Joris-Karl HUYSMANS / Signed Autograph Letter / Departure for Ligugé / The Oblate

  

Signed autograph card "GHu smans" to André Godard Paris, December 23, [18]98, 1 page 1/2 in-8° in black ink Gold-edged Stamped and canceled envelope. Huysmans is preparing to join the lands of Ligugé, not far from the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Martin. I thank you right away for your sending, even before having read the book, because I want to read it not in a rush, first because it comes from you, then because it takes me to a country that I must love since it will become, next year, mine.

I see that you want to enter St. And I immediately relived on your dedication to the M [onast] ère S.

Abbé, good hours sometimes in this cloister where I count friends, including your future father master, Don Logerot and others like G. So if ever, before your departure and mine which will take place, I think, in the spring, you find yourself in the neighborhood of rue de Sèvres, it would be kind of you to come up to my place at 11 rue de Sèvres, we could chat a bit about all our friends. Warm regards to you, Mr.

After staying in various monasteries (La Salette, Igny, Solesmes, Saint-Wandrille.), Huysmans decided, in 1899, to leave Paris to settle in Ligugé, a village near Poitiers, in Vienne. He had a house built not far from the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Martin.

This endeavor of the writer is part of a spiritual quest, exploring Christian mysticism. At the same time, he explores the treasures of religious architecture in Paris and composes several monographs and historical studies on various monuments. The 1901 law on associations, leading to the dissolution of the Saint-Martin community, will force the writer to return to Paris. He will recount his experience of monastic life two years later in L'Oblat.