"... je n'ai pas diminué le lauda sans pourtant en faire trop d'abus. Il est inutile de m'en envoyer en Avignon..."

Autograph signed photographic postcard from Paul-Jean Toulet (27 lines in blue ink) addressed to his cousin Mauricia Chaline who was his great provider of alcohol, food, tobacco and laudanum.
Penniless, he begs his cousin to come to his aid: "l'argent des pardessus... et autant pour le voyage et menues dépenses... me sont devenues indispensables quoi que je fasse..." ["the money for overcoats... and as much for the journey and small expenses... have become indispensable to me whatever I do..."] and confesses to feeling better in Avignon: "... le climat d'Avignon me convient assez - je n'y ait pas du tout de fièvre, c'est ce qui fait je pense, que je bois si peu..." ["... the climate of Avignon suits me well enough - I have no fever at all here, which is why I think I drink so little..."]
The postcard depicts the Notre-Dame de Tout-Pouvoir chapel of Avignon cathedral.
An opium-addicted and inveterate alcoholic dandy, a poet unknown to the general public but admired by his peers, notably by José Luis Borges, Paul-Jean Toulet was a novelist (Monsieur du Paur, Mon amie Nane) but above all a master of poetic prose. His masterpiece Contrerimes, a collection of quatrains published after his death combining enclosed rhymes and crossed metrical structure, assured him posthumous success and inspired his poet friends including Francis Carco and Tristan Derème who, taking him as a model, proclaimed themselves "whimsical poets". Confessing that what he had loved most in the world were women, alcohol and landscapes, he died of a laudanum overdose, a substance derived from opium.