Camille Saint-Saëns, a trusted man and his lawyer, autograph letter signed Saens

  
Gabriel Geslin, Saint-Saëns’s faithful butler, had been ill: “he was ill enough to cause me the most serious concern (.) Geslin will not be well enough to go and see you anytime soon.” Nevertheless, he was able to search through the correspondence for what Georges Claretie had asked him for and found nothing: “the proposal therefore was not made.” Gabriel Geslin would die after a long illness on November 18, 1917.