“Biarritz, 27 Septembre, 1863.

“Nous avons eu un très agréable voyage de Tarbes à Pau et à Biarritz. Vos commissions ont été fidèlement remplies et aussitôt que possible. Je suis chargé pour vous de tous les compliments et tendresses des dames et des messieurs à commencer par deux augustes personnages. Adieu et portez-vous bien.

Je veux vous dire, mon cher M. Panizzi, tout le regret que j’ai de ne plus vous avoir parmi nous. Je vous demande de vouloir bien me conserver un de vos bons et meilleurs souvenirs.

Votre alliée politique,

Eugénie.”

These letters to Panizzi must not, however, cause us to lose ourselves in a labyrinth of quotations and remarks.

It is to be feared that enough has already been placed before the reader to spoil his enjoyment of the collection itself, and more than enough to fulfil our own purpose of throwing light on Mérimée’s life and opinions from the letters themselves. By no means always, but certainly sometimes, it has happened that absolute dependence on some more solid reward than popular applause has tended to fetter the pen of a brilliant writer. It is equally true that what is done by men for their diversion is frequently of superior merit to that which is the product of sheer necessity, and we have often thought, though this, we admit, may be but fancy, that the peculiar facility conspicuous throughout Mérimée’s works might be traced to the fact that, being placed by fortune above necessity, he wrote as one in no way enforced, and as much for his own pleasure as for the amusement of his readers. The style of some of his lighter works, it may be remarked en passant, reminds one strongly of some of Voltaire’s Romans, than which there can assuredly be no higher praise.

Of artist blood on the side both of his father and mother, he inherited much of his parents’ ability, and has left behind a goodly stock of productions, of which (Exceptis Excipiendis for one, at least, might be objected to on the ground of propriety) it is much to be wished that a collection could be made.

Readers of these letters to Panizzi, and, indeed, of other of Mérimée’s works, can hardly fail to notice how greatly he, in common with his friend and correspondent, was affected by a malady, and that no imaginary one, common enough amongst the Roman Catholic nations, but little known in this country—the hatred of priests.

Nor is it much to be wondered at that, in countries where the Church seems to exist for itself alone, and not for that purpose for which it is supposed to have been founded—the benefit of mankind—where it dwells as a foreign authority, ever busied in jealously watching the temporal power, and opposing all that may be done for the cause of civilization and political advancement, simply because done by the State—the well-drilled officials of such a system should be viewed by the patriot and statesman, by a Panizzi, a Mérimée, or a Cavour, with mistrust and dislike. The letter to Panizzi, however, announcing the death and burial of Mérimée, with which this chapter concludes, shows a result not always brought about by this feeling of hatred of priests; yet we cannot but think that Mérimée had ceased to be a Roman Catholic in the strict sense of the term, rather than become a Protestant of any kind, and that his express desire for the place and manner of his burial is to be taken more as a protest against the creed of his birth than as a sign of his acceptance of any other. However this may be, it is hard to acquit the priests of the charge of alienating yet another eminent man from that communion.