritten letter on a piece of papera handwritten letter written in black ink on a piece of papera black and white photo of a handwritten letter on a piece of paper
Maître Jean-Paul RENOUD-GRAPPIN

105 - VOLTAIRE (1694–1778). L.S. ‘The Old Patient V’, Ferney, 16 J…
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Estimate €1,000 - €1,500
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Description
VOLTAIRE (1694–1778). L.S. ‘The Old Patient V’, Ferney, 16 January 1776, [to Michel Bouvard de FOURQUEUX]; the letter was written by Jean-Louis WAGNIÈRE; 2 pages, quarto. Concerning his efforts to protect the Pays de Gex from the greed of the farmers-general. ‘The Estates of the Pays de Gex have chosen an eighty-two-year-old commissioner, as incapable of serving them as he is grateful for your kindness. You will probably be troubled more than once by my entreaties and my ignorance. Please allow me, in presenting this short memorandum [a petition to TURGOT] to you, to ask you to have your instructions written in the margin. We bless the Ministry, but we feel that we shall sometimes need to seek its decisions. The Parliament of Dijon has not yet returned to us the King’s declaration, which has been registered. The tax collectors stationed on the border have seized the grain coming to us from Franche-Comté and Bugei, our firewood and our coal; they treat us as foreigners, or rather as enemies. We are, however, good Frenchmen, paying a tribute of five hundred francs a year to the base of each of the sixty pillars of the State, and we take pride in the fact that, in return for this tribute, we lack neither wood, nor coal, nor bark, nor grain, nor any of the things necessary for the miserable life we lead amidst a hundred pieds of snow on either side of the Jura Mountains. ‘We place ourselves under your protection’... Correspondance (Pléiade), vol. XII, no. 14450.
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About the sale AUTOGRAPHS & MANUSCRIPTS – PENNED BY HISTORY’S GREAT FIGURES
Auction location
Auction time 09/18/2026 at 2:00 PM
Ref. : 226165 - 39
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