« De la béatification de Christophe Colomb »

Written in the large, legible hand Léon Bloy used for manuscripts he intended to have typed, the notebook is composed in brown ink on ruled school paper, with a margin traced in red pencil. The text is set in a 135 mm column, left-justified. The pages are numbered in large figures in red pencil in the upper left margin from 2 to 30, and also in ink in the lower left margin, though this second numbering is irregular. Bloy made corrections and additions in the left margin throughout. At leaf 18, the first part of the text ends; Bloy struck out “La fin au prochain numéro” and added “Léon Bloy / Paris 22 rue Rousselet. Envoyer les épreuves à cette adresse.” The same note recurs at the end of the manuscript, at leaf 30. The manuscript is signed twice, “Léon Bloy.” In the left margin, in another hand, appear the names of the typesetters (twelve in all).

Composition of the manuscript’s seven chapters:
“De la béatification de Christophe Colomb”:
– [f. 1 to 5] pp. 2 to 4: ch. I;
– [f. 5 to 10] pp. 4 to 9: ch. II;
– [f. 10 to 14] pp. 9 to 13: ch. III;
– [f. 14 to 19] pp. 13 to 18: ch. IV (end of the first installment and Bloy’s signature).

“De la béatification de Christophe Colomb – Suite et fin”:
– [f. 20 to 23] pp. 19 to 22: ch. V;
– [f. 23 to 29] pp. 22 to 28: ch. VI;
– [f. 30 to 31] pp. 28 to 30: ch. VII.

After reading Count Roselly de Lorgues’s La Vie de Christophe Colomb and the numerous other works the count devoted to the subject, Bloy never ceased to champion the cause of the discoverer of America before the Church, hoping it would open an inquiry toward his beatification. He accordingly contributed three articles to the Revue du Monde catholique, including the present manuscript: “De la Béatification de Christophe Colomb” and “Obstacles à l’Introduction de la Cause,” on 15 July 1879. These articles were later incorporated into Le Révélateur du globe, published by Sauton in 1884. After its publication, Bloy took up the cause once more, addressing a letter in Latin to the French episcopate: a rare small pamphlet survives today, entirely hors commerce: Lettre encyclique à tous les évêques de France (Paris, n.p., 4 October 1890).

Provenance: William Froehlich (bookplate); Daniel Sickles (XI, no. 4190).