MIRABEAU (Honoré-Gabriel de Riquetti, comte de) - Lot 11

MIRABEAU (Honoré-Gabriel de Riquetti, comte de) Autograph letter signed Mirabeau fils, [London], December 28, 1784, addressed to a friend, 2 pages in-8. Handwritten inscription ""Mirabeau / London"" in another hand on the back of the second page. Interesting letter written from his exile in London, on his state of health, his friendship and the publication of Joseph Servant's work. "I can see that when there are no services to render your friends, nor ballooning memoirs to ask for, you remember, at most, the names of those who love you, and you don't have the slightest itch to write to them. But I, who am burning with fever by my fireside, and whose chest, I think out of sympathy, is suffering cruelly, think of you because I am unwell, and you are well, which in my soul makes up for both pleasure and pain, so that when I add to this the kind convalescence of my companion [Henriette de NEHRA], who is regaining her strength and beauty, I endure my painful situation with a patience that amazes me. Yet I am angry at myself for not having written to you for several days, and I do not absolve myself by telling myself that you owe me an answer: on the contrary, I tell myself that anyone other than the philosophical Toi would be worried about me or angry with me. In either case, I can tell you: knock, but listen. Since the last few days of last month, I've been busy with an instant, arduous and necessary job that has filled my time to such an extent that my days haven't been enough; I've taken up more than half my nights, which my Henriette would have done without, and I've killed myself at this job. I don't have an iron body like I used to, and although I'm one of those people who can be relieved of work by a feeling, the fatigue of writing after writing has always made me put it off until the next day, and absolute rest after work was even more necessary to me the next day than the day before. This is because I feel it is impossible for me to write to you briefly [...]. Doctor Elliot has been just as delicate and generous as you expected. We couldn't get him to accept anything; he sent us away when my father died. Whatever my fortune, I won't be able to pay for the service he rendered me in restoring my friend's health; for me, it's the return of happiness. I must admit, I love the medicine that arrives and chases away illness. How do you expect these people not to keep mankind bound to their service until the end of the centuries, when we see one of them give us back, with two lines of writing, the loved one for whom we have just trembled. Many superstitions have been established at less cost and for lighter reasons. Servant [Joseph SERVAN] has just written a book against them, which would seem to me to be of serious consequence to the faculty, if anything could be. It seems to me that since Montaigne's chapter and Moliere's sarcasms, they have hardly been more scorned. I'll lend you this when you get back; when will you be back? Because your fortnight is cruelly dragging on......