Honoré de Balzac, Autograph letter signed. - Lot 183

Honoré de Balzac, Autograph letter signed. [before April 22, 1843], 1p in-8, autograph address. To Prosper Valmore (1793-1881): "My dear Mr. Valmore, I would like to have, by paying of course, one of the boxes of the 1st which are in side and for 2 or 3 people, for Lucrèce. I count on your kindness to send for the money from M. Hetzel, by sending the coupon, 33, rue de Seine, to my name. A thousand affectionate compliments from Balzac." François Prosper Lanchantin, known as Valmore, had married Marceline Desbprdes-Valmore in 1817, whom Balzac had met as early as 1833. Prosper Valmore, after a rather mediocre career as an actor, became manager of the Théâtre de l'Odéon in 1841. It was at the Odéon that Ponsard's play Lucrèce premiered. Balzac waited until May 11 to communicate his impressions to Madame Hanska: "I saw Lucrèce! What a hoax on Parisians. It's a pastiche of Chénier, as thirty of today's second-rate poets could have done better. And as for the play itself, there's nothing more childish, more useless, more middle-school tragedy! [...] Five years from now, we won't know what Ponsard is. Hugo's foolishness has earned him the right to have a Ponsard as a rival! Ah! if you only knew how boring Lucrèce is! (LHB I, pp. 681-682). Paper missing from address leaf. (Correspondance, II, n°43-53).