Gérard Lhéritier
| Gérard Lhéritier | |
|---|---|
| Born |
21 June 1948 Nancy, France |
| Citizenship | French |
| Occupation | Manuscript dealer |
| Known for | Founder of Aristophil |
Gérard Lhéritier (born 21 June 1948) is a French manuscript dealer and expert in balloon mail. He is (or was) a sponsor of the National Library of France and around 2004 was the buyer of the manuscript of the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom. In 1990 he founded Aristophil but in March 2015, was arrested by French police in connection with an investigation into a suspected pyramid scheme fraud at the firm. In 2012, he won the largest ever EuroMillions jackpot awarded in France at €170 million.
Lhéritier was born on 21 June 1948, in Nancy, France, the son of a plumber from Lorraine. He grew up in Meuse, in Void-Vacon, and lived in Strasbourg until 1984 before moving to Nice.
Lhéritier served in the French army after which he was an asset manager.
In the early 1980s he discovered by chance in a stamp shop in Paris a letter marked "par ballon monté" while seeking a rare stamp for his son. This caused him to research balloon mail and write several books on the subject, including a novel, Les Ballons de la liberté (1995).
He is (or was) a sponsor of the National Library of France.
In 1990, Lhéritier founded the company Aristophil in Nice, to buy historical manuscripts, letters and other documents, and then to sell shares in those items to investors.
In 2002, Lhéritier purchased 54 pages of correspondence between Albert Einstein and the Swiss mathematician Michele Besso for $559,500 at Christie’s New York. He divided these into 400 shares, which he sold to investors. His company, Aristophil, retained the right to buy back the shares at an higher price but did not commit itself to doing so.
He was the buyer, in about 2004, of the manuscript of the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom.
In 2004, Lhéritier established the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits at 8 Rue de Nesle in Paris, and it moved to 222 Boulevard Saint-Germain in 2010. It closed in 2015/16, and its contents have been impounded by the French authorities.
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