I saw J. L... three days ago, when I was making for Honfleur. L. pretended that he was going to undertake some important business for me with MM. G.... If you could intervene in my favour with one or two authoritative words, you would make me happy. You do not wish my awkward compliments on the subject of the Senate, do you?
Your very devoted friend.
I start again for the infernal regions to-morrow evening. Till then, I am at the Hôtel du chemin de fer du Nord. Place de Nord.
BRUXELLES,
Tuesday, 2nd January, 1866.
MY GOOD FRIEND,
I have just seen that, for the first time in your life, you have delivered your physical person to the public. I allude to a portrait of you published by "L'Illustration." It really is very like you! The familiar, mocking, and rather concentrated expression, and the little calotte itself is not hidden. Shall I tell you I am so bored that this simple image has done me good? The phrase has an impertinent air. It means simply that, in the loneliness in which some old Paris friends have left me (J. L. in particular), your image has been enough to divert me from my weariness. What would I not give to go, in five minutes, to the rue Mont-Parnasse, to talk with you for an hour on your articles on Proudhon; with you who know how to listen even to men younger than yourself!
Believe me, it is not that I find the reaction in his favour illegitimate. I have read him a good deal and known him a little. Pen in hand, he was a bon bougre; but he was not, and would never have been, even on paper, a dandy. For that I shall never pardon him. And it is that that I shall express, were I to excite the ill-humour of all the great beasts, right-thinking, of the "Universe."
Of your work I say nothing to you. More than ever you have the air of a confessor and accoucheur of souls. They said the same thing of Socrates, I think; but Messrs. Baillarger and Lélut have declared, on their conscience, that he was mad.
This is the commencement of a year that will doubtless be as boring, as stupid, as criminal as all the preceding ones. What good can I wish you? You are virtuous and lovable, and (extraordinary thing!) they are beginning to do you justice!...