BEAUHARNAIS (Alexandre de). Autograph letter signed "Le Vte de Beauharnois" to Désirée de Renaudin. Château de La Rocheguyon, 29 May 1780. 2 pp. in-8 square, address on spine, red wax seal with human profile; marginal cuts due to opening without affecting the text. The future General and President of the Constituent Assembly had just married the future Empress Josephine in December 1779. Uninterested in family life, he and his friend and protector the Duc de La Rochefoucauld were staying with the latter's mother, the Duchesse d'Enville. This cultured woman ran a salon popular with Enlightenment thinkers and writers and, with her husband who died in 1762, had built up a very extensive library in her château at La Rocheguyon. "My dear aunt, I pity you very much if you experience the heat we have here. The weather, combined with the position of the château, makes life unbearable for part of the day, and forces us to be hermetically sealed until seven o'clock in the evening. Fortunately, the rehearsals we do for the plays we have to perform at the end of the week mean that we are often in the theatre where we can breathe fresh air, as it is in a sort of cellar. The library is also a place I frequent, and most of my day is spent reading. From the last letters I received, I think you must be back in Noisy and enjoying the advantage of having Melle de La Pagerie; but I am worried about the health of my father who, according to what my wife [Joséphine] tells me, has recently been purged; I hope you will not let me ignore his condition... I am writing to my wife by the same post...". Désirée Tascher de La Pagerie, Empress Joséphine's paternal aunt, had married Alexis Renaudin, officer to the governor of Martinique.