Dear Friend!
Up to this time, when you too are now addressing me with an inquiry full of doubt in this matter, I considered it more than unnecessary to explain myself more clearly, regarding that wretched piece of work of a Vienna or Munich newspaper would-be wit, entitled: A Letter from Victor Hugo to R. W. Since it is necessary, however, to reassure you as well as other friends who have been made uneasy at the same time, let me remind you above all of the single fact that a Frenchman of refinement, as Victor Hugo may certainly be considered, after all, would never reproach a German author about "Bavarian gulden," nor permit himself to indulge in disrespectful witticisms regarding that person's relations with his exalted benefactor. If any such attitude towards me has ever crept into the French press, then it surely has been carried over there out of the organs of public opinion in Germany, as one may sufficiently perceive from the originals themselves. I sincerely deplore, in this case, having had to encounter doubts regarding this.
Ever yours,
Richard Wagner
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 62