Lot n° 115
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15000 - 20000
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: 9 885EUR
MAUPASSANT Guy de (1850-1893).
autograph manuscript, La Trahison de la comtesse de Rhune, [1876-1878]; 62 pages on as many leaves, mostly folio (ca. 35.5 x 23 cm), mounted on tabs and bound in a folio volume, blue half morocco with corners, smooth spine, long title (Yseux sr. de Thierry-Simier).
Complete manuscript of this historical drama in verse, annotated and commented by Flaubert. Before his first success with Boule de suif (1879), Guy de Maupassant had tried his hand at the dramatic genre. He wrote two short plays, Histoire du vieux temps and Une répétition - which were respectively refused by the Odéon and the Vaudeville -, before embarking on a more ambitious dramatic undertaking. On November 17, 1876, Maupassant announced to Flaubert that he was writing, "in spite of Zola's ideas on naturalist theater, a historical drama. Corsé!!!" Completed in February 1877, entitled The Countess of Rhétune, then The Betrayal of the Countess of Rhune, it was redone and "completely reworked" in December 1877-January 1878. On January 21, 1878, Maupassant gave it to Zola, who passed it on to Sarah Bernhardt: "Flaubert read it, he thought it was very playable, but it seemed to me to lack enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Flaubert recommended Maupassant to Perrin, the administrator of the Comédie Française, who refused it, as Maupassant wrote to his mother on April 3, 1878: "Perrin does not believe that it will be received anywhere because he finds the whole second act of insane violence and ferocity. I was expecting it and it did not surprise me at all"... The play was published in 1927 by Pierre Borel, in Le Destin tragique de Guy de Maupassant.
The action takes place in Brittany in 1347. The female character who gives her name to the title is doubly treacherous. Taking advantage of her husband's departure for war, she plans to receive her enemy lover, the Englishman Gautier Romas. Then she seduces Jacques de Valderose, one of her pages, who will become her "slave ready for anything". Playing on his feelings, she manipulates him to murder her husband when he returns, in order to be with her English lover. But Suzanne, the Countess's cousin, is sincerely in love with Jacques and faithful to the Count. When he returns to the castle, accompanied by Bertrand Duguesclin, he discovers the plot and the two felonious lovers are killed. Beyond the plot, the play is worthwhile above all because of the character of the Countess, ambitious, wilful, who flouts all the noble sentiments of loyalty, honor, patriotism. Love is for her a physical reality, and she mocks the sentimentalism of Valderose: "Oh that you understand love badly, timid child! / You speak of tenderness with your wet eye / And cooings of bird; what is all that / Near the terrible rage that I have there? / Have you, for nights, felt your body writhing / And your eyes sobbing, and the rage biting you "... The manuscript is very carefully written in black ink, with the didascalies written in red ink. Each act is preceded by a title page. Collettes replace redone passages; there are however a few erasures and corrections. Maupassant has noted the number of verses at the bottom of the pages. Act I (ff 1-20, 334 verses), act II (21-42, 374 verses), act III (43-62, 368 verses). FLAUBERT annotated and commented on this manuscript in graphite, making 19 annotations on the manuscript itself (pp. 9, 13, 26, 36, 44, 45, 47, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 58, 59, 60), and 43 crosses or pencil lines. He recites a verse or a replica, and carries criticisms and remarks: " One does not understand his intention "; " Macbeth "; " Mise en scène impossible ça ferait rire "; " peut faire rire "; act III, 1st scene: " C'est là, la scène y amener par plus de gradations "; " odious "; in margin of killing: " ne pas dire le mot serait plus tragique? "; "she should not say all that - she is abominable - one would hiss"; "excellent"; "declaims too much"; "cold". He also noted in pencil a certain number of remarks on a piece of paper (35.5 x 7 cm, recto-verso), that is to say 80 lines, act by act: "I say the place as soon as poss - expose the Court of love. Scene iii useless for the action. During 2 scenes Suzanne says nothing "... Etc. One mounted at the head of the volume the portrait of Guy de Maupassant engraved by Nargeot, in 4 states: on satin, pure etching, before the letter and final state carrying in remark the portrait of Flaubert.
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