Xavier PRIVAS regrets not being able to celebrate the memory of VERLAINE.

Xavier PRIVAS (1863.1927)

Autograph letter signed to Alfred Valette.

Two pages in-8° on paper at his Parisian address.

Paris. May 25, 1911.

The Lyon singer has decided not to come and celebrate the memory of Paul Verlaine on the occasion of the inauguration of the monument dedicated to the poet in the Luxembourg Gardens.

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“Dear Mr. Valette. My wife and I were planning to attend the day in honor of Paul Verlaine , when we were asked by our compatriots to lend our assistance to a charity party. We will therefore be in Lyon on Sunday. Please believe that we are very saddened by not being able to take part in the inauguration of the monument to the great poet , and please accept our apologies and our regrets. I am returning to you under this cover, the reserved space that you were kind enough to send me, so that a friend of Verlaine, more famous than me, can benefit from it. Receive, dear Mr. Valette, my feelings of brotherly and devoted sympathy. Xavier Privas. »

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Born in Lyon, Xavier Privas devoted his life to his literary passion and to the profession of singer-songwriter: he wrote verses and the music for his songs, which he accompanied himself on the piano. In 1892, he came to Paris and was heard at the evenings of the magazine La Plume where, from his first hearing, he was acclaimed by a particular spectator: Paul Verlaine.

Frédéric-Auguste Cazals was at the initiative of creating the Verlaine Committee, immediately after the poet's death in 1896. The " Monument to Paul Verlaine " quickly envisaged by the Committee was not finally inaugurated until Sunday May 28, 1911, in the Luxembourg gardens. It is the work of the Swiss sculptor Auguste de Niederhausern, known as Rodo (1863.1913).