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two pages of a letter written in black ink on a piece of paper
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142 - Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde de SISMONDI (1773–1842).
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Estimate €1,000 - €1,200
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Description
Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde de SISMONDI (1773–1842). Letter from the author, Chênes near Geneva, 6 March 1842; 4 pages in-4 plus one page in-12 pasted to the letter (slight tear at the fold). An important letter concerning the uprising of 22 November 1841, which shook Geneva, and its aftermath. [The riot of 22 November 1841, led by the Association of 3 March, led to the formation of a constituent assembly with a Protestant majority, and to the creation of the City of Geneva as an independent municipality (Constitution of 7 June 1842).] He thanks his correspondent for his ‘literary gossip’ regarding his *Histoire des Français*, and provides him with information ‘on the shameful and criminal revolution we endured on 22 November’. He sends him a short pamphlet he has written on the subject and advises him to visit Ab. Cherbuliez’s bookshop, where he will find the newspapers published in Geneva at that time. ‘A purely Jacobin party, very violent but small in number, which, through popular elections, could never attain either a seat in the National Assembly or a position in government, set itself a twofold aim through the insurrection of 22 November, in which a daring minority took the majority by surprise and subjugated it, 1. to confine the government to a very small number of hands […] 2. to triple or quadruple the emoluments of these posts, which were formerly very meagre […] so that the surplus might satisfy the greed of these adventurers. The effect of this revolution—which they had not foreseen, though it was inevitable—was to shift influence from the townspeople to the rural population, who make up three-fifths of the population, and at the same time to confer prodigious influence upon the Catholics, who make up only a third of the population, but who, through a seesaw of power between the Radicals and the Conservatives, keep both sides equally in their thrall. This unforeseen outcome has caused alarm in Protestant Geneva; it has been seen there as the harbingers of the ruin of our Church’. He wishes for a liberal church, like that of America. ‘The ferment of ideas, the study of nature and of antiquity have, with the advance of the Enlightenment, inevitably given rise to divergent views on religious matters; […] countless systems of belief have emerged, ranging from the strictest orthodoxy or the most severe Calvinism, through Arianism, […] to the most independent rationalism. In the ancient spirit of Rome, all those who strayed from the Church were burnt at the stake, which served to maintain unity quite effectively. In the Anglican Church, they are merely excluded by means of symbols, which maintains a dominant system alongside a host of independent sects. You have gone further; you have abolished the dominant Church, and all your sects are equally independent’. The Church of Geneva is quite different: ‘Public worship must equally bring together all those who feel in their hearts the need to worship God together, to draw closer to all their brothers through charity, and to hear together a moral teaching that is the same for all. […] Any man—I do not even say any Christian—who wishes to join in the prayers of the Church of Geneva is a member of the Church of Geneva’… Etc.”
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About the sale Letters and Autograph Manuscripts – Part I
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Auction time 10/13/2026 at 2:00 PM
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