Victor Hugo and the Belgian National Bank
Autograph letter signed ("Victor Hugo").
8vo. 2 pp. on bifolium.
€ 2.500,00
To André-Eugène Pirson, vice-governor of the Belgian National Bank, concerning Hugo's investment in shares of the financial institution. The highly interesting letter tells both the surprising story of Hugo's role as a shareholder of the National Bank of Belgium and of the death of his youngest son François-Victor Hugo from tuberculosis. Hugo informs Pirson that he deposited 17.389 francs for 305 shares via the Rothschild Bank. He was, however, not immediately able to provide a necessary certificate since it was in his house on Guernesey and he could not leave his bedridden son, "who cannot do without me and whom I myself carry from his bed to his chair". Because of this "force majeure", Hugo asks Pirson to dispense him "temporarily from the deposit of the certificate", as the bank's governor Eugène Prévinaire had done for him in a comparable situation.
Victor Hugo first invested in the Belgian National Bank during his exile in Brussels in 1851, soon after the creation of the institute in 1850. The large purchase finalized in 1873 made Hugo the second largest individual shareholder with 600 shares.
François-Victor Hugo died on 26 December 1873, aged 45. Victor Hugo survived all but one of his five children.
With recipient's note in ink. Traces of folds. Minimal browning and tears to the folds.
