Émile ZOLA. L.A.S., Paris December 9, 1864; 1page in-8 on blue paper headed Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie... Thanks for the "excellent article" in Le Nord [on Contes à Ninon]. "In addition to the natural pleasure I took in reading this article, I felt a higher satisfaction, the one you get from reading finely written things. You have read my Contes, which is an act of courage, and you have judged them with delicacy and wit, which is the act of a colleague who is as obliging as he is talented"... Attached is another L.A.S., December 3, 1865 (1p. in-8 on the same paper), thanking a journalist from La Gironde for inserting "the little note I sent you" [on Claude's Confession], and placing himself "entirely at your disposal in the small sphere in which I may be of use to you"...