Toulouse: the funny Spanish treasure kept by junk dealers awaits takers
Two Toulousans got their hands on a very dense documentary fund belonging to the Hispanist of the University of Mirail, who died in 2002, Yves-René Fonquerne. Books and posters collected by this scholar passionate about Spanish culture sleep in boxes while waiting for an association or collectors to buy this “little treasure”.
Relocations sometimes reserve funny surprises. Two Toulousains, Gaëtan Rodriguez and Vincent got their hands on a little-known documentary fund, of great wealth, belonging to a former professor of Spanish literature at the University of Mirail, Yves-René Fonquerne who died in 2002, at the age 71 years old. Still stored in boxes and very well preserved, hundreds of books and posters belonging to the Hispanic scholar make up this little treasure that spans two centuries of history. There are student theses, works by Cervantes, a multitude of Iberian cultural posters and the original of the memoir written by Yves-René Fonquerne, in Toulouse and dated November 1955. The scholar was then specialized in the seventeenth-century Spanish novels. “When we came across all these books, we said to ourselves that they surely had value and that it was a shame that they were going in the trash. This can certainly be of interest to Hispanic associations, collectors or Spanish literature enthusiasts. We are keeping them for the moment while waiting for someone to come forward,” comment Vincent and Gaëtan in their apartment in rue Caussade, Saint-Michel district, in Toulouse, where they carefully keep their discovery.
In the summer of 2020, an acquaintance of Vincent, and a member of the deceased professor’s family, offered to empty the house of his illustrious grandfather, Yves-René Fonquerne, avenue d’Italie, in Toulouse, before she not be sold. Vincent calls on Gaëtan, grandson of a second-hand dealer, and the two friends remain speechless in the face of the wealth of documentation that spreads out before their eyes. For two years, Gaëtan and Vincent do research to try to evaluate and offer for sale these 200 to 300 books of Spanish literature. “On a writing to the Ministry of Culture in Madrid but he did not follow up”. In Toulouse, the Cervantes Institute that we contacted, the name of Fonquerne does not evoke anything either. Looking back on the academic’s past, however, we learn that “el bigotes” (the mustaches, in Spanish), his nickname in the student landerneau of the 1950s, had several strings to his bow: member of “the university tuna from post-war Toulouse (a folk music group) where he played the guitar (a vinyl 45 rpm is part of the documentary collection), on the found also very close to the Spanish satirical cartoonists, Jaume Penich and Chumy Chumez. A fine connoisseur of South American literature, he devoted his last works to the Argentinian author, Julio Cortàzar, who had fled the Argentinian dictatorship. A whole section of Professor Fonquerne’s abundant literary life is now awaiting potential buyers for “a few thousand euros”, valued ladle by Gaëtan.
Anyone benefiting from the purchase of this collection can contact Gaëtan: [email protected]