BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules)

Autograph manuscript, entitled "Pope Pius IX". S.l.n.d. [1873] 2 pp. in-folio (cut out for printing and taped up). Printing notes in blue pencil. Red, green, violet and brown ink. Brown traces. Beautiful text on Pope Pius IX, on the eve of his death. "Whether he lives or dies, it matters little to the duration of the Holy Church! No matter to the Papacy! If he dies, he will be one more saint in that magnificent list of saints who were Popes, occupied in every place by great men who accumulate & who, to be great men, are no less saints, but it will not be a failure for the Papacy, as those who are already dancing on its grave imagine. The Papacy, which is not a Pope, even the greatest of all, will nonetheless continue, after the death of Pius IX, to be what it has always been: the keystone of all the governments of this world. Which without it are what you see: Anarchy and stupidity in the minds of men, until they become, in the reality of History, Jacqueries and Cruelty... For we are approaching these terrible moments. We have reached the grotesque proscenium, it being a law of politics that the grotesque always precedes the atrocious [...]. Didn't the puppets of September 4th, those awful comedians, precede the bloody puppets of the Commune, those tragic horrors?... [...]"