I shall start without fail on the 8th, stopping to spend the night at Bayonne, and reaching Madrid the 11th. I do not yet know how long I shall be there. From Madrid I shall go to Cannes, perhaps without passing through Paris. Winter is already making itself felt disagreeably for my lungs, in the mornings and evenings. The days are magnificent, but the evenings devilish chilly. Take care not to catch cold in the damp country in which you are staying. I enjoy myself well enough at this season in Paris, where there are no social duties, and where one may live like a hermit. From time to time I go out to get the news, but I obtain very little.
The Pope has forbidden the painting of signs in French in Rome. They must all be in Italian. On the Corso there is a Madame Bernard, who sells gloves and garters. They have forced her to call herself henceforth Signora Bernardi. If I were the Government I should never have permitted this, even if it were necessary to hang some sign-painter in front of the first shop which they wished to change. When our army shall have departed, you will see then what those people will do....
Here the sharks—that is to say, the money-lenders—are scowling on the nomination of M. —— to the Bank; but it is not known that when one is supposed to be good for nothing, it is then that they select him. It is the custom. M. —— went to the Bank, his night-cap in his pocket, expecting to sleep there the night succeeding his nomination. He was told that every preparation had been made to receive him, except the accomplishment of one small formality, which was, to purchase a hundred shares of stock of the said Bank. M. —— was completely ignorant of this little article in the charter of the establishment of which he is to be a director. A great nuisance it is, inasmuch as a hundred shares are not to be easily found, and, besides the money it will require several weeks at least to procure them. You see how much he understands about business.
There is still another big scandal here, which amuses perverse people, but I shall not tell you about it for fear of making you angry. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCLXXVI
Madrid, October 24, 1864.
DEAR FRIEND: I came here by chance, for I am stopping in the country, and shall remain there until Saturday. It is abominably cold and damp, and in consequence Madame de M.’s niece has taken erysipelas. Half of the household are ill, and I have a severe cold. You are aware that colds are serious matters to me, who find it difficult enough to breathe even when I am well. The bad weather has continued a week, with shocking violence, in harmony with the fashion of this country, where transitions, of whatever sort are unknown.
Can you imagine the misery of people living on an elevated plateau, exposed to every wind that blows, and having no means of keeping warm excepting braseros, a primitive article of furniture which gives one the choice of freezing or suffocating? I find that civilisation here has made great progress, which, in my eyes, is no improvement. The women have adopted your absurd hats, and wear them in the most grotesque fashion. The bulls, also, have lost much of their merit, and the men who kill them are nowadays ignorant, cowardly fellows.
This is the delightful story which now absorbs the minds of the respectable public. Lady C., the wife of the minister of ——, she young and pretty, he old and ugly, sued for divorce, on the grounds that her husband was unjust towards her. The trial took place in London, and it was decreed gallantly that he was a good-for-nothing. There are, however, women in Madrid who assume to know that it was a calumny. However that may be, the woman obtained her divorce, and almost immediately afterwards married the duke of ——, who had for some time paid court to her in Madrid. It seems that she has not the same grounds of complaint towards her new husband as she had to the former, but here is the devil of an affair. The duke of —— has sued his half-sister, the duchess of ——, on account of certain deeds, estates, etc. She has just discovered that her brother, who was born in France, in order to succeed to his inheritance, had presented a certificate of baptism signed by a curé, an act which in France is illegal. It is found, moreover, that this certificate is a counterfeit, and is contradicted by the certificate of birth at the office of the Registry of State, which proves that the present duke was born in Paris several years previously, of an unknown mother. This mother is the third wife of the duke of ——, married at that time to a fourth, for in that family the marriages are always out of the ordinary.
This is going to make a pretty lawsuit, as you will see, and it is quite possible that ex-lady C. will find herself some fine morning with no peerage and no fortune. Meanwhile, she will soon arrive in Madrid with her husband, and sir J. C. has requested a change of residence.