?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
ELECTED SENATOR FOR LIFE, MONTHS BEFORE HIS DEATH (MEDICINE.) BROCA, PAUL. Autograph Letter Signed, "PBroca," to "My dear friend," in French, thanking him for his congratulatory letter, confessing some ambivalence about the honor, and declaring that the distinction will not compromise his scientific career. 2 pages, 12mo, with integral blank; few scattered creases. Paris, 19 January 1880
"Thank you for your good letter; but I will not show it to my wife who is sorry about what is happening, and whom congratulations exasperate. She may be right, . . . had I not had to make an immediate decision . . . , I would have given a different answer to the unexpected proposal . . . . I did indeed make one objection, in light of my scientific career, which I should not and will not abandon, but . . . I had to give in. "In addition, . . . I will remain very proud that I was chosen by the left, no doubt because I am a republican but specifically as a man of science." In early 1880, Broca was granted an honorary position in the French Senate for life (sénateur inamovible); he died from a brain hemorrhage months later on July 9.
