Fragment of a letter from Edmond Maitre to his father after the death of Frederic Bazille.

"Alas! Of all these pains, a much greater one, much more palpable has rent my heart. My noble and beloved friend Bazille enlisted in the infantry; he was killed at Beaune-la-Rolande, just below Orleans, on November 23rd, and was buried under the snow; after ten days his father was able to find his body and bring it back to Montpellier on a cart. The poor man wrote a crushing letter. I cannot put into words my anguish at the loss I have endured: I have lost half of myself. I was tied to him by a profound friendship: My Cherami was the most intelligent, my Bazille was the most gifted, the most lovable in every sense of the word of all the young men I knew. No one in this world will ever fill the empty place he leaves in my soul. I am broken-hearted."