of the chamber-woman, and M. Calamatta, having
discovered "the rose-pot," scolded Charles Noerdlinger and myself roundly
for this romantic escapade. If my plate had been worse,----the good Lord
only knows what might have happened!

All this, my dear M. Lalanne, is simply intended to show to you how
greatly I esteem the excellent advice which you give to the young
etcher, or _aqua-fortiste_ (as the phrase goes now-a-days, according to
a neologism which is hardly less barbaric than the word _artistic_).
When I recall the efforts of my youth, the ardor with which I deceived
myself, the hot haste with which I fell into the very errors which you
point out, I understand that your book is an absolute necessity; and
that the artist or the amateur, who, hidden away in some obscure
province, desires to enjoy the agreeable pastime of etching, need only
follow, step by step, the intelligent and methodical order of your
precepts, to be enabled to carry the most complicated plate to a
satisfactory end, whether he chooses to employ the soft ground used by
Decamps, Masson, and Marvy, or whether he confines himself to the
ordinary processes which you make sensible even to the touch with a
lucidity, a familiarity with details, and a certainty of judgment, not
to be sufficiently commended.

Having read your "Treatise," I admit, not only that you have surpassed
your worthy predecessor, Abraham Bosse, but that you have absolutely
superseded his book by making your own indispensable. If only the
amateurs, whose time hangs heavily upon them; if the artists, who wish
to fix a fleeting impression; if the rich, who are sated with the
pleasures of photography,--had an idea of the great charm inherent in
etching, your little work would have a marvellous success! Even our
elegant ladies and literary women, tired of their do-nothing lives and
their nick-nacks, might find a relaxation full of attractions in the art
of drawing on the ground and biting-in their passing fancies. Madame de
Pompadour, when she had ceased to govern, although she continued to
reign, took upon herself a colossal enterprise,--to amuse the king and
to divert herself. You know the sixty-three pieces executed by this
charming engraver (note, if you please, that I do not say
_engraveress_!). Her etchings after Eisen and Boucher are exquisite. The
pulsation of life, the fulness of the carnations, are expressed in them
by delicately trembling lines; and I do think that Madame de P