At the end of June, Bismarck took a short trip to the Exhibition in London, and returned to Paris on the 5th of July. On the 14th he wrote to his wife:—
From your letter of the 9th of this month I have learnt with joy that you are well, and I hope to read the same again to-morrow morning. To-day the courier at last arrived, on whose account I left London more than a week ago. I should like to have remained there some days longer—I saw so many pretty faces and fine horses. But the Embassy is a horror; well furnished, but on the ground-floor, besides the staircase, there are only three apartments, one a chancery, another a dining-room, and between both, serving as a common rendezvous for dinner, without a corner in which to take off a dressing-gown, the study of His Excellency. If wash-hand basins, etc., are wanted there, it is necessary to mount the high, tall stairway, and pass through the principal bedroom into a little dog-hole of a living-room. On the first-floor is one great saloon, a small ball-room; next to it the afore-mentioned sleeping-room and dog-hole; that is the whole of the living-room. Two stairs higher there are two rooms for the secretary, and five small places for children, tutor, governess, etc. On the third-floor, under the roof, room for the servants, the kitchen in the basement. I get quite miserable at the idea of being cooped up in such a place. On my application for leave of absence, I have to-day received a reply from Berlin, that the King could not yet determine whether he could give me leave, because the question whether I should accept the Presidency would be held in suspense for six weeks, and I might write whether I thought it necessary to enter the present session of the Chambers, and when, and whether before the commencement of my leave I would come to Berlin. The latter I shall endeavor to avoid—shall propose that I be left here in peace till the winter, and during the interval, say the day after to-morrow or Thursday, go to Trouville, west from Havre-on-the-Sea, and there await the winter. I can always get here from that place in five hours. Since yesterday we have had fine weather; until then it was miserably cold, with endless rain. Yesterday I employed in dining at St. Germain, a fine wood, two versts long, a terrace above the Seine, with a charming view over forests, hills, towns, and villages, all green up to Paris. I have just driven through the Bois de Boulogne in the mildest moonlight—thousands of carriages in a Corso file, water-surfaces with gay lights, an open-air concert; and now to bed. Our carriages have reached Stettin; I shall have them housed there or in Külz. All my colleagues are gone, and the only acquaintance with whom I have any intercourse is old ——, which neither of us dreamt of twenty years ago. My servants are Lemburg, a Russian, an Italian Fazzi, who was footman to Stolberg in Morocco, three Frenchmen (chancery-servant, coachman, and cook), and an Electoral Hessian, with a Belgian wife, as porters.
Bismarck went first to Trouville, as he announces; but he was so uncomfortable there that he left in a very few days. On the 25th of July he entered upon that beautiful journey to the south-west of France into Spain, where he found strength for the important problem which fell, two months later, to his lot—that great task he did not seek, but did not refuse. He enjoyed the pleasure of this refreshment with keen appreciation, for he well knew what was before him. He enjoyed the sea-baths of San Sebastian and Biarritz particularly; he was all “sea-salt and sun;” he lived “as in Stolpmünde, only without sack.” He climbed the Pyrenees, and delighted in the mulberries, olives, and red grapes of Avignon, and was so industrious a correspondent towards his wife, that the blue envelopes, in which his letters flew from the Spanish frontier to Farther Pomerania, did not last. How many of these letters were written in the open air, upon a rock, upon the grass, with a newspaper underneath them! Some of these may find their place here.
Bordeaux, 27th July, 1862.
You can not refuse me the testimonial of being an industrious correspondent; this morning I wrote to your birthday child from Chenonceaux, and this evening I write from the city of red wine. These lines, however, will arrive a day later than those, the mail only going at noon to-morrow. I have only left Paris the day before yesterday, but it seems to me a week. I have seen some very beautiful castles. Chambord, of which the plans torn from a book give a very imperfect idea, in its desolation corresponds to the fate of its possessor. In the spacious halls and magnificent saloons, where kings and their mistresses held their court amidst hunting scenes, the childish playthings of the Duke of Bordeaux are the only furniture. The guide thought I was a French legitimist, and repressed a tear when she showed me the little cannon of her master. I paid for the tears, according to tariff, with an extra franc, although I have no calling to subvent Carlism. The castle courts were as quiet in the sun as deserted churchyards. From the towers there is an expansive prospect; but on all sides there are silent woods and broom to the utmost horizon—no town, no village, no farm either near the castle or around it. From the inclosed examples of broom you will hardly recognize how purple these plants, so beloved by me, grow there—the only flower in the royal gardens, and swallows almost the only living tenants of the castle. It is too lonely for sparrows. The old castle of Amboise is magnificently situated; one can see from the top six miles either way down the Loire. Thence one gradually passes into the south. Wheat disappears, and gives place to maize; in between rank woods of vines and chestnuts, castles and forts, with many towers, chimneys, and gables, quite white, with high pointed slate roofs. The heat was glowing, and I was glad to have half a coupé to myself. In the evening, splendid sheet lightning in the east, and now a pleasant coolness, which, in our own land, we should think somewhat sultry. The sun sets at 7.35. In Petersburg one would be able to see now, about eleven, without lights. Till now, no letter has arrived for me; perhaps I shall find one at Bayonne. I shall stop here some two days, to see where our wines grow.
Bordeaux, Wednesday, 29th July, 1862.
Your letter of the 23d yesterday reached me safely, and I thank God you are well. Yesterday, with our Consul and a General, I made a charming tour through Médoc. I drank Lafitte, Mouton, Pichon, Laroze, Latour, Margaux St. Julien, Branne, Armeillac, and other wines in their original names, in the cellar. Thermometer 30° in the shade, 55° in the sun; but with good wine inside this is not felt at all. I am just starting for Bayonne, and will write thence more quietly than now, in the custody of the railway.
Bayonne, 29th July, 1862.