Jean-François DUCIS (1733-1816, playwright and poet, member - Lot 176

Jean-François DUCIS (1733-1816, playwright and poet, member of the Académie française, succeeded Voltaire) / 1°) 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): from my uncle's diary - 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 First Cantress to His Imperial Majesty), I read my Protestation which was a delight, We had as English strangers Milord and Milady Hamilton and two other English lords, Gérard's carriage brought him back before midnight, one of Oudon's sons-in-law, a famous sculptor, drove me back, he is the one who married the youngest of Oudon's three daughters, and who seemed so pretty to us when I had my lodgings at the Louvre with my wife (the sculptor Jean-François Houdon) - 2°) Autograph letter signed, 4 p petit in-4, Versailles, March 28, 1814, to Vincent CAMPENON (1772-1843, poet of the Académie française) - He instructs his friend to forward a letter to Monsieur de Boufflers (Stanislas, poet of the Académie française): I sincerely hope, my friend, that my prose and verse will express to Mr de Boufflers the full extent and vivacity of my gratitude. I have done all I could in verse. I think as you do, my dear Campenon: men and women, I say almost all of them, don't understand poetry. Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter (nb: quote from Virgil). We know that we feel this language. And that's why we find it so hard to be satisfied with what we do / Enclosed: small engraved portrait