Letter from Marie Laurencin, Paris, to Paul Rosenberg, 1939 December 8 : autograph manuscript signed.

The weather is bad so she's in a dark mood and working very slowly. She gives him news of Paris: There was a charity painting exhibition at the Bernheim Gallery. The restaurants are filled. She meets new people there, something she hadn't foreseen. Heated buildings have more people living in them than unheated ones, but there are really few inhabited ones. She saw Léon Bailly and Albert Flament [a writer, who wrote The Life of Manet and The Private Life of Lady Hamilton]. They say that Valentine Tessier [a French film actress] married a young man from Oran [Algeria]. She says that the entire Nouvelle Revue Francaise is "in the English Channel." Four of Madame Gallimard's sons have left to fight in the war. She had lunch with Lucien Romier [journalist and politician] from the newspaper Le Figaro at the home of a surgeon. Her goddaughter, the older of the Groults' children passed her Latin and Greek exam. Olga Picasso came to see her. Her son is feeling better, in Switzerland. She's going to visit him. She may have appendicitis. Monseigneur [Jean] Verdier [archbishop of Paris and cardinal] blessed cars at the home of Etienne de Beaumont. She attended for a few minutes at the invitation of the de Beaumonts, but her friend, the American [collector and author Edward] Wassermann, who had donated one car worth 20,000 francs and who is a big snob, wasn't invited. Madame Paul Guillaume's name was on the program, but she didnt see her. 'Armand [Loewengard] is much better. He's worried about his house, his employees, etc. He has had central heating his whole life and now has to heat his home with a slow combustion heater. And if the war goes on much longer, there won't even be the heater to use. She says that she is in good health. She is happy for Rosenberg's children's happiness and is going to put aside some autographs for Alex[andre].