"Mais Solange a beaucoup engraissé - d'une joue..."

Autograph signed photographic postcard by Paul-Jean Toulet (17 lines in black ink) addressed to his nephew Pierre-Henri de la Blachetai and depicting the Vassincourt church in the Meuse during the Battle of the Marne.
The poet gives him news of his precarious health before they meet again at the château de La Rafette, the family property located in Saint-Loubès, northwest of Bordeaux, where Paul-Jean Toulet lived after his definitive departure from Paris in 1912: "... tu n'y trouveras rien de changé, qu'un compagnon nouveau pour tes vacances..." ["you will find nothing changed there, except a new companion for your holidays..."]
Paul-Jean Toulet continues by discussing the health of family members: "... La santé de ta bonne maman ne s'est malheureusement guère améliorée. Mais Solange a beaucoup engraissée - d'une joue..." ["Unfortunately your dear mama's health has hardly improved. But Solange has put on a lot of weight - in one cheek..."]
A dandy, inveterate opium addict and alcoholic, a poet misunderstood by 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 and combining embraced rhymes with crossed metrical structure, assured him posthumous success and inspired his poet friends including Francis Carco and Tristan Derème who, taking him as their model, proclaimed themselves "whimsical poets." Confessing that what he had loved most in the world were women, alcohol and landscapes, he died from an overdose of laudanum, a substance derived from opium.