Léon Halévy, Saint-Simonist Activist, Publisher & Playwright. Letter to Désirée Eymery. May 23, 1838. Handwritten on folded blue octavo stationary w/ Letterhead of Le Figaro.
This addition to the archive ties together, in the person of Léon Halévy, several important threads in the historical fabric of the early avant-garde. Halévy was the personal secretary of the proto-socialist Claude-Henry Saint-Simon, and was with him on his deathbed; afterward, he became involved with Romanticist subculture, writing many plays including adaptations of novels by Georges Sand, Jules Janin, and others. As such, he provided a social link between his close collaborator and fellow Saint-Simonist Olinde Rodrigues, who coined the term "avant-garde" in 1826 (see his anthology of self-taught proletarian poets in the "Anthologies" tab), and his good friend Petrus Borel, co-founder of the avant-garde Bouzingo group.
These two threads are neatly tied up with a third in this note, for it was written very shortly after the start of Halévy's short-lived tenure as editor of Figaro, the satirical journal that had generated both the name "Jeune-France" and "Bousingot" (détourned by the group to become "Jeunes-France" and "Bouzingo"). The journal had been an opposition newspaper until 1832, when they were taken over as a government mouthpiece, then sold to a series of editors both Left and Right, until finally re-established as a conservative newspaper later in the century, which still exists. (See the Revenant Archive's collection of Bouzingo-related issues of Figaro).
In this note, Halévy suggests changing the title of a survey of literary history he has written for the Bibliothèque d'Education series issued by the female publisher Désirée Eymery, and offers her the use of the Figaro's pages to promote her books. Little is known of this intriguing woman, though she inherited the press from her father (still alive but retired when the note was written), who had published several of Nodier's books decades earlier. Halévy's mode of address shows that she was apparently still single at this time, suggesting either that either she was remarkably young to be running her own bookshop and press, or that she was purposely remaining single in order to maintain her economic autonomy. It is not surprising, given the central role of Feminism in Saint-Simon's thought, that Halévy would be in collaboration with a strong, enterprising single woman working in a traditionally gender-determined public role. This, plus her educational activism (as seen in the titles in her bibliography) goad the question of whether she had roots or connections with the Saint-Simonist community, in which the ultra-Feminist wing had played a leading role in the establishment of a number of Free Schools set up in working-class areas in Paris. She might also possibly be the future mother of the gender-bending Decadent author Rachilde, born Marguerite Eymery, whose mother was, it seems, heavily involved with Spiritualism.
This addition to the archive ties together, in the person of Léon Halévy, several important threads in the historical fabric of the early avant-garde. Halévy was the personal secretary of the proto-socialist Claude-Henry Saint-Simon, and was with him on his deathbed; afterward, he became involved with Romanticist subculture, writing many plays including adaptations of novels by Georges Sand, Jules Janin, and others. As such, he provided a social link between his close collaborator and fellow Saint-Simonist Olinde Rodrigues, who coined the term "avant-garde" in 1826 (see his anthology of self-taught proletarian poets in the "Anthologies" tab), and his good friend Petrus Borel, co-founder of the avant-garde Bouzingo group.
These two threads are neatly tied up with a third in this note, for it was written very shortly after the start of Halévy's short-lived tenure as editor of Figaro, the satirical journal that had generated both the name "Jeune-France" and "Bousingot" (détourned by the group to become "Jeunes-France" and "Bouzingo"). The journal had been an opposition newspaper until 1832, when they were taken over as a government mouthpiece, then sold to a series of editors both Left and Right, until finally re-established as a conservative newspaper later in the century, which still exists. (See the Revenant Archive's collection of Bouzingo-related issues of Figaro).
In this note, Halévy suggests changing the title of a survey of literary history he has written for the Bibliothèque d'Education series issued by the female publisher Désirée Eymery, and offers her the use of the Figaro's pages to promote her books. Little is known of this intriguing woman, though she inherited the press from her father (still alive but retired when the note was written), who had published several of Nodier's books decades earlier. Halévy's mode of address shows that she was apparently still single at this time, suggesting either that either she was remarkably young to be running her own bookshop and press, or that she was purposely remaining single in order to maintain her economic autonomy. It is not surprising, given the central role of Feminism in Saint-Simon's thought, that Halévy would be in collaboration with a strong, enterprising single woman working in a traditionally gender-determined public role. This, plus her educational activism (as seen in the titles in her bibliography) goad the question of whether she had roots or connections with the Saint-Simonist community, in which the ultra-Feminist wing had played a leading role in the establishment of a number of Free Schools set up in working-class areas in Paris. She might also possibly be the future mother of the gender-bending Decadent author Rachilde, born Marguerite Eymery, whose mother was, it seems, heavily involved with Spiritualism.
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