Charles Asselinau was by Nadar, Banville and Poulet-Malassis, one of the closest friends of Baudelaire. They met in 1845 and, from 1950, were inseparable.
Banville gave the following portrait of Asselinau: "In fine features, regular, a warm paleness, when I met him, still young, was as buried in the black weeds of hair and a silky, thick, bushy beard to the improbable and more blue than black, the thickness of this tremendous forest sprouted eyes, vivid, sharp, wet, shining like black diamonds, and the Turks from the tragedies and fairy tales seemed, under the lush vegetation of all those ornaments blacks. later abandoned this appearance by adopting uniform very early age, so that would never come to him, and then saw down on his chest and shine snow beard of a patriarch. "