Pierre-Jean GROSLEY (Troyes 1718-1785), writer... - Lot 563 - Conan Belleville Hôtel d'Ainay

Lot 563
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500 - 600 EUR
Pierre-Jean GROSLEY (Troyes 1718-1785), writer... - Lot 563 - Conan Belleville Hôtel d'Ainay
Pierre-Jean GROSLEY (Troyes 1718-1785), writer and encyclopedist, he worked for his native city of which he wrote the history. Autograph letter signed to Gauthier le jeune, in Troyes. 3 pp. in-4. Paris, February 11, 1738. Address on the back. Beautiful and rare letter from the young Grosley who came to study law in Paris, discovering his passion for books. He dissertates with humor on the path of his letter arrived stained with fat in the pocket of an "honest kitchen boy", then evokes his life in Paris. "I have changed, during the journey of your letter, of condition and climate. I mean that I left Mr. Hua and the Chatelet to enter the parliament with a very good man named Poultier, who lives in rue Quinquempoix. There I am 4th and last clerk with a very great appetite which, I believe, the change of climate has redoubled. When I was a clerk at the Châtelet, I sometimes went out to read on the quays; and more than once I thought of you; especially when I found Fernand Mendez Pinto; but as you know [] I don't know if by reading I won't do some dishonor to the illustrious body of which I have the honor of being a subordinate member. I will consult myself on this, and your letter has already removed more than three quarters of my scruples [] ". He then evokes the books that he buys and that he gives to him, of which a Molière "bought 40 s. ", advises a friend who starts "in the satirical genre" but whose road he considers difficult and very dangerous. And concludes: "I beg you not to qualify me as a law student because I work there only without the knowledge of my bourgeois; qualify me as a student in quibbling".
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