BARBÈS ARMAND (1809-1870)

Lot 706
100150
Autograph Letter Signed to an exiled Republican writer. The Hague, February 6, 1869. Slits at the folds. 27 x 21 cm Beautiful letter evoking Garibaldi’s defeat at Mentana against the pontifi cal and French troops in 1867: “... Abominable thing that France should have found itself in the position of a tyranny able to print such a stain on its history...” BARBÈS Armand (1809-1870) French politician and revolutionary, French republican activist, opponent of the July Monarchy. In 1854, Barbès, amnestied, was freed by Napoleon III. He leaves as a voluntary exile in Holland and never returns to France. He died there on 26 June 1870, in The Hague, just a few months before the fall of the Second Empire on 4 September 1870 and “the proclamation of the Republic, an event that would undoubtedly have delighted his last moments”. On 3 November 1867, at the battle of Mentana, a city in the province of Rome, in Lazio, Garibaldi attacked Rome. The Papal States allied with the French army of Napoleon III were victorious against the troops of the French and Italian Garibaldi volunteers, who suffered a decisive defeat that ended their campaign.