Jacques CHARDONNE. L.A.S., La Frette November 5, 1943, to Jacques Boulenger; 2 pages in-4. Beautiful letter on man and woman. Chardonne thanks Boulenger for his article, and indulges in an astonishing parallel between man and woman: "If I say that man and woman are the same (except for sex and certain forms of sensibility - which constitutes an enormous difference), this implies knowing the immense literature that opposes them, Keyserling's thousand pages, in particular, on this subject. And I just want to say with this quip, which must make you a little startled: the difference is not that big. I feel this way, I think, because I have distributed for thirty years some fifty functions, each of which required a certain capacity and almost a certain temperament, and they were equally well filled by men or by women. I believe that Bernard Grasset is a woman, and that most of the traits that we consider especially feminine can be found in many men. He regrets that Boulenger did not write a "history of feelings in France", and underlines that "since forty years, the customs of the family and especially of the young girls changed a lot. [...] Don't you think that until 1789, there was an innocence in the pomp that has been lost since then? I think I see an ingenuity in wealth, a way of "displaying one's jewels", as if luxury were a duty of the nobility, a pleasant spectacle for the people? The king was setting an example. Am I wrong?