Nice, March 15, 1842.—Yesterday morning was devoted to the open air. The Grand Duchess had arranged a picnic of twenty people, including ourselves. We drove, each from our own starting-places, to an inn situated at the top of a mountain which rises between the bay of Nice and that of Villefranche; then returning by another mountain we went to Beaulieu, where we lunched under great olive-trees. After this we mounted donkeys and followed a rather narrow path round the bay of Saint-Soupir and reached Saint-Hospice, where Lord Ranelagh's yacht was lying. The weather was so fine, the sea so calm and the distance so short that even I was persuaded to venture. However, far from being contrary, the wind was so light that we hardly moved, and spent an hour and a half in returning to Nice, a journey usually made in half an hour.
Nice, March 18, 1842.—Madame de Lieven writes that Sainte-Aulaire is giving great satisfaction, both at London and at Paris, but there is and will be, none the less, a certain amount of friction between the two Cabinets. The King of Prussia will go to St. Petersburg at the end of June.
M. Bresson writes that Count Maltzan is not likely to take the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and it is not yet known whether the King will decide to replace him with Kanitz or Bülow. The two men represent divergent views. Kanitz is a pietist and legitimist, while Bülow is neither one nor the other.
Nice, March 21, 1842.—For some days I have been feeling distinctly ill, and the day before yesterday my feverishness became so pronounced that I was obliged to go to bed, and was soon afterwards covered with an eruption all over my body. It is an epidemic which has been prevalent here for the last fortnight, and is called in Italian rosalia; it is a medium between scarlatina and measles, and is less malignant than either of these diseases, though at the same time it makes the patient feel very ill.
Nice, March 24, 1842.—People here are very kind, and every one shows more interest in me than I deserve on account of my illness. The Grand Duchess came to see me as soon as her daughter was attacked by the same disease, and her fears of carrying infection were removed. The Comtesse Adèle de Maistre, a sister of the Governor—a kind, clever, and benevolent saint, who has taken a fancy to me—nurses me as if I was her sister, for which I am deeply grateful. The good prior of the Récollets de Cimier heard from his mendicant brother, who brings me flowers in exchange for what I put in his wallet, that I was ill, and came to see me; I was very glad to see him. The doctor assures me that my convalescence is in sight, and that in a few days he will allow me to go into the open air. In this climate eruptive sicknesses are not as serious as they are elsewhere.
Nice, March 27, 1842.—Society here is about to disperse. However, some foreign families remain at Nice even during the summer; the climate and the cheapness of living induces many people to stay, if not permanently, at any rate for several years in succession.
This morning I was suddenly aroused by cannon-shots, announcing Easter Day. These, with the rattles of the street boys and the guns of the garrisons, made an appalling uproar. Yesterday all the houses, and every room in every house, were blessed by one of the parish priests, who sprinkles all the dwellings with water, and is followed by a choir-boy.
A letter from Germany, which I have just received, gives me some news of considerable importance to my personal interests. My nephew has definitely refused to agree to the arrangement proposed by his mother, and my sister has sold me the whole of the allodial part of Sagan, or the part which she claimed to be subject to this condition. This will considerably complicate my business, and will absolutely force me to travel to Prussia next year.
Nice, March 29, 1842.—Yesterday I went for a drive, and left cards upon all who had inquired for me during my illness. I feel that the open air did me much good.
M. de Barante writes to say that M. de Rémusat is giving readings from a work called Abélard;[ [55] he speaks of it as a singular production in dramatic form, the reading of which will occupy three sessions of three hours each—a very long period.