Chapter CCLXVII: CANNES, October 19, 1863

DEAR FRIEND: I have been here a week, resting in the desert from the fatigues of the court. The weather is magnificent. I see in the paper that your Loire is overflowing its banks; from which I conclude that you are having frightful storms, and I pity you from the bottom of my heart.

I shall enjoy Provence but a fortnight longer, as I must return for the opening of the session. I am not sanguine over it. The death of M. Billault makes it an unpropitious beginning. For some time past I have talked assiduously, preached and persuaded M. Thiers to preach likewise, but I do not know what will be the result. It seems to me that we are drawing nearer and nearer our former parliamentary course, and that we are about to repeat once more the cycle of the same mistakes, and perhaps the same catastrophes. See, in addition, the strenuous efforts on the part of the clericals to make themselves detested, and to stretch the cord until it snaps. All this is enough to make one pessimistic concerning the future.

You have heard that on our journey here we were derailed near Saint Chamas. I was not at all affected, not even by fear, for I did not realise the danger until it was past. The only persons injured were the mail-clerks, who were thrown in a heap among their tables and chests. They came out of it with severe bruises, but no broken limbs.

Have you read the charge of the Bishop of Tulle, who orders all the pious ones of his diocese to recite _Aves_ in honour of M. Renan, or, rather, to prevent the devil from carrying off everybody, because of this same M. Renan’s book?

Since you are reading the letters of Cicero, you must see that in his age people had more wit than in ours. I am overwhelmed with shame every time I think of our nineteenth century, which I find in every respect so inferior to its predecessors.

I believe I made you read the _Lettres de la Duchesse de Choiseul_. I wish some one to-day would try to publish those of our most beautiful society woman. I leave you to go fishing, or, rather, to see other people fish, for I have never succeeded in landing a fish. The best part of it is that on the sea-shore they make an excellent soup for those who like oil and garlic. I suppose you are among this class.

Shall I find you in Paris early in November? I am expecting to be able to remain there all the month, except a few days, perhaps, at Compiègne, if my sovereign invites me there for his fête-day. Good-bye, dear friend.

CCLXVIII

CHÂTEAU DE COMPIÈGNE, _November 16, 1863_. _At night._

DEAR FRIEND: Since my arrival here I have led the exciting life of an impresario. I have been author, actor, and stage director. We have played, with success, a piece which is somewhat immoral, the theme of which I will tell you on my return. We have had beautiful fireworks, although a woman who wished to see them too closely was killed outright. We take long walks, and until the present I have succeeded in escaping from all these diversions without catching cold.

I shall be held here for another week. I shall remain in Paris, probably, until early in December, and shall then return to Cannes, which I left with nature abloom. It is impossible to imagine anything more beautiful than those fields of jasmines and tuberoses. I am not feeling very well, and the last few days especially I have been good for nothing and despondent.

You write to me so laconically, that you never reply to my questions. You have a way of acting in accordance with your caprices which perplexes me always; you jest, you make promises; when I read your letters I fancy I hear your voice speaking. I am disarmed, but in reality furious.

You tell me nothing about that charming child in whom you are so interested. Bring her up, I pray you, so that she will not become as silly as most of the women of our time. Never, I think, has anything like it been seen. You will tell me what they are in the provinces. If they are worse than in Paris, I can not imagine in what desert one may escape them.

We have stopping here Mademoiselle ----, who is a lovely slip of a girl five feet four inches in height, with all the gracefulness of a grisette, and a blending of easy manners with sincere timidity which is sometimes most amusing. Some one expressed apprehension that the second part of a charade would not equal the introduction (of which I was the author).

“That is all right,” she said; “we will show our legs in the ballet, and that will compensate them for everything else.”

N. B.--Her legs are like two pipe-stems, and her feet not exactly aristocratic.

Good-bye, dear friend....