Manuscripts and memorabilia of Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) are to be sold at auction in Paris on December 16, Artcurial announced on Friday, which will also exhibit the manuscript of the June 18 Appeal launched from London in 1940.
The sale is the initiative of the family and “part of the proceeds” will be donated to the Anne de Gaulle Foundation, which welcomes and supports disabled people, Artcurial said in a press release.
“Almost all” of the manuscripts and letters in question have already been published, in the thirteen volumes of “Letters, notes and notebooks” (Plon editions, 1980-1997). Among the “more than 350 lots” put up for auction, Artcurial cites the manuscript of his first book, “La Discorde chez l’environnement”, in 1924. It is estimated between 47,000 and 57,000 francs.
That of an astonishing fiction signed at the age of 14, well before the First World War, “German Campaign”, where de Gaulle imagines himself freeing France from an invasion, is estimated between 9,000 and 14,000 euros . Other short story manuscripts will be for sale, including that of “Zalaïna” (1908), which takes place in New Caledonia, estimated at between 4,000 and 5,000 francs.
A letter sent by the general to his wife Yvonne to describe the fighting of May 1940 is worth, according to Artcurial, 7,000 to 8,000 francs. The Lip watch worn by de Gaulle while he was president in the 1960s is estimated at between 6,000 and 10,000 francs.
The sale will be accompanied by the exhibition at Artcurial, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, of a document kept by the family: the four leaves of the manuscript of the Appeal of June 18, an exhortation to resistance launched since BBC antenna in London in 1940. According to Artcurial, they were “exhibited for the first time”.
