XIX. TO GEORGE SAND Croisset, Saturday evening, ... 1866

Good, I have it, that beautiful, dear and famous face! I am going to have a large frame made and hang it on my wall, being able to say, as did M. de Talleyrand to Louis Philippe: “It is the greatest honor that my house has received”; a poor phrase, for we two are worth more than those two amiable men.

Of the two portraits, I like that of Couture’s the better. As for Marchal’s he saw in you only “the good woman,” but I who am an old Romantic, find in the other, “the head of the author” who made me dream so much in my youth.