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.