Fernand FLEURET. MANUSCRIT autograph, Le Douanier Rousseau 4 pages in-4. Interesting reminiscences on the Douanier Rousseau. Fleuret begins by recalling that Rousseau's fame was not widespread in 1905. "It was the time when Georges Courteline had included him in his Musée des Horreurs, although the poor man no more deserved this excess of indignity than twenty years later such an excess of honour. People still laughed at the melodramas and adventure novels he wrote. Fleuret recounts a visit by Rousseau to the Louvre, as described to him by Raoul Dufy, and his reaction to the Primitives: "You see, little boy, these people in the darkness of the Middle Ages didn't know how to draw. I rather like their colour, but it's not that! He raved about a Detaille... Fleuret then tells how he met Rousseau, at an exhibition of the Indépendants. He describes Rousseau's face and voice, the small painting he was exhibiting ("La Liberté des bonnes gens"), and the painter's reaction when Charles-Louis Philippe told him that Leconte de Lisle had considered the author of the painting to be "an old fart", and the Douanier's altercation with Charles Morice... Finally, he recalls the evenings at Othon-Friesz's house, which Rousseau frequented, and the surprise shown by one of his childhood friends when he learned of the legends surrounding the painter. He recounts the confused explanations given by Rousseau concerning his participation in the Mexican War and his career as a customs officer: "That is to say," said Rousseau, tears welling in his eyes, "I was a clerk at the Bercy customs office. It takes too long to explain to people, so I said I'd been a customs officer. And then, don't you understand that it sounds better? Finally, he recalls his mysterious meeting with Rousseau, three days after he had been buried... This text was collected in La Boîte à perruque (Les Écrivains Associés Éditeurs, 1935, pp. 40-50).