French poet and criminal (1803–1836). Autograph poem. N. p. o. d. [La Force Prison (Paris), November 1835]. Oblong 8vo. 2 pp.
$ 4,806 / 4.500 €
(46929)
Exceedingly rare autograph poem of the notorious murderer and poet who inspired Baudelaire, Balzac, Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Stendhal, and many others. Curiously, Lacenaire attached the poem of two stanzas to a letter of protest addressed to the journalist and chansonnier Agénor Altaroche at Le Charivari from 10 November 1835. At that time, Altaroche was on trial for printing the poem "Pétition d'un voleur à un roi son voisin" without permission of the anonymous author, who was none other than Lacenaire, or the journal Glaneuse, where the poem had originally been published on 29 September 1835.
When Lacenaire learned about the trial from the Gazette des Tribunaux of 7 November 1835, he claimed authorship and underlined his protest and offence in the form of the short poem at hand: "Je suis un voleur, un filou, | Un scélérat, je le confesse, | Mais quand j'ai fait quelque bassesse, | Hélas ! je n'avais pas le sou. [...] Mais pour me voler mon esprit, | Êtes vous donc si misérable ?" (transl.: "I am a thief, a rogue, | A scoundrel, I confess, | But when I committed some infamy, | Alas! I had no penny. […] But to steal my esprit, | Are you so miserable?"). A second version of the poem with two additional stanzas would be published in the Gazette des Tribunaux on 12 November. - With a certification of authenticity by Lacenaire's lawyer G. Brochant de Villiers (verso)..