From that first meeting dated the strong friendship between the trio, a friendship that verged on worship on the side of the Goncourts, and on tenderness on that of Gavarni. Two years later, on April 15, 1853, in the series called _Messieurs du Feuilleton_ which he began in _Paris_, the master draughtsman of the _lorette_ and the prodigal gave a delicious sketch of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. In his _Masques et Visages_, M. Alidor Delzant, a bibliophile very learned in the iconography of the Goncourts, declares these to be the best and most faithful of all the portraits of the two brothers. We give a reproduction of this fine lithograph. Seated in a box at the theatre in profile to the right, an eye-glass in his eye, Jules, apparently intent on the play, leans forward from beside Edmond, who sits in a meditative attitude, his hands on his knees. M. Delzant compares these portraits to those of Alfred and Tony Johannot by Jean Gigoux. And do they not also recall another group of two literary brothers, older, it is true, the delicate faces of Paul and Alfred de Musset in the delicious frame of the Musee Carnavalet? Gavarni's drawing is a perfect master-piece of expression and subtlety. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF EDMOND DE GONCOURT. From an etching from life by Jules de Goncourt, 1861.] [Illustration: EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT. From a lithograph by Gavarni, 1853.] Placed one against the other, like the antique medals on which Castor and Pollux are graved in profile in the same circle, how admirably each of these gentle faces, in which we note more than one analogy, completes the other! And as we admire them, are we not tempted to exclaim: Here indeed are the Freres Zemganno of letters! [Illustration: MEDALLION OF EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT. From an engraving by Bracquemond, 1875.] The reputation of the two brothers increased proportionately with their works--works of the most intense and subtle psychological research. Installed in that apartment of the Rue Saint Georges which they so soon transformed into a veritable museum of prints and trinkets, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt prepared those brilliant monographs of queens and favourites, which have made them the rare and enchanting historians of the most licentious and factious of centuries. [Illustration: EDMOND DE GONCOURT In 1888. Portrait on wood in _La Vie Populaire_.] In 1857 Edmond made the water-colour drawing of "Jules smoking a Pipe," which was afterward lithographed. His feet on the edge of the mantel-piece in front of him, Jules, seated in an arm-chair, a small pipe in his mouth, gives himself up to the delights of the _far niente_. This contemplative attitude was a favourite one with him, and one in which he was often discovered by visitors. By representing him thus, Edmond gave an additional force to the living memory that all who knew his brother have retained of him.