""Etre fidèle, ou infidèle, dans ses promesses, lequel vaut mieux ?"

Remarkable autograph letter dated and signed by the dandy count, four pages on two large sheets (16 lines), written in black ink to his "dear friend" Henri Lapauze denouncing his failure to keep his word and provoking the poet's epistolary ire.
Henry Lapauze was to celebrate Robert de Montesquiou in a tribute book regarding the latter and, to his great chagrin he forgot him, thus stinging his impulsive pride: "... it is not to recriminate, even less to complain - both incompatible with pride - but to record what compensates for misunderstandings..." and, additional affront to the dandy-poet's pride : "... you spoke... only of Lavedan !" while, double and supreme betrayal, Robert de Montesquiou honored his promise by dedicating his latest work to him: "At the very moment when I was inscribing, for you, the dedication promised by me, I received the fascicle where the comments promised by you were to be expressed, for the book that pays tribute to me..."
The poet and writer Robert de Montesquiou would be very grateful to him: "... the poet and friend who, both in one, thank you affectionately in advance..."
Henry Lapauze (1867-1925) was a journalist, art critic, then, in 1905, curator of the Petit Palais converted four years earlier into a museum whose collections he considerably enriched by acquiring notably the Courbet, Henner, Falguière collections with, at the twilight of his life, a marked predilection for the Decorative Arts of which he was one of the ardent promoters.