Chaillot, December 18, 1835.
I receive to-day the letter in which you tell me you have read the first number of the "Lys." When you receive this letter you will doubtless have read the second. (Shameful cheatery has sold them to Bellizard, and I shall prosecute such thefts; that is, if I have the courage to protest against a fraud which hastens the enjoyment that you say you take in my things.)[1] You will understand better the three hundred hours. I leave the enervating corrections of the third number to write to you.
You are right in your philological criticisms. I perceive my faults every day, and correct them. You will find, some day, a great difference between the acknowledged work and all preceding editions.
Imagine my happiness! Thomassy There must be some faults still in "La Grenadière;" but these last stains upon the white robe shall be removed by the soap of patience and the wash-board of courage, which love of art for art's sake gives. It is useless to tell you what the "Lys" has cost me. I have now spent fifteen days on the third number, and I need eight more. A dreadful misfortune has happened to me. The fire in the rue du Pot-de-Fer destroyed the hundred and sixty first pages, printed at my cost, of the third dizain of the "Contes Drolatiques," and five hundred volumes, which cost me four francs each, of the first and second dizains. Not only do I lose an actual amount of three thousand five hundred francs in money and interest, but I also lose an agreement for six thousand francs, on which I counted to pay my expenses at the end of the year, which is now broken, because I have nothing to give Werdet and an associate in this affair who bought the three dizains. I must face this misfortune, which comes at the moment when hope was no longer a vain word, when gleams of blue were lighting up my heaven, beside the lovely form so rarely seen there. Well! I have always shown an iron front to trouble; there's nought but happiness which breaks me down—for I ill know how to bear it. Madame de Berny has kept silence since this fatal event. That is another trouble. And my journey to Wierzchownia recedes. You have no idea of our civilization; the trouble it is to do business; what distances, what visits wasted on moneyed people; their caprices, which make the promise of one day withdrawn the next! My life is a torrent. I sleep only five hours. To go and see you would be a rest, no matter how fatiguing a rapid journey might be. I have few events to tell you. I have dined once with Madame Kisseleff; and once at the Austrian embassy, and I went to a rout at the latter place. One must keep up relations there. I have seen Princess Schonberg. But I do no more than is necessary. I am to have two secretaries, two young men who espouse the hopes of my political life, which, alas! is dawning. I am embarrassed how to tell you when, how, and why, because you have forbidden the subject;[2] but you will guess all when I tell you that five days ago I bought a political newspaper. These young men are: (1) The Comte de Belloy, friend of Sandeau, nephew of the cardinal; twenty-four years old, face happy, wit abundant, conduct bad, poverty dreadful, talent and future rich, confidence and devotion entire, nobility immemorial. (2) A Comte de Gramont, one of whose ancestors went security for a Duc de Bourgogne. He does not belong to the family of the Ducs de Grammont. I know him less than I do de Belloy. These are my two aides-de-camp.