CANNES, _November 11, 1869_.
DEAR FRIEND: I am here in the most glorious weather imaginable, and the
most persistently such; to the despair of the gardeners, who can not
make their cabbages grow. I regret to see that I am hardly better than
if the weather were bad. Mornings and evenings I have always very
painful attacks of exhaustion. I can not walk without becoming tired and
losing my breath; in fact, I am still good for nothing and miserable.
Besides, I have had some serious worries. P., whom I brought with me,
became suddenly so sullen and impertinent, that I was compelled to
discharge her. You may imagine that to lose a servant who has been with
you for forty years is not an agreeable thing. Fortunately, she soon
repented, and begged my pardon with such persistence that I had a
sufficiently good excuse to yield, and keep her. It is so difficult
nowadays to find a reliable servant, and P. has many excellent
qualities, which it would have been impossible for me to replace. I hope
the anger and firmness which I showed, and of which, between ourselves,
I scarcely thought myself capable, will have a salutary effect in the
future, and prevent any return of such episodes.
I dined yesterday in Nice with M. Thiers, who is much changed physically
since the death of Madame Dosne, but not at all mentally, it seemed to
me. His mother-in-law was the soul of his home. She it was who made a
salon for him, attracted to it desirable people, and understood how to
be agreeable both to political and other guests. In short, she reigned
in a court composed of heterogeneous elements, and had the skill to turn
them all to the profit of M. Thiers. A life of solitude has now begun
for him; his wife will take part in nothing.
Politically, I found Thiers even more changed. Seeing the unbounded
folly that has taken possession of this land, he has once more become
reasonable, and is preparing to combat it, as he did in 1849. I fear
that he overestimates his strength. It is much easier to burst the
goat-skin bottles of Æolus than to mend them again and make them
air-tight. It seems to me probable that we shall have a struggle; the
chassepot rifle is invincible, and will give the populace of Paris a
historic lesson, as general Changarnier said. Still, is there any
assurance that it will serve its purpose? and, if it should serve its
purpose, what will happen? The officials of the government have become
impossible; and the parliamentary government, insincere, dishonest, and
devoid of capable men, seems to me no less impossible. In fact, to me
the future, and I might say the present, is as gloomy as it is possible
to be.
Good-bye, dear friend. Take good care of yourself, and write to me.