ChÂteau de Fontainebleau, August 4, 1868.

Dear Friend: I have been here about a fortnight, feeling tolerably well, and finding absolute idleness good for body and mind. Our last walk left me a sweet memory. Is it so with you? Here, I walk a little, read less, and breathe fairly well. It is a pleasure to look at the sky and the trees.

There is no one at the chÂteau, or, rather, not more than thirty persons, of whom the only outsiders, besides myself, are several cousins of the empress, both ladies and gentlemen, and very agreeable people, whom I met in Madrid.

I kept for you a copy of the second edition of Smoke. On my return to Paris, in a week, I think, I will leave it at your house, or, if you prefer, I will send it.

I brought with me my materials for work; but as one is never certain of having an hour to himself, I have accomplished nothing at all. I made a copy of a portrait of Diana of Poitiers, by Primatice. She is represented as Diana holding a quiver, and it is evident that she has posed, for from head to foot everything shows the portrait. If I dare say so, there results even from an examination of the legs, that she wore her garters above the knee, after the fashion of the time. It is no longer the fashion now (so I have been told). I will show it to you, for this portrait has an historical value.

Good-bye. It is now the hour for dining. I envy you the little fish that you are eating, perhaps, at this very moment. Be so good as to tell me what is that high rock at Boulogne, near the quay. It seemed to me a monstrosity.