Jean-François DUCIS (1733-1816, playwright and poet, member - Lot 219

Jean-François DUCIS (1733-1816, playwright and poet, member of the Académie française, succeeded to Voltaire's seat) / Autograph manuscript, 2 p in-4, October 1814: this is a fragment of his diary, authenticated by his nephew Jean-Louis DUCIS (1773-1847, painter and pupil of David): "On October 21, 1814, the carriage of the painter Gérard (François Gérard, 1770-1837, official painter under the Empire) picked him up to take him home, "I found Talma arriving from his walk in Strasbourg, he said my verses on the Alps, the story of Macbeth, admirably, the story of Cinna", "Madame Grassini sang several beautiful pieces of music" (the singer-mistress of Bonaparte who became Première Cantatrice to His Imperial Majesty), "We had Milord and Milady Hamilton and two other English lords, in charge of various ministries, as English strangers", Gérard's carriage brought him back before midnight, "one of Oudon's sons-in-law, a famous sculptor, drove me back, he's the one who married the youngest of Oudon's three daughters, and who seemed so pretty to us when I had my lodgings in the Louvre with my wife" (the sculptor Jean-François Houdon).