Nicolas-Edme RÉTIF DE LA BRETONNE (1734-1806). L.A.S., [Paris] 6 germinal VI (28 March 1798), to citoyen Fontaine, négociant à Grenoble 3 pages in-4, address (small tears due to breaking of the red wax seal without lack of text, pale ink in places). Beautiful letter to the Fontaine couple about his works. He laments his fate: "I haven't slept for 3 nights; a domestic Fury is tormenting me, even though I no longer have a wife and live alone [...] Crippled, poor and subject to a thousand needs, I thought all night whether I wouldn't do better to let my existence come to an end. Unfortunately I have to finish a work entitled Les Mille & une métamorphoses (The Thousand & One Metamorphoses). Without rest, however, this seemed impossible, and he did not want to publish Le Cœur humain dévoilé [The Human Heart Revealed] [Monsieur Nicolas] too soon. "Without rest, life is a torment", and he had no one to help him: "So here I am, alone, in despair. This morning in my work I painted it according to what I felt, and my tears flowed. I put a 2nd title after that of M & I Métamorphoses, it is or M & I dévelopemens. In fact these are the developments of the human being, both physical and moral. I no longer hope to print anything: I won't be able to for lack of funds. My enemy has plundered everything she could from me [...] I must not have a year to live, in any case. I will leave three works: L'Enclos des Oiseaux; the Lettres du Tombeau or Posthumous Letters, and the M. & 1 Dévelopemens. I am not talking about another Bagatelle [L'Anti-Justine], which I shall delete in any case. His strength deserted him, he no longer had the strength to fight; he thanked Fontaine for sending him the two écus, and asked him to write to him at the Café Robert-Manouri, corner of the Place de l'Ecole, at the end of the Rue de l'Arbre Sec"... [Rétif was saved by his appointment to the Secret Police on 1 April 1798].