[GOUNOD Charles]. BOUDIER Jean-Baptiste (1839-1925).

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[GOUNOD Charles]. BOUDIER Jean-Baptiste (1839-1925).
13 L.A.S. "l'abbé Boudier", to Charles and Anna GOUNOD, Saint-Cloud 1870-1872, plus one L.A.S. from Charles GOUNOD to Boudier; 50 pages in-8 or in-4 (one torn), several on the letterhead of the Diocese of Versailles. Parish of Saint-Cloud. Interesting correspondence from the vicar of Saint-Cloud during the war of 1870 and the Commune, to the Gounods who had taken refuge in London. He had joined them, and then ensured the liaison between Gounod who had remained in London, and his family who had returned to France. 1870. 25 August, he announces that he is leaving Saint-Cloud for the parish of Briis-sous-Forges... - November 26 (letter sent by balloon); refugee in Passy, he gives news. The houses of Montretout have been pillaged by marauders or by the Prussians. Saint-Cloud has been burned. "Your house has been preserved" .... 1871. January 25 (by balloon). He tells of the battle of Montretout (19 January) where the Gounod¸ s cottage was ravaged, stripped, riddled with bullets, but remained standing. - April 1, he describes Saint-Cloud, the ruins, the misery; all the houses are burned; this disaster is comparable to the sack of Jerusalem.... "Ah my friend, if you were one of our poor and if I were Gounod, oh how I would sing! Let yourself be bent, oh my noble friend, [...] One concert my friend, one concert, and they will owe you everything!"... He prepares the inventory of the losses of each family following the sack and the fire of Saint-Cloud. - April 5th, at Anna Gounod. The riot is there: "the cannon roars as loud as in the time of the Prussians. And it is Frenchmen fighting against Frenchmen, Brothers killing each other [...] The duel is between red and order. The red flag that flies in Paris on all public monuments and the national flag. Order, disorder, evil and God, that is the duel that is being waged"... He is happy to learn "that our dear great master has finished his great and beautiful work"... Anna must obtain from Gounod a concert for the benefit of the victims of the war. He photographed the houses of the family. The Pignys retire to Versailles. Zéa [Pigache] is not well. Dr. Blanche says there is nothing to be done. - April 7. News of the Commune and the riot. The pictures of the ruins are done... -April 19. The cannon is still firing; the insurgents "are raising barricades in Paris 18 meters thick and 8 meters high"....; he returns to the concert project. - 20 April. He announces to Anna Gounod that he will go with the Pignys to London to see Gounod. - London 15 June, to Anna: he deplores the attitude taken by the dear Gounod, and expresses his " persistent determination not to go to Tavistock House " (to the Weldon's); he tried to tell CG " that he was not doing his duty as a husband ", this was the quarrel. - 29 June. He goes to see Gounod every other day, but alas! he will not be able to bring him back to France, because he remains attached to Tavistock House, in spite of the "tender sermons" of the abbot, which remained useless... - 5 July. Back in Paris, he thanks Gounod and Mrs Weldon for the stay in London and gives news of the family; he remains curate in Saint-Cloud. - 4 November, on the occasion of Gounod's feast day, he renews his " ardent affection ", while regretting a cooling in " the so fraternal feelings which united us ". [London 11.I.1872]. The Abbot has just arrived in London... (Some photocopies of other letters are attached). [Around June 6, 1871]. GOUNOD to the Abbé. "I have never made and I will never make the sacrifice of friendship to public malignity. You are going to make it to him, and I should have nothing to do with it if, at the same time, your determination did not gratuitously reach and injure my friends and myself. Not to be with me, in the present circumstance, is to be against me, and that by your own admission, since the displeasure you fear on the other side of the Straits [Anna] outweighs the pain your refusal must cause me, and your abstention is a very intelligible tacit protest against the hospitality that was offered to you as well as to me [...] know that friend for friend, I will always be on the side of those who will be disowned because of me"...
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