Charles-Augustin SAINTE-BEUVE (1804–1869). Autograph letter with signature and signed note, 1850–1869; 2 pages in-8 and 1½ pages in-12 with envelope (cut-off stamp). January 8, 1850, to a colleague. He hadn’t had time to send his New Year’s greetings: “My life is spent conceiving long articles, giving birth to them, and starting over. It’s less pleasant than starting over with certain things about which Bussy said: ‘Love is a great starter.’ Anyway, that’s my job this year, and it must be done honestly. So this week I’m in labor, just like every week”… July 11, 1869, to Jules-Antoine Castagnary. An article by Castagnary concerning the dissolution of the École normale was cut: “May I keep a proof of it? […] I am upset by this. Rest assured that they would not have been dismissed if they had sent a congratulatory message to Baron Dupin. This is how the Empire (as I understood it) is poorly served and how everything, willingly or unwillingly, returns to the people from whom it originated”…