He familiarised himself with the works of the French decadents. He appreciated Baudelaire's writings on Richard Wagner, Paul Bourget's _Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine._ He read the _Contes_ of Maupassant and admired this "great Latin." He ran through some volumes by Zola and did not allow himself to be seduced by a merely popular style of thought, by a merely decorative art. He bought, and commented in pencil on the margin, the _Esquisse d'une Morale sans obligation ni sanction._ Guyau, like Nietzsche and at the same moment, had had the idea of founding a system of morals on the expansive modalities of life. But he understood them in another sense and interpreted as a force of love what Nietzsche understood as a conquering force. Nevertheless the initial agreement was certain. Nietzsche valued highly the purity and intelligence of idea which he found in the work of the French philosopher. The vogue of the Russian novelists was then beginning. Nietzsche took an interest in these poets of a young, violent, and sensitive race, whose charm he always felt. "Do you know Dostoievsky?" he wrote to Peter Gast. "No one, with the exception of Stendhal, has so satisfied and ravished me. There is a psychologist with whom I am in agreement!" He indicated the new author to all his correspondents. The religious fervour of the Slavs interested him and found him indulgent. It was not a symptom of weakness, he thought; it was the return of an energy which could not accept the cold constraints of modern society and whose insubordination took the form of a revolutionary Christianity. These barbarians, thwarted in their instincts, were disconcerted and self-accusatory; they had precipitated a crisis which was still undecided, and Nietzsche wrote: "This bad conscience is a malady, but a malady of the nature of pregnancy." For, hoping always, he obstinately defended his thoughts against his disgusts. He wished his thoughts to remain free, kindly and confident, and when there rose within him and towards them a hatred of Europe and of its debased peoples; when he feared that he might yield to his bitter humour, he corrected himself at once: "No," he kept on saying, "Europe is at present richer than ever in men, in ideas, in aspirations, better prepared for great tasks, and we must, contrary to all semblance, hope everything from these multitudes, though their ugly disposition seems to forbid hope." During these early months of 1887, Friedrich Nietzsche became intimate with a certain Madame V. P. They went together to San Remo and Monte Carlo. We do not know this woman's name; we have no letter, either written by her or addressed to her. We may infer some mystery, perhaps a mystery of love.