Cannes, January 20, 1865.

Dear Friend: Have you at last received your execrable Nipi handkerchiefs? I have learned that the person to whom I intrusted them, having been elected a member of the Cortes, remained in Madrid, and gave the handkerchiefs to Madame de Montijo, who did not understand what they were, for a Spaniard is not conspicuously clear in making an explanation. I have written to the countess Montijo, begging her to give the package to our ambassador, who will send it to you by the French mail. I hope you will have the thing before receiving my letter; but I do not wish ever again to assume the responsibility of your purchases, which force me to take more trouble and to write more prose than they are worth. The best thing for you to do is to throw the handkerchiefs into the fire.

I have suffered severely the last week from exhaustion. We are having a detestable winter, not cold, but rainy and windy. I have never experienced anything like it. For a week nearly, in spite of M. Mathieu (of the DrÔme), we have had delightful, warm days, which are the greatest benefit to me, for my lungs are better, or worse, according to the height of the barometer.

I find amusement in reading the letters of the bishops. There are few lawyers more subtle than these gentlemen; but the best of them is M. D——, who interprets the Pope’s Encyclical as exactly the reverse of what he really said, and it is not impossible that he may be excommunicated at Rome. Is it possible that they are hoping for a miracle to return to them Marche, the Legations, and the county of Avignon? The worst of it is, that society in this age is so stupid, that, in order to escape the Jesuits, it will probably throw itself into the arms of the Bousingots.[32]

I know nothing of my works, and, if you have learned anything about them, I should be obliged if you would tell me. I corrected my proofs for the Journal des Savants, and for Michel Levy, and I have had no word from either of them.

The number of English here becomes daily more frightful. A new hatch has been built on the sea-shore, which is almost as large as the Louvre, and it is always full. You can not take a walk without meeting young misses in Garibaldi jackets, with impossible feather-trimmed hats, making a pretence at sketching. They have croquet and archery parties, to which come a hundred and twenty persons. I regret keenly the good old times when not a soul came here.

I have made the acquaintance of a tame seagull, which I feed with fish. He catches them in the air, always head first, and swallows some which are larger than my neck. Do you recollect an ostrich at the Jardin des Plantes, which you came near strangling with rye bread in the time when you used to adorn the place with your presence?

Good-bye, dear friend. I expect to return soon to Paris, and to have the great happiness of seeing you there. Again good-bye....