PARIS, _July 17, 1862_.
I shall not try to express _all_ the regrets I feel. I wish that you
might have shared them. If you had had half as much as I, you would have
found a means of making others wait for me.
Since your departure I have endured some painful experiences. My poor
old Caroline died at my home, after great suffering; so now I am without
a cook, and do not know exactly what I shall do. After her death her
nieces came to dispute her estate. One of them, however, took her cat,
which I intended to keep. She left, it seems, an income of twelve or
fifteen hundred francs. It has been demonstrated to me that she could
not have saved that amount from the wages which she earned with me, and
yet I do not believe she ever robbed me. If she did, I would agree
willingly to be robbed in that way always. I have had a strong desire to
have a cat like the late Matifas, who approved of you so heartily, but
I am going soon on a journey to the Pyrenees, and I shall have no time
to train him.
They tell me the waters of Bagnères-de-Bigorre will do me the most good.
I have no faith in their curative powers, but the surrounding mountains
are beautiful, and I have friends in the vicinity. M. Panizzi will come
for me the 5th of August, and we shall return together by way of Nîmes,
Avignon, and Lyons. I shall hope to reach Paris the same time that you
do.
Madame de Montijo arrived last week: she is greatly changed, and
distressing to see. Nothing consoles her for the death of her daughter,
and she seems to me less resigned than when the shock came. I dined last
Thursday at Saint Cloud, with a few intimate friends, and enjoyed it not
a little. They are less popish, I fancy, than is generally supposed.
They allowed me to be as critical as I pleased, without calling me to
order. The little prince is charming. He has grown two inches, and is
the prettiest child I have ever seen.
To-morrow our work on the Campana Museum will be finished. The
sympathisers of the purchasers are enraged, and hurl abuse at us in the
papers. We should have a long story to tell if we wished to bring to
light all the absurdities they have committed and the rubbish which has
been palmed off on them for genuine antiques.
It is horribly warm here, but I do not find it uncomfortable. They say
it is good for the grain. Good-bye, dear friend....