Three letters signed respectively by Charles Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant and Alexandre Moreau de Jonnès have mysteriously reappeared although they were believed to be definitively lost.
On the night of June 11 to 12, 1980, La Société des gens de lettres, created by figures like Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and George Sand, was robbed.
A break-in was committed at the Hôtel de Massa, headquarters of the SGDL in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
160 letters from the 19th and 20th centuries as well as an original edition of the collection
Une saison en Enfer
by Arthur Rimbaud were stolen.
These letters were signed by prestigious pens such as Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant, Pierre Louÿs, Charles Péguy, Colette, Maurice Maeterlinck, Léon Blum...
Letter from Charles Baudelaire to the President of the SGDL, February 23, 1952. The Society of Men of Letters
Three unexpected finds
The members of the SGDL despaired of one day seeing these precious documents resurface on the art market.
Since the theft had been the subject of a complaint and the letters bore the stamp of the literary association, it seemed unlikely that they would appear in a sale or on a specialist's shelf.
Auction houses and art dealers are obliged to control the provenance of the objects they put up for sale;
such a stamp should immediately attract their attention.
Letter from Guy de Maupassant to the SGDL on December 18, 1890. The Society of Men of Letters
And yet, according to information from Le
Monde
, in November 2023, a letter from Charles Baudelaire, dated February 23, 1852, was identified during an auction by the Drouot house.
The missive was withdrawn from sale and returned.
A month later, it was an expert who shed light on the origin of a letter signed by Maupassant's hand, noting the SGDL stamp.
A Belgian collector, who had found it in a lot of postcards purchased in auction rooms, wanted to have it valued.
Finally, in mid-January, a letter from the writer and adventurer Alexandre Moreau de Jonnès resurfaced.
Also stamped with the SGDL stamp, it was noticed on the eBay resale site.
The Central Office for Combating Trafficking in Cultural Property (OCBC) was personally responsible for returning these last two missives to the Society of Men of Letters.
A call for restitution
But these three documents constitute a tiny part of the loot stolen in 1980. This is why the OCBC launched, Monday January 22, a
“call for reporting and restitution”.
He orders auction houses, art dealers and notaries to report to the SGDL any letter or document bearing his stamp.
The latter recalls that
“the fact of concealing, holding or transmitting a thing
(…)
knowing that it comes from a crime or an offense”
constitutes an act of concealment punishable, at least,
“by five years of imprisonment and a fine of 375,000 euros”,
in accordance with articles 321-1 et seq. of the Penal Code.
Letter from Alexandre Moreau de Jonnès to the SGDL on February 25, 1843. The Society of Men of Letters
The Society of Men of Letters found a very small part of the loot stolen from its collections in 1980. In the hope of finding the 157 missing letters and the edition of Rimbaud's collection, the SGDL also launched a report and promises that any restitution made before December 31, 2024 will not be subject to prosecution.