“ He was outrageously inconsistent, and judged things from no general point of view whatsoever, though his judgment was usually good-natured. Few journalists have ever been masters of a more attractive fashion of saying the first thing that came into their heads. ”

“ No one was more in request with the Paris publishers for prefaces, letterpress to illustrated books and such trifles. He travelled (picking up in one of his journeys a curious windfall, a country house at Lucca, in a lottery) , and wrote accounts of his travels; he wrote numerous tales and novels, and composed many other works, of which by far the best is the Fin d’un monde et du neveu de Rameau (1861) , in which, under the guise of a sequel to Diderot’s masterpiece, he showed his great familiarity with the late 18th century. He married in 1841 ”