Vienna, October 2, 1854.

Really and truly, this good city of Vienna is an agreeable stopping-place, and now that I have friends here, and have learned the joy of being an idler, it requires an unyielding strength of mind to tear myself away from it. Besides this, I have the advantage of hearing the news from the Crimea several minutes before you. Since day before yesterday we have suffered every stage of excitement.

Has Sebastopol fallen? When this letter reaches you, all doubt will be at an end. Here, it is believed, but in my opinion with a certain incredulity. Excepting a few of the old families, whose sympathies are with Russia, the Austrians are offering congratulations. I was congratulated day before yesterday by a cabman as I was leaving the Opera House. God grant that this is not some of the news that the electric telegraph sends out when it has nothing else to do. However that may be, I consider it admirable that our soldiers, six days after landing, should have given the Russians a vigorous drubbing.

Stopping in our house is Lady Westmoreland, sister of Lord Raglan and mother of his aide-de-camp. She has been in a terrible state. She received yesterday a line from her son, written after the battle. We are amused at the countenances of the Russians in Vienna. Prince Gortchakof remarked that the battle was a mere incident, but that it did not alter the principle involved in the war. The Belgian Minister, a man of fine wit, retorted that Gortchakof was right to retrench himself behind his principles, since they could not be captured at the point of a bayonet. Speaking of wit, I am designated here as a lion, whether I will or not. You must pronounce this laÏonne in English so that you may have no misconception of the rÔle I am made to play.

A few days ago I visited Baden. It is charmingly situated in a valley, only a stone’s throw from Vienna, but one would fancy himself a hundred miles from a large city.

My keeper has presented me to a number of beautiful ladies. Society here being so gemÜthlich, everything that a Frenchman says is accepted as clever. They consider me uncommonly amiable. I have written sublime thoughts in their albums. I have made them drawings; in a word, I have made myself perfectly ridiculous, and it is on account of a sense of humiliation for having been up to such a trade that I am leaving to-day for Dresden. I shall stop there but one day, and then go on to Berlin. After visiting the Museum I shall start for Cologne, where there will be a letter from you.

Did I tell you that I went to Hungary? I was in Pesth for three days, and imagined I was in Spain, or rather in Turkey. While there my modesty was excessively shocked, for I was taken to a public bath, where I saw the Hungarian men and women helter-skelter in a court-bouillon of hot mineral water. I noticed there a lovely Hungarian woman who concealed her face in her hands, not having, like Turkish women, a covering with which to veil her face. This spectacle cost me six kreutzer, namely, four half-pennies.

I went to the Hungarian theatre to see La Dame de Saint-Tropez, not having wit enough to recognise a French melodrama under the title Saint-Tropez À UnÔz. I heard some Bohemian musicians play Hungarian melodies, which were strange beyond measure. This music sets the natives mad. It begins with something intensely mournful, and ends in an allegro con spirito, which completely captivates the audience, who stamp on the floor, break their glasses, and dance on the tables. Foreigners, however, are not so affected by this marvellous music. Finally, and I have reserved the best for the last, I have seen a collection of very old Magyar jewels of exquisite workmanship. If I could have brought you one of these you would have come to meet me at Cologne in order to have it the sooner.

During my entire journey I have been unusually well. The weather is delightful, but cold at night. I have no dread of the cold during my travels, for I have bought an enormous pelisse that cost me seventy-five florins. You could find here magnificent furs for nothing. They are, I think, the only things in this country that are cheap. I have gone bankrupt on cabs and dinners down town. The custom is here to pay the servants for one’s dinner: upon leaving you pay the porter; indeed, you pay at every step, but only a trifle at a time.

Good-bye. I am not any too well pleased with your last letter, except when you tell me of your approaching return to Paris. Although I am bringing you no Magyar chains, I hope you will give me a welcome. I am beginning to long for my own hearthstone, and the evenings seem to me a little tedious. I expect to reach Cologne in less than a week, and to be in Paris from the 10th to the 15th.