DEGAS (Edgar) S. l. [Paris], 3 October [1889]. Autograph letter signed to Sophie Niaudet-Berthelot. 4 p. in-8 (12 x 19 cm) on a bifeuillet, ink on laid paper. Very beautiful letter from Edgar Degas to his friend Sophie Niaudet-Berthelot. He congratulates her on the marriage of her daughter Camille to Charles Victor Langlois, which unfortunately he was unable to attend: "On my return to Paris I found your kind letter. If I didn't go to the wedding (through your fault, or Louise's, or even mine as I was too far away) I saw it in time, enough to write to you and congratulate you. Almost all the blame is therefore mine. He then tells her that he has received "at last! a letter from Marguerite over there, dated 18 August, very long, very good-humoured and very consoling for us. The recommendations of your Paz friends seem likely to be as useful and active as we had hoped. You were a great help to them, my dear Sophie, and the poor people deserved it. Marguerite was going to write to her friends," she said, "to you first. Contritely, Degas points out that "Célestine [Marguerite's daughter] had written to me about Montevideo, saying that the crossing had been excellent and that everyone was well. I could very well have written you something about that as well as about the marriage of your charming Camille. And I didn't, because I don't always do what I should. Sophie Niaudet-Berthelot (1837-1907), wife of the chemist Marcellin Berthelot and niece of Louis Breguet, was the first woman to be buried in the Panthéon. Marguerite Degas (1842-1895), the painter's younger sister, was one of his favourite models. She followed her husband, the architect Henri Fèvre, to Buenos Aires in 1889 (a few months before this letter), where he hoped to escape a delicate financial situation. Degas never saw his sister again, who died in Argentina in 1895 at the age of 53.