BERLIOZ HECTOR: (1803-1869) "..this horrible storm was not enough to uproot the love that I still had deep in my ...

BERLIOZ HECTOR: (1803-1869) "..this horrible storm was not enough to uproot the love that I still had deep in my heart for Henriette"

BERLIOZ HECTOR: (1803-1869) French Composer and Conductor of the Romantic era. An excellent content and unusual A.L.S., `H. B´, four pages, 4to, n.p., Saturday 23rd February [1833], to his father, in French. Berlioz writes with passion and anger to his beloved father, both of them with strong characters, underlining many words and sentences, and tries to convince him to get his aproval for his marriage. Berlioz starts his letter with huge dispair after having read his father´s letter, and states in part `Oh mon père, mon père, c´est affreux!! Vous allez jusqu´à calomnier mon avenir. Moi joueur! Bon Dieu, pourquoi; n´ai-je pas passé par toutes les épreuves qui pouvaient me donner la tentation de le devenir. Quand j´ai été sans ressources, ai-je joué? Non, j´ai mieux aimé descendre jusqu´à l´humiliation d´être choriste de vaudeville. J´ai vécu avec cinquante francs par mois mais je n´ai pas joué...´ (Translation: "Oh my father, my father, it is awful!! You go so far as to slander my future. Me, a gambler! Good God, why; have I not gone through all the trials that could tempt me to become one. When I was without resources, did I gamble? No, I preferred to descend to the humiliation of being a vaudeville chorister. I lived on fifty francs a month but I did not gamble...") Immediately after Berlioz starts his arguments regarding his beloved Henriette and responds to his father, reporting lengthly about his feelings and his two relationships, and explains how all really happened, saying `Vous me parlez de mon amour pour Henriette comme s´il datait d´hier; mais mon dieu je vous l´ai pourtant raconté. Il a commencé le 6 septembre 1827 et a torturé ma vie pendant cinq ans entiers. L´épisode passioné dont vous tirez parti contre moi a été occasionné par cet amour. C´est le bruit que faisait dans le monde ma maladie morale, ma désolante constance pour Madame Smithson qui attira sur moi l´attention et le caprice de M.elle Moke. Elle m´écrivit, me demanda un rendez-vous, me fit une déclaration verbale, vint me trouver dans ma chambre, se fit enlever par moi, etc... et finit par m´inspirer une passion des sens violente, à laquelle je m´attachai avec d´autant plus d´ardeur que je ne voyais que ce moyen de me guérir de l´autre. Vous savez l´infâme conduite de cette jeune folle et de sa mère. Toutefois cette horrible tempête n´a pas suffi pour déraciner l´amour que j´avais encore au fond du coeur pour Henriette...´ (Translation: "You speak to me about my love for Henriette as if it started yesterday; but my God, I have told you about it. It began on September 6, 1827, and tortured my life for five full years. The passionate episode that you are using against me was occasioned by this love. It was the noise that my moral illness made in the world, my distressing constancy for Mrs. Smithson that attracted the attention and the whim of Miss Moke. She wrote to me, asked me for an appointment, made a verbal declaration to me, came to find me in my room, accepted to be taken by me, etc... and ended by inspiring in me a violent passion of the senses, to which I attached myself with all the more ardor since I saw only this way of curing myself of the other. You know the infamous conduct of this young madwoman and her mother. However, this horrible storm was not enough to uproot the love that I still had deep in my heart for Henriette...") Further Berlioz explains to his father that they are ready to get married, that they love each other, and that he needs his approval, for his own peace of mind but also because it is legally requested, stating `Aujourd´hui elle m´aime, cette constance l´a vaincue; je lui ai avoué toute l´histoire de Camille, j´ai eu toute la franchise possible... Vous avez cru pouvoir consentir à mon union avec Camille qui est une coquette dévergondée (comme je le sais aujourd´hui) et vous me refusez votre assentiment pour Henriette qui est l´amour de toute ma vie d´artiste, qui a toujours conservé à mon égard une dignité qui m´a rendu bien malheureux, qui m´a mis un pied dans la tombe, mais qui n´en est pas moins honorable pour ses sentiments. Mon père vous vous abusez complètement, cela est désespérant, mais cela est. Puisque rien ne peut vous tirer d´erreur il me reste une dernière prière à vous faire. C´est de ne pas détruire dans mon coeur mon affection pour vous. Je vous aime mon père, avec tout l´amour dont les soins dont vous avez environné mon enfance étaient faits pour inspirer, ne me l´ôtez pas, ne faites pas de moi un fils dénaturé...´ (Translation: "Today she loves me, this constancy has conquered her; I confessed to her the whole story of Camille, I was as frank as possible... You believed you could consent to my union with Camille who is a shameless coquette (as I know today) and you refuse me your assent for Henriette who is the love of my whole life as an artist, who has always preserved towards me a dignity that has made me very unhappy, that has put one foot in my grave, but who is no less honorable for her feelings. My father, you are completely mistaken, it is desperate, but so it is. Since nothing can save you from your error, I have one last prayer to make to you. And that is not to destroy in my heart my affection for you. I love you, my father, with all the love that the care you surrounded my childhood with was made to inspire, do not take it away from me, do not make me an unnatural son...") Before concluding Berlioz makes clear that he will not cede, and that if his father will keep on refusing giving his approval he will still go ahead with the wedding and will stop any future contact with him, stating `Voyez, soyez sûr, à tort ou à raison tout est inutile pour me séparer d´Henriette; quand je dis je ferai tout pour l´obtenir, c´est dans doute l´acception de ce mot... Si vous devex encore m´écrire que je ferai le malheur de Melle Smithson en l´épousant, que je l´abandonnerai pour une autre, je dois vous avouer mon père que pour conserver mon affection pour vous, je n´ouvrirai plus de lettres venant de la côte et qu´il est inutile de m´en adresser. J´ai envoyé à Edouard une procuration pour qu´il puisse, aidé d´un notaire, vous présenter ma première soumission. Je n´ai rien à ajouter, si vous ne comprenez pas tout sera inutile.´ (Translation: "You know, be sure, rightly or wrongly, that everything will be useless to separate me from Henriette; when I say I will do everything to obtain her, it is doubtless the meaning of this word... If you should write to me again that I will make Miss Smithson unhappy by marrying her, that I will abandon her for another, I must confess to you my father that to preserve my affection for you, I will no longer open letters coming from the coast and that it is useless to address them to me. I have sent Edward a power of attorney so that he can, with the help of a notary, present my first submission to you. I have nothing to add, if you do not understand everything will be useless.") Berlioz did marry Henriette Smithson and stopped for many years the contact with his father, although the last was right and the marriage soon became unhappy until Berlioz left her in 1842. A letter of excellent content. Very small overall minor age wear, otherwise G to VG

Louis Berlioz (1776-1848) Father of Hector Berlioz, was a respected Physician credited as the first European to practise and write about acupuncture. He had planned a medical career for his son Hector. Louis and his wife Marie-Antoinette Joséphine had six children, three of whom died in infancy, the eldest being Hector, and his two surviving daughters Nanci and Adele remained close to Hector throughout their lives.

At the time of the present letter Berlioz was 30 and Henriette was 33, and although both were legally adults, and could marry without parental consent, this could not happen immediately. They were obliged, in the absence of their parents' agreement, to notify them of their marriage plans by a notarial act called a `Acte Respectueux´ ("respectful deed"). In the event of refusal by the parents, the request had to be renewed twice, every month, before the marriage could take place. Hector Berlioz sent 3 "respectful deeds" to his father but never got his consent.

Harriet Constance Smithson (1800-1854) Anglo-Irish Shakespearean actress of the 19th century. First wife and muse of Hector Berlioz.

Marie "Camille" Moke (1811-1875) was a nineteen years old Belgian pianist that Berlioz met in the spring of 1830. He falled in love with her and planned to marry her. Getting, although reticent, his father´s approval. But while he was in Italy he received a letter from Camille´s mother announcing him the wedding of her daughter with Camille Pleyel, the piano manufacturer. Berlioz wrote that on his return from Italy he was fully determined to go, find her, and kill her, and later comit suicide.