“So you don’t want to come back?” I am tired of waiting for you, I am not keen on the desire that thunders within me to express to you the pleasure that your two poems have given me, and since I cannot tell you, I am writing to you that they are full of a naive grace which only belongs to you in the family of poets; your abandonment is never negligence and that is what I would be surprised at if I had the time, but in telling you, poetry carries me away and I forget my plans to make remarks, whenever I am taking up your book, too small but a precursor, I hope of some other, and you will slowly spend your life hearing such beautiful things told so well! you make me dream of Lafontaine and Perrault, and I mingle with your pretty little children leaning over each other, but I am very tempted to kiss them and not at all fall asleep. It took no less than you and Madame Tatsu to get him out of all my sadness...so come see me soon...
I spent some time yesterday with Sir Walter Scott. My wife's uncle, his compatriot, introduced him to me. I will tell you everything I observed in this illustrious old man; writing it would take too long; I found him affectionate and modest, almost shy; but suffering, but distressed but too old, which I did not expect. It saddened me”
It was on November 7, 1826 that Walter Scott left the capital after having received the day before, from the hands of its author, a signed copy of Alfred de Vigny's Cinq-Mars. The latter is accompanied by the uncle of Lydia, the young English woman he married in 1825.
Vigny does not yet master English very well, nor Scott French.
Vigny finds the Scottish writer "affectionate and modest, almost shy; but suffering, but distressed, but too old, which I did not expect. It saddened me".Vigny would very much like to have Scott's opinion - in his eyes the father of the historical novel - on his novel, but the latter will not engage in a correspondence.