Cannes, December 16, 1867.

Dear Friend: I was very anxious about you, when I was relieved by the arrival of your letter. You have guessed that these many changes of weather through which we have passed, have done me no good. In the last twenty-four hours we have even had snow, to the enormous astonishment of the urchins and curs of the place. Such a thing is unprecedented in twenty years. Nothing could be more amusing than the amazement depicted on the faces which had never seen this phenomenon from a nearer range than the Alps. Everybody expected to see the flowers, orange-trees, and even the olive-trees, destroyed; but they all stood it remarkably well, and only the flies have been killed.

For several days we have had a return of fine weather, and my breathing begins to be somewhat less difficult. I am always at the mercy of every change of temperature, and there is no barometer to which I am not superior in the accuracy of my predictions.

I am greatly alarmed by the political situation; in the general tone of the journals and of the orators, I find something suggestive of 1848. There are strange freaks of anger, without any apparent causes. All nerves are tense. After spending his whole life amid political struggles, M. Thiers is seized with nervous excitement because a lawyer of Marseilles repeats platitudes deserving of nothing more than a smile. The most unfortunate feature has been the attitude of M. Rouher, who wishes to out-Herod Herod, and who has given utterance to sentiments obnoxious to politics—a thing from which all ministers ought to abstain.

I am discontented with everybody, beginning with Garibaldi, who does not understand his trade. To go to Caprera, after having murdered several hundred simpletons, seems to me the very limit of mortification for the advocates of revolution, and the English noblemen who took this creature for something more than a mountebank.

What shall I say to you of the politics of M. Ollivier and tutti quanti? It is useless for them to express themselves in elegantly turned phraseology, and to assert that they are profoundly convinced; they impress me as second-rate actors who imitate the rÔles of their betters, in such a fashion as to deceive no one. We become smaller day by day. It is only M. de Bismarck who is a really great man.

By the way, could it be true that he has spent his private fortune? I consider the purchase of the journals as highly probable. But, as M. de Bismarck will not send his receipts to M. de Kerveguen, I fancy these gentlemen will come out of the affair honourably.

I see nothing worth reading but the Histoire de Pierre le Grand, by M. Oustisalef. I have just sent to the Journal des Savants a long article, full of tormenting details, etc. It is on the destruction of the Muscovite guards. Good-bye....