Since your departure I have endured some painful experiences. My poor old Caroline died at my home, after great suffering; so now I am without a cook, and do not know exactly what I shall do. After her death her nieces came to dispute her estate. One of them, however, took her cat, which I intended to keep. She left, it seems, an income of twelve or fifteen hundred francs. It has been demonstrated to me that she could not have saved that amount from the wages which she earned with me, and yet I do not believe she ever robbed me. If she did, I would agree willingly to be robbed in that way always. I have had a strong desire to have a cat like the late Matifas, who approved of you so heartily, but I am going soon on a journey to the Pyrenees, and I shall have no time to train him.
They tell me the waters of Bagnères-de-Bigorre will do me the most good. I have no faith in their curative powers, but the surrounding mountains are beautiful, and I have friends in the vicinity. M. Panizzi will come for me the 5th of August, and we shall return together by way of Nîmes, Avignon, and Lyons. I shall hope to reach Paris the same time that you do.
Madame de Montijo arrived last week: she is greatly changed, and distressing to see. Nothing consoles her for the death of her daughter, and she seems to me less resigned than when the shock came. I dined last Thursday at Saint Cloud, with a few intimate friends, and enjoyed it not a little. They are less popish, I fancy, than is generally supposed. They allowed me to be as critical as I pleased, without calling me to order. The little prince is charming. He has grown two inches, and is the prettiest child I have ever seen.
To-morrow our work on the Campana Museum will be finished. The sympathisers of the purchasers are enraged, and hurl abuse at us in the papers. We should have a long story to tell if we wished to bring to light all the absurdities they have committed and the rubbish which has been palmed off on them for genuine antiques.
It is horribly warm here, but I do not find it uncomfortable. They say it is good for the grain. Good-bye, dear friend....
CCLIII
Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Villa Laquens,
Hautes-Pyrénées, Saturday,
August 16, 1862.
Dear Friend: I have been here for three days with M. Panizzi, after a most fatiguing journey under a frightful sun. He left us (it is the sun of which I speak) day before yesterday, and we are now having weather worthy of London, with fog, and an imperceptible, drizzling rain, which soaks through to your very bones.
I have met here one of my friends, who is the resident physician. He has made a thorough examination of me, punched me in the back and chest, and discovered that I have two mortal diseases, of which he has undertaken to cure me, provided that I drink every day two glasses of warm water, the taste of which is not bad, and which does not give me palpitation of the heart, as ordinary water does. I am to bathe, moreover, in a certain spring of which the water is hot, but which is very agreeable to the skin. It seems to me that the treatment is doing me much good. I have rather disagreeable palpitation in the morning, and I sleep badly, but have a good appetite. According to your manner of reasoning, you will conclude that I am going to have a marvellous cure.
There are few people here, and almost no one of my acquaintance, which pleases me to excess. The crops of Englishmen and prunes have been this year a complete failure.