Edouard Laboulaye, the French Jurist and Poet Behind the Statue of Liberty, Writes to a Man Hoping to Help Him Obtain a Job in 1871

Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye was a French jurist, poet, author and anti-slavery activist. In 1865, he originated the idea of a monument presented by the French people to the United States that resulted in the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Autograph Letter Signed “E. Laboulaye,” Versailles, July 12, 1871 to an unnamed man who wanted his help in obtaining a position. In French, an incomplete translation reads “I do not know anyone at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…I’ll find out what I could do and I am very willing to forward your request that you addressed to the minister. I am very happy to be able to contribute to obtaining you a modest position.” A very gracious letter helping someone, and a very uncommon autograph.

A lawyer by profession, following the Paris Commune of 1870, Laboulaye was elected to the national assembly. During the American Civil War, he was a zealous advocate of the Union cause and the abolition of slavery, publishing histories of the cultural connections of the two nations. At the war’s conclusion in 1865, he became president of the French Emancipation Committee that aided newly freed slaves in the U.S. The same year he had the idea of presenting a statue representing liberty as a gift to the United States. The sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, one of Laboulaye’s friends, turned the idea into reality, though sadly Laboulaye didn’t live to see its completion.