Letter – Empress Marie-Louise to Comtesse de Luçay 2 November 1811

Description

Autograph letter signed by Empress Marie-Louise to Jeanne-Charlotte, Comtesse de Luçay, written at Düsseldorf on 2 November 1811. One page in French, written in brown ink and signed “Votre très affectionnée, Marie Louise.” Marie-Louise gives detailed instructions concerning gowns and other articles of dress, enquires warmly after Monsieur de Luçay, and describes arriving at Düsseldorf exhausted after an exceptionally difficult journey from the Château du Loo. The date was originally written “2 Octobre” and subsequently corrected in manuscript to “novembre.”

Provenance

Marie-Louise → Comtesse de Luçay, 2 November 1811
Retained with the Luçay correspondence
Dr Lucien Graux, who published the correspondence in facsimile in 1930
Graux sale, Hôtel Drouot, 18 June 1958, Sale VII, lot 127
later Aristophil collection
Drouot Estimations, 19 November 2020, lot 749, as part of the bound group of 25 documents; unsold. The 2020 catalogue explicitly cites the Graux 1958 provenance.

History & Context

Written at Düsseldorf on 2 November 1811, during Napoleon and Marie-Louise’s imperial journey through Holland and the Rhineland, this remarkably personal letter offers an intimate glimpse into the daily life of the nineteen-year-old Empress. Addressed to Jeanne-Charlotte, Comtesse de Luçay, her dame d’atours and the official responsible for her wardrobe, Marie-Louise gives detailed instructions for dresses and morning clothes, requesting a blue gauze gown be used as a model and discussing garments intended for her sisters in Vienna. Alongside these practical matters she writes warmly of her concern for Monsieur de Luçay and of her hope of returning to Paris within a fortnight. Particularly evocative is her description of reaching Düsseldorf “half dead with fatigue” after the dreadful roads from the Château du Loo had forced the imperial party to spend an uncomfortable night at a château where neither beds nor supper could be found. The letter reveals not only the elaborate machinery of the Imperial wardrobe, but also the close and affectionate relationship that developed between Marie-Louise and the Comtesse de Luçay.

English translation:
I am sending back to you, Madame, through the courier Emery, a blue gauze dress which fits me very well. I ask you to give it to Le Roy as a model, so that he may make for me the pink satin dress in the same style with drapery, and also the white satin dress worn en chemise. I also ask you to order from him a sky-blue riding coat and a white one for the morning, so that I may find them completed upon my return.
At last I have the hope of returning to Paris in about a fortnight, and I hope to see you there more reassured concerning the condition of Monsieur de Lucay, for I hope you are convinced that I take a sincere interest in everything that concerns you.
I arrived in Düsseldorf half dead from fatigue. The roads since leaving the Château de Loo are dreadful, which forced us to stop on the road at a château where there was no possibility of finding beds or anything for supper, so that we passed a terrible night.
I ask you to have the enclosed samples made up into dresses for my two sisters according to Le Roy’s measurements, and to have supplied for my sister Léopoldine a casaque which should cost me no more than 600 francs. The price should be fixed with Mlle d’Olive and she should be told to hurry, because I would like to send all of this to Vienna upon my return to Paris.
Please give me news of yourself soon, and believe in all the affection with which I remain,
Your very affectionate,
Marie Louise

Düsseldorf, 2 October (actually November)
1811

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