5 autograph letters signed and 1 manuscript signed with autograph corrections "Mémoire pour mon défenseur contre Jules Simon et Vaperot".
8vo. (4½+3½+1+2+1 =) 12 pp. and 4to. 66 pp. (the title to wrappers included), sewn exercise book.
€ 6,500.00
To (the unnamed) Maurice Lachâtre. Interesting correspondence concerning the Bulletins of the Commune, published in exile (2 Aug. 1872): "Notre ami commun F. Pyat vous ayant envoyé ma lettre au sujet de la brochure ou petit volume que je désire faire imprimer (sur les événements de Lyon et Marseille surtout Marseille en 70) je n'ai plus à en parler, pas plus que du travail sur le mouvement religieux en Suisse. […] Si vous pouvez faciliter la publication du premier de ces deux opuscules, je crois que vous rendrez service à la cause [...]" ("Our mutual friend F. Pyat having sent you my letter concerning the brochure or small volume that I would like to have printed (about the events of Lyon and Marseille above all Marseille in 70). I don't have more to say about, just about the work on the religious movement in Switzerland. [...] If you could make the publication of the first and of these two opuscules easier, this would, I think, do a service to the reason [...]"). Cluseret requests an organ for their party in Paris, quoting the models in America and England, evaluating the prices for editing and printing in Switzerland, and the sales, in Geneva, "la liberté de la presse est absolue, puisqu'on y imprime actuellement La Lanterne de Rochefort [...]" (In Geneva "the freedom of the press is absolute, even Rochfort's 'La Lanterne' is printed there [...]").
He asks for certain explanations about the stereotype, the commercial and financial direction, and the price to put up with to have a circular of 10.000 copies (2nd letter, n. p. o. d.): "Je vous ai demandé le concours de votre expérience professionnelle pour l'œuvre commune, pas autre chose. De même que je considère comme un devoir de donner mon expérience professionnelle quand on se bat [...]" ("I have asked your support of your professional experience for the collaborative work, nothing else. In the same way as I consider it to be my duty to give my professional experience, if man fights [...]").
He urges Lachâtre to come to see him on Sunday, they could spend the day in the country side and Cluseret would invite two or three Communards (3rd letter, n. p. o. d.): "Si vous pourriez venir une Dimanche, nous pourrions passer ensemble la journée à la campagne. J'inviterai deux ou trois bons communards [...]".
Cluseret notes the fifth number to be as everything else of him neither of a master's nor a pupil's hand, but his own. There was never a price fixed for it, because they do not want to sell it. As poor as they are, Gambon, Fesneau and himself, they are doing everything on their own expenses, taking it from their necessity to do propaganda (4th letter, n. p. o. d.): "Le n° 5 comme toutes les autres sort de ma plume qui n'est celle ni d'un maître ni d'un élève, mais mienne. Quand au prix, il n'y en a jamais eu de fixé, parce que nous ne le vendons pas. Tout pauvres que nous sommes Gambon, Fesneau et moi nous faisons tout à nos frais; prélevant sur notre nécessaire pour propagander [...]".
Cluseret tells that his papers are nearly complete (5th letter, n. p. o. d.): "Mes papiers sont à peu près complets [...]".
"Mémoire" from exile, to his avocat Émile Durier, to motivate the pursuite of a diffamation of Jules Simon ("Histoire de la Commune") and Gustave Vapereau ("Dictionnaire"). He passes through their calumnies (bad moral conduct, treason, malpractice), contests their fictions (his nationality in doubt), and submits proofs and documents on his moral conduct, quoting politicians, officers or French and American writers, who witness respectfully his services: marshal Randon, the generals Colson, Renault, Cosenz, McClellan, Schenck, von Steinwehr, Bohler, Sigel, as well as Alphonse Esquiros, Léon Gambetta, Henri Martin, Carl Schurtz, Edwin Stanton, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, etc. Cluseret finds moral cowardice among men who have a seat in the Assembly of Versailles and at the senate: "ils ont voté des remerciements à l'armée qui massacrait leurs électeurs [...]" ("They have proposed acknowledgements for the army who slaughtered their voters [...]".) Cluseret compares them derogatorily to their foreign counterparts. "En France, un seul homme me tendit la main ce fut Victor Hugo. Il m'écrivait de Bruxelles à Genève une lettre se terminant ainsi: 'Je n'aurai pas pris part à votre triomphe, mais je m'enveloppe dans votre linceul!' La solidarité humaine en dehors et au-dessus des partis, le respect de la liberté d'autrui et du caractère privé de l'adversaire politique voilà ce qui constitue ou plutôt témoigne de la force des sociétés [...]" ("In France, one single man held my hand, it was Victor Hugo. He wrote me a letter from Brussels to Geneva ending in the following way: 'I will not have taken part in your triumph, but I wrap myself in your shroud!' The human solidarity apart from and above the parties, the respect for freedom of the others and of the political opponent's private character this is what constitutes or rather testifies the power of the societies [...]"). Cluseret does neither ask for damages, nor for punishment, but for "la reconnaissance de la vérité [...]" ("the acknowledgement of the truth").
