" Ma chauve-souris va toujours bien. Je lui cherche en vain une petite femelle. " 

Autograph letter signed by Judith Gautier addressed to Céleste Chrétien, her maid. Four pages written in black ink on a double sheet. Transverse folds inherent to mailing.
Judith Gautier here evokes the visit of her friend the musician Chalmers Clifton - whom she liked to nickname Charmeur - to Dinard: "Mr Clifton received yesterday Sunday a telegram which told him to book Villa Mitsou for August and September in the name of Ni Liao." She also asks Celeste for additional information about a maid she recommended to her: "Tell me again about the cleaning woman. Is she [...] a good cook, how much does she ask for? Is it only for the season?" A lover of animals, she then gives some advice on how to pamper them: "For the blackbirds you must crush the hemp seed very fine and crush in the same manner, bread crust. This is the foundation of their diet but they eat almost everything, bread in milk, minced meat cooked or raw, cherries, strawberries, grapes, a little bit of young snail cut in pieces, flies and especially mealworms and ant eggs (fresh they adore them), plenty of water, always something to bathe in." She also mentions one of her pets: "My bat is still doing well. I am searching in vain for a little female for it."
"A poor bat found itself, one summer day, stuck in a "fly-catcher" [...] The poor creature was struggling desperately. Judith unstuck it with cologne water, put it in a small pantry and it lived there eighteen months. It lost its bat habits, slept at night, awake during the day it drank water from a shell, lapping it like a little horse." (Anne Danclos, La Vie de Judith Gautier : égérie de Victor Hugo et de Richard Wagner)