Pornic Letters 1884 - Manuscript By Paul Eudel

Amazing documents of memories of Pornic (Morbihan, Brittany) : a draft on two loose sheets and a notebook of rewriting in fair copy.
Lettrea pornicaisea
De l'Ermite de Gourmalon
Phare de la Loire of 27-28-29 August 1884.

Manuscript attributed to Paul Eudel (1837-1911), alias "L'Ermite de Gourmalon", shipowner and French art columnist for the regional daily Le Phare de la Loire, founded in 1884. (1)
The draft, probably written during the "field" days, is written on two loose sheets, in tiny characters (see the photo of the detail, my thumb gives the graphological scale).
The writer's patience got the better of him, because the rewriting in fair copy stopped three quarters of the way through the large draft sheet, at the word "enêtement" circled in pencil (rewriting on only 4 sheets of the 11-sheet notebook).

Dimensions of the closed notebook : 16 x 21 cm. Strong stitching.
Largest unfolded draft sheet : 20 x 31 cm

Context and history
The "Petit Gringalet" is a small one-story chalet that Paul Eudel, who signed the Hermit of Gourmalon at the bottom of his columns in the newspaper "Le Phare de la Loire", called this place the "Brimborion", a term used by Molière in the Précieuses ridicules, to designate an object of little value. And when we pass in front of it, we think that it is a garage with a service dwelling on the first floor. (2)
Today, the Petit Gringalet is an outbuilding of Roche-Gann and on the façade, upstairs with on each side of the window, you can see two cartouches indicating its name as they indicated it in 1884.

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(1) Le Phare de la Loire is a regional daily newspaper founded in Nantes in 1844 by Charles-Victor Mangin. The newspaper disappeared for the first time in 1851, due to its opposition to Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. In 1876 the newspaper was taken over by the republican Georges Schwob who made it the main daily newspaper in the Nantes region. From the Dreyfus affair onwards, the newspaper's editorial line turned to nationalism. The Loire Lighthouse disappeared at the Liberation in 1944.

(2) Bibliographic sources: The Loire Lighthouse edition of August 29, 1884, gertrude.paysdelaloire.fr, ADLA, and patrimoine-balneaire-pornic