CANNES, _January 20, 1865_.
DEAR FRIEND: Have you at last received your execrable _Nipi_
handkerchiefs? I have learned that the person to whom I intrusted them,
having been elected a member of the Cortes, remained in Madrid, and gave
the handkerchiefs to Madame de Montijo, who did not understand what they
were, for a Spaniard is not conspicuously clear in making an
explanation. I have written to the countess Montijo, begging her to
give the package to our ambassador, who will send it to you by the
French mail. I hope you will have the thing before receiving my letter;
but I do not wish ever again to assume the responsibility of your
purchases, which force me to take more trouble and to write more prose
than they are worth. The best thing for you to do is to throw the
handkerchiefs into the fire.
I have suffered severely the last week from exhaustion. We are having a
detestable winter, not cold, but rainy and windy. I have never
experienced anything like it. For a week nearly, in spite of M. Mathieu
(of the Drôme), we have had delightful, warm days, which are the
greatest benefit to me, for my lungs are better, or worse, according to
the height of the barometer.
I find amusement in reading the letters of the bishops. There are few
lawyers more subtle than these gentlemen; but the best of them is M.
D----, who interprets the Pope’s Encyclical as exactly the reverse of
what he really said, and it is not impossible that he may be
excommunicated at Rome. Is it possible that they are hoping for a
miracle to return to them Marche, the Legations, and the county of
Avignon? The worst of it is, that society in this age is so stupid,
that, in order to escape the Jesuits, it will probably throw itself into
the arms of the Bousingots.[32]
I know nothing of my works, and, if you have learned anything about
them, I should be obliged if you would tell me. I corrected my proofs
for the _Journal des Savants_, and for Michel Levy, and I have had no
word from either of them.
The number of English here becomes daily more frightful. A new hatch has
been built on the sea-shore, which is almost as large as the Louvre, and
it is always full. You can not take a walk without meeting young misses
in Garibaldi jackets, with impossible feather-trimmed hats, making a
pretence at sketching. They have croquet and archery parties, to which
come a hundred and twenty persons. I regret keenly the good old times
when not a soul came here.
I have made the acquaintance of a tame seagull, which I feed with fish.
He catches them in the air, always head first, and swallows some which
are larger than my neck. Do you recollect an ostrich at the Jardin des
Plantes, which you came near strangling with rye bread in the time when
you used to adorn the place with your presence?
Good-bye, dear friend. I expect to return soon to Paris, and to have the
great happiness of seeing you there. Again good-bye....