Paris, August 24, 1861.

Dear Friend: I have arrived at last, in not too good a state of preservation. I do not know whether it is from eating too heartily of turtle-soup, or from running about too much in the sun, but I have had a return of those pains in the stomach, which for some time had left me in peace. I am taken in the morning about five o’clock, and they continue an hour and a half. I suppose one suffers in somewhat the same way when one is hanged. This does not inspire in me any desire to be suspended!

I found awaiting my return more work than I like. Our imperial commission for the Universal Exposition is in travail; we are exhausting all our eloquence in persuading those who have pictures to lend them to us to send to London. Besides the obvious indiscretion of the proposition, it happens that most owners of private collections are Carlists or Orleanists, who think they are doing a pious act in refusing us. I fear we shall cut a poor figure in London next year, and all the more since we shall exhibit only works done during the last ten years, while the English will exhibit the products of their school since 1762.

How did you find the heat of the tropics? It is a consolation to read, in the papers which I receive, that in Madrid it was forty-four degrees, which is the temperature of the hot season in Senegal. There is no one in Paris, which suits me perfectly. I spent six weeks dining out, and it is a relief now not to be obliged to put on a white cravat for dinner. I visited the duke of Suffolk for a week, however, in a charming castle in almost absolute solitude. The country is level, but is covered with immense trees; and there is an abundance of water, so that the sailing is excellent. The place is quite near some fens, and is the region from which Cromwell sprang. There is an enormous quantity of game, and one can not take a step without running the risk of treading on pheasants or partridges.

I have no plans for the autumn, except that, if Madame de Montijo should go to Biarritz, I shall visit her there and spend a few days. She is still in sorrow, and I find her more desolate than she was last year at the time of her daughter’s death.

It seems to me you have acquired a great fondness for that host of children. I can not understand this. I suppose you allow yourself to assume all the care of them, according to your habit of submitting to oppression, so long as it does not come from me. Good-bye, dear friend....