Paris, Saturday, June 12, 1869.

Dear Friend: This dull weather, with its alternations of heat and cold, worries me and does me great harm; besides, I am in a beastly humour. The uproar that takes place every night on the boulevards, which reminds me of the fine times of 1848, contributes no little to my melancholy, and makes me feel, with Hamlet, that “man delights me not, nor woman neither.”

What afflicts me the most in all this sad business, is its profound stupidity. This people, which calls itself, and believes that it is, the most intellectual on earth, expresses its desire to enjoy a Republican form of government by demolishing the stands where poor people sell newspapers. They shriek, Vive la Lanterne! and break the street-lamps. It is enough to make one hide his face. The danger is that there is for stupidity a sort of emulation, as for everything else, and between the Chambers and the Government, God only knows what the result will be.

I spend my time deciphering letters of the duke of Alba and of Philip II, which the empress gave me. Both of them wrote like cats. I am beginning to read Philip II, easily enough; but his captain-general is still very troublesome. I have just read one of his letters to his august master, written a few days after the death of count Egmont, in which he pities the fate of the countess, who has not a loaf of bread left, after having had a dowry of ten thousand florins. Philip II has an intricate and tedious way of saying the simplest things. It is very difficult to divine his meaning, and it seems to me that his constant intention is to confuse his reader and leave him to his own powers of initiation. The two make the most detestable pair of men that ever existed, and neither of them, unfortunately, was hanged, which is nothing to the credit of Providence.

I have also received from England a curious book, in which it is claimed that Jeanne la Folle was not mad, but heretical, and that, on this account, papa, mamma, her husband, and her son all concerted to keep her in prison, and from time to time, to have her suffer a taste of torture. You shall read it, if you like; the book is at your service.

I have nothing encouraging to tell you of my health, which is not flourishing; a little better, it may be, than before I came. Nevertheless, I cough constantly, and can neither eat nor sleep.

Good-bye, dear friend. Write to me soon.