Paris, July 2, 1848.

I need very much to see you to cheer me up a little after the painful experiences of last week, and it is with the keenest pleasure that I learn of your intended return, sooner than I had dared to hope. Paris is quiet, and will continue so for some time to come. I do not think the civil war, or rather the socialist war, is over, but another battle as horrible as the last seems to me impossible. It was brought on by an incalculable number of circumstances, which can not occur again.

You will find, when you return, few of the hideous traces of the battle which your imagination probably pictures to you. The larger part of them have been effaced by the glazier and the house-painter. Still I can readily imagine that you will find us all with long faces, and much sadder than when you left. Well, how can we help it? It is the fashion of the day, and we must accustom ourselves to it. We shall gradually reach the point when we shall cease to look forward to the morrow, and consider ourselves fortunate when we wake in the morning and find ourselves alive.

What I really miss more than anything else in Paris is yourself, and if you were here, I believe all the other conditions would be more supportable. It has rained for the last three days. At present I watch it as it falls with the utmost indifference; but I should not care to have it continue too long.

You speak so indefinitely of your return that I have no ground on which to build, and you are aware that I am anxious to know how long I shall have to remain in purgatory. You mentioned six weeks when you said good-bye, and you now say that you will return sooner than that. How much sooner? That is what I should like to know. Let me hear, also, the result of the disagreeable affairs which kept you from being present at my birthday fÊte, celebrated by the firing of cannon and guns.

Good-bye; in order to be patient I need to hear from you very often. Write to me at once, and send some remembrance. I am thinking of you constantly. I thought of you even while looking at those deserted houses in the rue Saint Antoine, and during the fight at the Bastille.