Cannes, December 30, 1864.

Dear Friend: I wish you a happy New Year. I have written to Madrid about the unlucky handkerchiefs, and, as I have received no response, I take it for granted that my commissioner is in Paris, and that you have the handkerchiefs, or will have them soon. I sent them by a Spaniard who was to leave Madrid the same time as I, in consequence of which you would receive them more promptly. One should never have too high expectations. What I now desire is that you should be satisfied with those handkerchiefs, which are awfully ugly.

What think you of the Pope’s Encyclical? We have a bishop here, a man of intelligence and good sense, who hides his face. Indeed, it is humiliating to belong to an army whose general exposes you to defeat.

I have no news from my editor. When I left he was printing my Cossacks of the Past, which I think must have appeared. As you know the story I hope you will wait until I return to procure a volume.

Do you know that from all sides have arrived congratulations on my successorship to M. Mocquard? I thought nothing of the matter; but after seeing my name in the Belgian Independence, in the London Times, and in the Augsburg Gazette, I had come to be a little uneasy. Knowing my temperament as you do, you may imagine how the place suited me, and how I suited the place. I have breathed more easily, however, for several days.

Are there any new novels for Christmas? English novels, I mean, for this is the period for them to bloom! I have almost no books here, and I am anxious to send for some. When at night I have an attack of coughing, and can not sleep, I am as wretched as it is possible to be. Only fancy, I have read Lamartine’s Meditations. I have come across a Life of Aristotle, in which it is said that the retreat of the Ten Thousand took place after the death of Alexander. Really, would it not be preferable to peddle steel pens at the door of the Tuileries than to say such enormities?

Good-bye, dear friend. I have thirty-five letters to write, and I wanted to begin with you. I wish you all the prosperity in the world.