France, Anatole

Autograph letter signed, two pages (on two conjoined sheets), 5,25 x 8,25 inch, `Hôtel Powers` stationery, (Paris), (1917), to a friend - concerning the war and the Revolution in Russia, written and signed in dark ink "Anatole France", with a central horizontal letter fold and very mild browning - in fine to very fine condition. Accompanied by an autograph letter signed from French dramatist Eugène Labiche (1815 -1888), 1 1/3 pages, 4 x 5,25 inch, to a friend and collaborater, 11.07.1873.

In parts:
"[...] Rappoport* voit de terrible menaces suspendues sur la liberté naissante de son peuple. `En Russie, dit-il, la révolution tuera la guerre ou la guerre tuera la révolution`. Il est d`avis de soutenir la douma. [...] l`Angleterre souffre plus cruellement qu`on ne croit du blocus et sera peut-être réduite à la paix si elle ne parvient pas à détruire les requins qui déverent ses bateaux. [...] Ici les gens sensés, qui ne sont pas nombreux, ne louent point notre Etat-major d`avoir laissé les allemands accomplir tranquillement une opération périlleuse et difficile dont on ne devine pas encore l`objet. On croit que les allemands ont voulu retarder notre offensive et la transporter sur un terrain choisi par eux [...]
   Anatole France"

Translated:
"[...] Rappoport sees terrible threats hanging over the burgeoning freedom of his people. In Russia, he said, the revolution will kill the war or the war will kill the revolution. He is in favor of supporting the Duma. [...] England suffers more cruelly than one thinks from the blockade and will perhaps be reduced to peace if it does not succeed in destroying the sharks which overthrow its ships. [...] Here sensible people, who are not numerous, do not praise our General Staff for having let the Germans quietly accomplish a perilous and difficult operation, the object of which we do not yet guess. It is believed that the Germans wanted to delay our offensive and transport it to a terrain chosen by them [...]
   Anatole France"

* Charles Rappoport (1865-1941) was a Russian-born French militant communist politician, journalist and writer. A Jewish intellectual, and a multilingual scholar, he's been referred to as "a grand man of French radicalism".