Jules BARBEY D'AUREVILLY. L.A.S., [Valognes] Hôtel Grandval 25 January 1876, to Élysabeth Bouillet 2 pages and a half in-8 in green ink, with engraved motto Never more. Beautiful letter to his childhood friend and goddaughter. "It's the devil (No! for the devil is always to be found everywhere) to find here a wrapping cloth, even if you pay more for it than it's worth. The dead city that I adore, and perhaps because it is dead, does not wrap its mummies. However, I've been promised a painting that can't be found tomorrow. It was the Hochu, or the Houchu, who married a little girl I saw at the Post Office and whose forehead wasn't too ugly when it blushed, who dug it up in the back of his shops. These superior people only use paper"... He will have the 40 francs delivered to him by a commission agent to avoid "postage costs"... He is waiting for the notary Le Marinel. "I'm in such a hurry to throw myself back into the abyss of Paris, which I hate when I fall into it". He will send sweets to his brother the abbot "one of these days. [...] The weather is superb (what news!!) but not in my heart"... In a postscript, he mentions Elysabeth's sister, Mme Bezot, "very kind the last time I dined with her. More gentle than you, my violent friend, whom I love in spite of her vulture-like cries". Correspondance générale, t. VIII, p. 15.