CANNES, _January 2, 1866_.
DEAR FRIEND: I did not know where to write to you, and this is why I
have not written before. You lead such a wandering life, that no one
knows where to catch you. I regretted exceedingly that I did not
overtake you between Paris and ----, your two customary lairs. You have
fallen into the habit of subordinating yourself, in the phraseology of
the Saint Simonians of my youth. Now you are the victim of the
fisher-folk at ----; again, and more often, you are the victim of that
child whom you adore, so that there is no longer any opportunity to see
you as in the good old days, when it made me so happy to walk with you.
Do you remember them?
I arrived here ill enough in health, after a week at Compiègne spent in
tight-fitting trousers, with all the patience possible. They tried to
hold me with M. de Massa’s piece, but I resisted strenuously and fled to
this place, where the sun has produced its usual effect. Of three days,
I have had two good ones; the third even has not been very bad; a slight
attack of suffocation not to be compared to the sensation of strangling
which a Paris winter brings on.
Why is it that, fond of travelling as you are, and having, moreover,
souls in your charge, you do not spend your winters in Pisa or in any
place where the great arbiter of the health of humanity, my lord, the
Sun, is to be seen? I believe that but for him I should have lain for a
long time under several feet of earth.
All my friends are hastening to precede me there. Last year was rough on
my little circle of comrades. Several years ago we used to dine together
once a month; I think I am now the sole survivor. This is the solemn
reproach which I address to the Great Engineer: Why do not men fall
like leaves, all in one season? Your Father Hyacinthe will not fail to
say absurd things to me on this subject: “O man, what are ten years?
What is a century?” and so on. The question for me is, What is eternity?
To me the all-important thing is the small number of days. Why must mine
be so bitter?
At Cannes this year are only a quarter of the foreigners who come
usually. There was a story of a Parisian who ate three lobsters, and
died of cholera. The country was at once placed under suspicion, and the
mayors of Nice and of Cannes conceived the mistaken idea of denying in
the newspapers the appearance of cholera, consequently everybody
believed that it had come. A few of my friends have been as heroic as I,
and we form a little colony which is quite able to dispense with the
crowd.
I fear I shall be obliged to return to Paris a little after the opening
of the Senate, to thunder forth all my eloquence on the bird-organ law,
of which I am the advocate. I have written to M. Rouher to offer him
peace, and to give him the opportunity to escape my eloquence. Will he
accept it? If he is reckless enough to desire war, will you wait until
the end of January to see me, and will you grant me a kind reception on
New Year’s day? In the event that the affair turns towards peace, I
shall ask you this in February. Good-bye, dear friend. In the meantime,
I send you my best and tenderest wishes.