Jules BARBEY D'AUREVILLY. Autograph manuscript signed "J. B. - Lot 5

Jules BARBEY D'AUREVILLY. Autograph manuscript signed "J. B. d'A.", Preface to Ridicules du Temps, [1883]; 2 fol. pages; bound in red half-maroquin (V. Champs). Preface to his book Les Ridicules du Temps (Rouveyre et Blond, 1883). The manuscript, in black, red and yellow inks, shows erasures and corrections, with a few additions in pencil. "They are not all in this book... But here are a few of them, taken from the very flat surface of a society whose only depths are its vices. Ah! if this book were about the vices and not the ridicules of the time, it would have more depth... Only, to show them, these vices, one would have to describe them, and the tartuffery of an age that has invented the complicated art of combining the hypocrisy of regulated societies with the cynicism of its own derangements, would wither such a work if it were true, and who knows? perhaps prosecute it before its adorable tribunals, as immoral and dangerous... While waiting for the courage to write it - if it ever comes to him - the author of Ridicules du Temps, who is bored like everyone else in this age of boredom, where people are dying of it, wondered if there was still a way to make a cheerful book, and there he planted the idea of a sad book, wanting only to skim, with a light hand and spoon, over the rims of the poisoned milk pot of contemporary vices, the ridicules that are its foam and cream. It's an essay. But will it be gay, even at this price?"... Etc. And he concludes that society "does no more, with its senseless education, than develop mediocrities to the point of the most splendid silliness. Come on! it's not just women, it's the whole century that's low-blue... Once again, it's not the fault of the author of Les Ridicules du Temps that he can only offer you those of his own century. A pedantic century, whose latest invention was free and compulsory education. A cuistre century, and one that would like to encuistrailler, like him, all mankind!" 2 portraits, one engraved by J.L. Perrichon, and Paul Verlaine's article on Barbey d'Aurevilly in Les Hommes d'aujourd'hui (no. 282), illustrated with a portrait by Coll-Toc. Ex-libris Léon Schück.