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French Lawyer Fights To Claim Ownership Of 160 Year Old Manuscript

French Lawyer Fights To Claim Ownership Of 160 Year Old Manuscript


It may be part of an old medium, but a well-written story has centuries’ worth of lasting appeal. With that said, the mere presence of a text that might as well be ancient probably makes it an ideal part of any man’s collection. It would help explain why there’s a court battle raging to this day — and over a manuscript that spent decades locked in a safe.

The manuscript in question is the full memoirs of François-René de Chateaubriand, a Romantic French writer whose works are studied to this day. Chateaubriand entrusted the manuscript to a notary in the mid-1850’s, and it would stay in the possession of the successive firm for generations. A present-day lawyer and inherent safe-keeper of the manuscript, Pascal Dufour, decided that he would sell it off for a hefty sum. Shortly after, the legal troubles began; it was declared that Dufour didn’t actually own the manuscript and couldn’t sell it.

That in turn sparked a search for Chateaubriand’s descendants and rightful owners — and while one of them was eventually found, Dufour’s wife was revealed to be one of those descendants. The situation is in a stalemate now thanks to debates of ownership and Chateaubriand’s intent with the manuscript — and whether he even wanted it to see the light of day — but at the very least, it’s interesting to see so much of a hassle over an old read.