Lettre autographe datée et signée à l'actrice qui créa le rôle de Thérèse Raquin

Autograph letter signed by Emile Zola addressed to the actress Marie Laurent, dated in his hand December 16, 1896. One and a half pages in black ink on a bifolium.
Traces of horizontal and vertical folds, inherent to the mailing. Trace of violet ink in left outer margin of first leaf, not touching text.
Published in his Correspondance, ed. Bard H. Bakker, Colette Becker, October 1893-September 1897, p. 371. 
Zola attempts to help the actress Marie Laurent who created the role of Thérèse Raquin on stage, and encounters the refusal of Fernand de Rodays, administrator of Le Figaro.
President of the Orphelinat des Arts, the actress Marie Laurent had solicited the writer to support the publication of an article about the charitable work in the columns of Le Figaro. Zola meets with a categorical refusal from the newspaper's administrator Fernand de Rodays:

"Chère Madame,
Je n'ai pas de bonne nouvelle à vous donner. M. de Rodays ne m'a pas même laissé achever, et il m'a déclaré qu'il était résolu à ne publier dans le Figaro aucun article sur l'Orphelinat des Arts. Il m'a été impossible même d'insister, devant son parti pris formel. J'aurais été fort heureux de vous être agréable et je regrette l'obstacle qui m'en empêche. Je le répète, toute insistance est inutile. 
Veuillez me croire quand même, chère Madame, votre fidèle et dévoué" ("Dear Madam, I have no good news to give you. M. de Rodays did not even let me finish, and he declared that he was resolved not to publish any article about the Orphelinat des Arts in Le Figaro. It was impossible for me even to insist, faced with his formal prejudice. I would have been very happy to be agreeable to you and I regret the obstacle that prevents me. I repeat, any insistence is useless. Please believe me nonetheless, dear Madam, your faithful and devoted")

Fine letter from Emile Zola to the actress who, according to the writer, "véritablement créé le rôle de Madame Raquin [...] c'est elle qui a trouvé tout cet admirable personnage du quatrième acte, cette haute figure du châtiment implacable et muet, ces deux yeux vivants cloués sur les coupables et les poursuivant jusque dans l'agonie." ("truly created the role of Madame Raquin [...] it is she who found all this admirable character of the fourth act, this lofty figure of implacable and mute punishment, these two living eyes fixed on the guilty and pursuing them even unto agony.") (Preface to Thérèse Raquin, Drame en quatre actes, Charpentier, 1875).