amorous adventure of General de Montriveau and the Duchesse de Langlais!

Apropos, in your charming story there is a General who pleases me very
much. How was it that you did not take, after the fashion of Paul de
Molenes, a dashing cavalry officer for your hero?--you, for whom the
literary cavalier has all the attractions of a gentleman and a soldier?

Nothing could be more piquant, alert, chivalrous--in short, worthy of a
Frenchman--than the departure of your hero for the war after that
dramatic card-party, which was also a battle--and what a battle!--where,
at the end of the conflict, he left his all upon the green cloth. That
is an attractive sketch of the amiable comedienne, who wishes for fair
weather and a smooth sea for the soldier lover who is going so far away.
It seems to me that I have actually known that pretty girl at some time
or another! That chapter is full of the perfume of pearl powder and
iris! It is only a story, of course, but it is a magnificent story,
which will please many readers.

The public will ask you to write others, be sure of that; and you will do
well, my dear friend, for your own sake and for ours, to follow the
precept of Denis Diderot: "My friends, write stories; while one writes
them he amuses himself, and the story of life goes on, and that is less
gay than the stories we can tell."

I do not know precisely whether these last words, which are slightly
pessimistic, are those of the good Diderot himself. But they are those
of a Parisian of 1892, who has been able to forget his cares and
annoyances in reading the story that you have told so charmingly.

With much affection to you, and wishing good luck to Zibeline, I am