PARIS, _Wednesday, April 24, 1861_.
I am writing the history of a bandit Cossack of the seventeenth century,
named Stenka Razine, who was killed in Moscow with horrible tortures,
after he had hanged and drowned a great number of boyards, and had
maltreated their women in true Cossack fashion. I will let you read it
when it is finished, if I ever reach the end of it. Good-bye, dear
friend. Give me news of yourself....
I am leading a most disquieting and uncomfortable life, thanks to the
Institute affairs and the petition of Madame Libri....