Cannes, March 1, 1862.

... You are very good to think of my book in the midst of all your cares. If you can have it for me by the time I return I shall esteem it a great favour, but do not give yourself much trouble about it.

My cousin’s fÊte-day went completely out of my head, and I recalled it the other day only when it was too late. When I return we will talk the matter over, if you please. Every year it becomes more embarrassing, and I have exhausted the possibility of rings, pins, handkerchiefs, and buttons. It is deuced hard to invent something new!

As for novels, the difficulty is equally great. In this class of books I have just read a few rhapsodies that deserve nothing less than corporal punishment. I am going to spend three days in the mountains, at Saint CÉsaire, beyond Cannes, at the home of my doctor, who is a man of the kindest impulses. Upon my return I shall begin to think seriously of starting for Paris.

I do not regret in the least having been absent from all the hubbub that has gone on in the Luxembourg, and which was worthy of fourth-form schoolboys. Even less do I regret that I took no share in the elections or, rather, the preliminary elections, which were held at the Academy the other day.

We are at this time in subjection to the clericals, and soon, in order to be recognised as a candidate, it will be necessary to produce a certificate of confession. M. de Montalembert gave such a certificate of Catholicism to a friend of mine, who, to be sure, is from Marseilles, but who had the good sense to offer no objection. Up to the present these gentlemen are not troublesome, but with time and success they are in danger of becoming so.

You can imagine nothing prettier than our country in fine weather. This is not the case to-day, however, for something extraordinary, it has been raining since morning. All the fields are covered with violets and anemones, and with quantities of other flowers whose names I do not know.

Good-bye, dear friend. Soon I shall see you, I hope. I wish to find you again in the same excellent condition in which I left you two months ago. Do not grow thin or stout, do not worry too much, and think of me now and then. Good-bye.