I returned from Biarritz in an excellent state of preservation, but after three days I experienced all the rigours incident to a change of climate. The fact is, I have been almost constantly desperately ill, not from cholera, but from my usual trouble, inability to breathe, from which may God preserve you! For several days, I have been better. I think that Compiègne will make me much worse, but I shall hasten to take my flight to the South and count on the sunshine to live through the winter, which the successors of M. Mathieu (de la Drôme) predict will be a severe one. You, I suppose, expect to be in a mild climate on the borders of the Loire. I hope, at any rate, that you have neither cold nor rheumatism. Would that I were able to say as much!
You can not imagine the scandalous gossip concerning the princess Anna’s marriage, nor the ridiculous anger and rage of the faubourg Saint Germain. There is not a family with a daughter who did not count on the duc de Mouchy. The burning question at present is, “If they make calls, shall we leave cards for them?”
On the other hand, there is in the marriage market at this moment a young girl with several millions in her pocket, and about fifty others to come to her. She is a pretty girl, somewhat mysterious, the daughter of M. Heine, who died this year; an adopted daughter, of course, whose origin no one knows. But in consideration of the millions, the greatest names of France, Italy, and Germany are ready to overlook all the dulness and stupidity. Adopted children of this sort are very pleasing to the goddess Fortune. The Greeks of to-day call them children of the soul; is it not a pretty name?
Have you read the Chansons des Rues et des Bois, of Victor Hugo? They will read them, I fancy, at ——. Will you tell me if you find a marked difference between his former poetry and that of to-day? Has he become suddenly mad, or has he always been so? For my part, I incline to the latter.
There is living at present only one man of genius: that is M. Ponson du Terrail. Have you read any of his feuilletons? No one equals him in dealing with crime and assassination. I revel in it.
If you were here, I should endeavour to shake your orthodoxy by making you read a curious book on Moses, David, and Saint Paul. It is not an idyl such as Renan writes, but a dissertation, a little too larded with Greek, and even Hebrew. Still, the book is worth the trouble of reading; and, turning to the text, the story of that Yankee who, wishing to write a novel, has written a religious book, and a successful one, is but a rehash. Nothing is more common than to catch a carp when one thinks he is fishing for gudgeon. But you do not enjoy conversation like this, and you are right; there are other things to talk of.
Good-bye, dear friend. I am anxious to see you once more in the flesh.
CCLXXXVI
Cannes, January 2, 1866.
Dear Friend: I did not know where to write to you, and this is why I have not written before. You lead such a wandering life, that no one knows where to catch you. I regretted exceedingly that I did not overtake you between Paris and ——, your two customary lairs. You have fallen into the habit of subordinating yourself, in the phraseology of the Saint Simonians of my youth. Now you are the victim of the fisher-folk at ——; again, and more often, you are the victim of that child whom you adore, so that there is no longer any opportunity to see you as in the good old days, when it made me so happy to walk with you. Do you remember them?