An interesting letter from  the important French playwright and novelist, the illegitimate son of "Three Musketeers" author Alexandre Dumas père. Dumas fils gained fame first as a novelist, but after two of his works were successfully adapted for the stage he devoted himself to primarily to playwriting, concentrating on moralizing plays aimed at the reform of social evils such as prostitution and illegitimacy. His most popular play, "Camille," forms the basis of Verdi's opera "La Traviata."  Two blue sheets (split bifolium?) with remnants an of earlier repair, unevenly trimmed, left margin of second sheet partly missing, approximately 10 x 8 inches (52 x 21 cm). Addressed to "Monsieur Raymond Brunet." No place, no date; content suggests that Dumas wrote the letter in his final decades.

Dumas comments on the idea, suggested by his correspondent, of creating a book to commemorate the promotion of the correspondent's class at the French Military Academy of St-Cyr, and it appears that this letter was intended as a contribution to the volume, even though Dumas expresses skepticism about such an attempt of recording a fleeting moment. As he writes about the "insatiable folks who have the youth and still want something from the old ones" (including himself), he reminisces about a drawing by Edouard de Beaumont that he saw forty years before. It depicts young men on a barque named "L'esperance" (Hope). He concludes: "Well then, my children ... this barque is always the same. We all took it at what is now your age. Let women sing there for a while; don't let them be in command too much, and may God steer you to lands one day where we have not landed anymore for twenty years. Good wind and good luck."

Nothing is known about Raymond Brunet.