PARIS, _May 19, 1859_.
It seems to me that in your place I should be in Paris, for it is here
that all the news comes first. I run after it all day long. The loan has
been negotiated, not for 500,000,000, but for 2,000,000,000 francs,
besides several cities whose value I do not know. During the last three
weeks, 54,000 volunteers have been enrolled. These figures are
authentic. The Austrians are retiring, and the stakes are open on the
question of whether they will give battle before abandoning Milan, or
whether they will proceed at once to form an unbroken triangle bounded
by Mantua, Verona, and Peschiera. Our officers speak in the highest
praise of the reception accorded them. The Germans are howling at us,
just as they did in 1813. Some think it is due to their inveterate
hatred of us; others, that beneath it all is a definite amount of
red-hot liberalism, which to-day takes the Teutonic form.
The Russians are arming vigorously, which causes general food for
thought. A certain grand duchess Catherine has just made a visit to the
Empress; the significance of this is either auspicious or otherwise.
Russia is a powerful ally, who could swallow Germany alive, but who
would also procure for us the enmity, and, perhaps, the hostility of
England. We have lived for so long a life of sybaritism that we have
forgotten the sentiments of our fathers. We must return to their
philosophy of life. We danced in Paris while we fought in Germany, and
this continued for more than twenty years! In the present age wars can
not drag on so long, because revolutions interfere, and because they are
too costly. This is why, if I were young, I should be a soldier.
But let us have done with this hideous subject. The misfortune which is
to come can not be avoided and the wisest plan is to think of it as
little as possible; and it is for this reason that I wish so ardently to
take a walk with you, far, far from the scene of war, where we shall
think only of the leaves and the blooming flowers, and of other things
no less agreeable. Whatever may happen, is not this course the most
sensible? If you have read Boccaccio, you will have learned that after
all crushing misfortunes one comes to that point. Is it not wiser to
begin thus? Great truths and reasonable facts do not find ready access
to your brain. I shall never forget your astonishment when I told you
there were woods in the suburbs of Paris.
I took dinner at the home of a Chinese, who offered me an opium pipe. I
was suffering from suffocation; at the third puff I was cured. A Russian
who tried the pipe after me was completely transformed in less than ten
minutes; from a very homely man, he became a truly handsome one. This
continued fully a quarter of an hour. Is it not singular, the effect
produced by a few drops of poppy juice?
Good-bye. Answer me quickly.