"Only a Frenchman," exclaimed Browning, grasping both hands of his visitor, "would have done this." So began a friendship of an intimate and most helpful kind, which closed only with Milsand's death in 1886.

To his memory is dedicated the volume published soon after his death, _Parleyings with certain People of Importance_.

"I never knew or shall know his like among men," wrote Browning; and again: "No words can express the love I have for him." And in _Red Cotton Nightcap Country_ it is Milsand who is characterised in the lines: He knows more and loves better than the world That never heard his name and never may, ...
What hinders that my heart relieve itself, O friend! who makest warm my wintry world, And wise my heaven, if there we consort too.
In the correction of Browning's proof-sheets, and especially in regulating the punctuation of his poems, Milsand's friendly services were of high value.

In 1858 when Browning happened to be at Dijon, and had reason to believe, though in fact erroneously, that his friend was absent in Paris, he went twice "in a passion of friendship," as his wife tells a correspondent, to stand before Maison Milsand, and muse, and bless the threshold.[49] Browning desired much to know Victor Hugo, but his wish was never gratified.

After December 2nd Paris could not contain a spirit so fiery as Hugo's was in hostility to the new regime and its chief representative.