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an old handwritten letter from jean merrvoz to his mother
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Estimate €1,500 - €2,000
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Description
MERMOZ Jean Signed autograph manuscript, French composition. An air raid alert, [1918]; 4 pages, small quarto. An account of an air raid alert, a French composition set for the ‘Seconde D’ class. The teacher has written the mark and his comment in red ink: ‘Good essay – lively, alert. You will certainly do very well’. Mermoz recounts an air raid alert on a beautiful summer’s evening. He is roused from his light sleep by the sirens: ‘The Gothas are approaching; it is indeed the song of the sirens—not the languid song of the fantastical characters from fairy tales, but rather the howls and whistles of the Furies of whom Aeschylus speaks in the Oresteia. These mournful howls send a chill down your spine. They are reminiscent of dogs howling in death.” The entire block of flats heads down to take refuge in the cellar. ‘As for me, I’m staying behind, not out of bravado, but because I’m a fatalist and, at the same time, very curious, like all young people my age.’ Through his window, he looks up at the sky, dotted with barrage fire; the bombs are falling… “The red trail of an aeroplane cuts through the air, bursts, and illuminates the dark mass of houses. A bomb falls. An immense beam of light sweeps across the sky, followed by several others. They all cross and criss-cross one another, sweeping across the sky in every direction. […] Up there, it is still the struggle, the blind struggle in the infinite’… The bells ringing out the end of the air-raid alert remind him of Midnight Mass; he lies back down and falls asleep: ‘The Gothas have vanished from my thoughts just as they are disappearing from Paris. Tomorrow, I shall inevitably think of them again to curse them when I learn of their crimes’. Source: - Jean Mermoz (1901–1936); - Gabrielle Gillet-Mermoz (1880–1955); - Then passed down through the family
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About the sale Historical Memories
Auction location
Auction time 11/03/2026 at 11:00 AM
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