CCLVI
Paris, October 23, 1862.
Dear Friend: I have had an exciting time since the beginning of the month; this is the reason for my delay in answering your letter. I returned from Biarritz with the sovereigns. We were all in a doleful state, having been poisoned, I think, with verdigris. The cooks swear that they scoured their utensils, but I do not believe in their protestations. The fact is that fourteen persons at the villa were seized with vomiting and cramps. I have been poisoned before with verdigris, so that I know the symptoms of it, and persist in my opinion.
I remained in Paris a few days, running about and attending to business matters, and then went to Marseilles, to the christening of the China steam-packets. You understand that this ceremony required my presence. These boats are so beautiful, and have such comfortable little state-rooms, that they give you the desire to go to China. I resisted, however, and contented myself by taking a sun-bath at Marseilles.
You have divined, perhaps, the meaning of my reference to the turmoil in which I was engaged on my return from Biarritz—political affairs, if you please. I was divided between my wish to see M. Fould remain in the ministry, in the interest of the Master, and my wish to see him resign, in the interest of his dignity, and in his own interest. The result has been concessions which have benefited no one, and which seem to me to have been degrading to everybody concerned.
The most absurd part of the business has been that Persigny, whom none of the ministers, with the exception of the papists, can endure, has become their standard-bearer, and his retention has been made a condition of holding their portfolios. Thus, Thouvenel, an excellent and intelligent fellow, has been dismissed, and Persigny, who is a fool and who has no understanding of affairs, retained. Now we are in the clutches of the clericals for no one knows how long, and you know how they treat their friends.
You seem to me to be too much affected by Victor Hugo’s speech. It is words without ideas; somewhat in prose like Les Orientales. To attune yourself to good prose, I commend you to read one of Madame de Sévigné’s letters, and, if you still have a taste for common-sense and ideas, read the twentieth volume of Thiers, which is the best of all. I have read it twice, the second time with more pleasure than the first, and I do not say that I shall not read it once more.
I should like to know something of your plans. I will tell you my own. I expect to go to Compiègne towards the 8th of next month, and remain there until after the Empress’s fête—that is, until the 18th or 20th. Before or after that time, may I not see you? It seems to me that the country must be very cold and damp at this season, and that you should think of returning....
Good-bye, dear friend. I hope you are still in good appetite and health.
CCLVII
Paris, November 5, 1862.
Dear Friend: I am invited to Compiègne until the 18th. I shall be in Paris the 10th, until three o’clock, and hope to see you. Write to me and tell me a great deal about yourself. I disapprove strongly of your new literary taste. I am now reading a book which might, however, interest you; it is the history of the revolt of the Netherlands, by Motley. I will send it to you, if you wish. There are no less than five thick volumes; and while not specially well written, it reads easily, and interests me no little. He has much anticatholic and antimonarchical partiality; but his researches have been extensive, and although an American, he is a man of talent.
I have taken cold, and have pain in my lungs. You will hear some day that I have ceased to breathe for lack of this organ. This should make you treat me with great kindness, before the arrival of such a misfortune. Good-bye, dear friend....
CCLVIII
Cannes, December 5, 1862.
Dear Friend: I arrived here between two deluges, and for four days I thought there was no longer any sun even at Cannes. When it once begins to rain in this land, it is no joke. The fields between Cannes and the Estérel were transformed into a lake, and it was impossible to stick one’s head out of doors. Still, in the midst of this down-pour the air was mild and agreeable to breathe. Since I became asthmatic, I have been as sensitive in the matter of air as the Romans are respecting water.
That condition of affairs, fortunately, did not last long. The sun reappeared radiant three days ago, and since then, I have kept my windows open all the time, and am almost too warm. It is only the flies which remind me of the vexations of life.
Before leaving Paris, I consulted a celebrated doctor, for since my return from Compiègne I believed myself to be in a very serious state, and I wanted to know how soon I should have to arrange for my funeral. I am pleased enough with having consulted him, in the first place, because he assured me that this ceremony would not take place as soon as I had feared; in the second place, because he explained to me, anatomically, and with perfect clearness, the cause of my illness. I supposed my heart was affected; not so at all; it is my lung. It is true that I shall never be cured, but there are means by which I may be spared suffering; which is a great deal, if not the principal consideration.
You can form no idea of the beauty of the country after all these rains. May roses are in bloom everywhere; jasmines are beginning to bloom, as also quantities of wild flowers, each more beautiful than the others. I should like to take a course in botany with you in the neighbouring woods; you would see whether they are not equal to those at Bellevue.
I have received, I know not from whom, the last book of M. Gustave Flaubert, the author of Madame Bovary, which you have read, I fancy, although you will not admit that you have. I suppose he had talent, which he was squandering under the pretext of realism. He has just perpetrated a new novel, called Salammbô. In any other place than Cannes, particularly, where there was nothing to read but La Cuisinière Bourgeoise, I should not have opened this volume. It is a story of Carthage several years before the Second Punic War. By reading Bouillet and some other works of the same class, the author has acquired a sort of false erudition, and he accompanies this with a lyricism imitated from the very worst of Victor Hugo’s. There are passages which will please you, doubtless, since, like all persons of your sex, you like magniloquence. As for me, I detest it, and it has made me furious.
Since I have been here, and especially since the rain, I have continued my Cossack article. It will take long, I fear, to finish. I shall send soon to Paris a second instalment, and there will be more to follow. I discover that I forgot to bring with me a map of Poland, and I am embarrassed in writing Polish names, of which I have only the Russian translation. If you have within your reach some means of ascertaining it, will you endeavour to find out if a city which in Russian is called Lwow, is not perhaps the same as Lemberg in Galicia? You will be doing me a great service.
Good-bye, dear friend, I hope winter is not using you too severely, and that you are taking care to avoid colds. Is your little niece still amiable? Do not spoil her, so that she will store up future unhappiness for herself.
I wish you would go to see the comedy of my friend M. Augier, and that you would give me your candid opinion of it. Good-bye once more.
CCLIX
Cannes, January 3, 1863.
Dear Friend: I began the year badly enough, in my bed, with a very painful attack of lumbago, which did not allow me even the privilege of turning over. This is what you get in these beautiful climates, where, so long as the sun is above the horizon, you imagine that it is summer, but where immediately after sunset comes a quarter of an hour of damp chilliness that penetrates to the very marrow of your bones. It is precisely as in Rome, with the difference that here it is rheumatism, and there fever, against which one must guard. To-day my back has regained some of its elasticity, and I have begun to walk.
I have had a visit from my old friend M. Ellice, who spent twenty-four hours with me and renewed my stock of news, and my ideas, which had become strikingly shrivelled by my sojourn in Provence. Everything considered, this is the only inconvenience of living away from Paris. One soon comes to be a log when one does not share the tastes of my friend, M. de Laprade, who would like to be an oak. This transformation has in it nothing agreeable.
If I continue to improve I think of returning to Paris on the 18th or 20th, to hear the discussion of the address, which they tell me will be warm and interesting. After having paid my respects, I shall come back to the sunshine; for if I had to endure the sleets and winds and mud of Paris in February, I should assuredly kick the bucket....
You are wrong not to read Salammbô. It is perfectly mad, it is true, and it contains even more of anguish and more of abominations than the Vie de Chmielnicki; but, after all, it has talent, and one gains an amusing idea of the author, and one even more droll of his admirers, the bourgeois, who wish to discuss affairs with honest folk. It is these same bourgeois whom my friend, M. Augier, has ridiculed so well. I am assured that no one with any self-respect will confess that he has been to see Le Fils de Giboyer. For all that, the cash-box of the theatre, and the purse of the author are filled to overflowing.
I recommend you to read in the Revue des Deux Mondes of the 15th, a novel by M. de Tourguenieff, the proofs of which I am expecting here, and which I have read in Russian. It is called Fathers and Sons, and its theme is the contrast of the past generation with that of the present. The hero of the story is the representative of the rising generation, a socialist, materialist, and realist, but a man, nevertheless, who is intelligent and interesting. He is a singular character, and would please you, I hope. This novel has produced a tremendous sensation in Russia, and there has been a strong outcry against the author, who has been accused of impiety and immorality. When a work excites thus the furious invective of the public, it is, in my opinion, a sufficient proof of its success.
I think I shall have to make you read again the second part of Chmielnicki, the proofs of which I corrected while I was ill on my back. You will see in the book an enormous quantity of Cossacks impaled, and Jews burned alive.
I shall be in Paris, not to hear the address of the crown, but only the discussion of the address—that is, I suppose, about the 20th or the 21st; still, if it were more convenient for your personal plans, I might hasten my arrival.
Good-bye, dear friend. I wish you health and happiness, and no lumbago. Good-bye. Do not forget me.
CCLX
Cannes, January 28, 1863.
Dear Friend: I was preparing to start for Paris, and expected to be there the 20th, when I was seized with another attack of my spasms of the stomach. I had a terrible cold, with most distressing choking, and kept my bed for a week. The physician told me that if I were to return to Paris before being entirely cured I should certainly have a relapse, which would be more serious than my present illness, so I shall remain where I am for another fortnight. I understand, besides, that the discussion of the address will be uninteresting, and that everything will pass quietly and quickly.
At present I am pretty well, a little weakly still, but I am beginning to go out again and to lead my usual life. The weather is admirable: this climate, however, is somewhat treacherous, and less than any one else I should allow myself to be deceived by it. So long as the sun is above the horizon one would suppose it was June; five minutes after sunset, however, arises a penetrating dampness. It is from admiring the beautiful sunsets too long that I have been ill.
They tell me that you have had no severe cold, but fog and rain. Around about us an incredible amount of snow has fallen, and nothing is lovelier at this time than the sight of the mountains all white with snow, surrounding our little green oasis.
How have you spent your time? Have you escaped catching cold and what sort of a life are you leading? I devote my evenings to writing for the Journal des Savants. That beast of a Chmielnicki is not yet dead, and will cost me, I fear, two more articles still before I can write his funeral oration. I have already written two as long as the one you read, and as abundant in impalements, flayings, and other pleasantries of the kind. I am apprehensive lest it is too much like Salammbô. You must tell me your candid opinion, if you come across this rare Journal des Savants, which the ignorant persist in neglecting to read in spite of its worth.
We have had a tragedy in our neighbourhood. A pretty English girl was burned fatally at a ball. Her mother, in trying to rescue her, was burned also. Both died in three or four days. The husband, who was burned also, is still ill. This is the eighteenth woman of my acquaintance to whom this has happened. Why do you wear crinoline? You should set an example. It is only necessary to turn around before the chimney-place, or to look at one’s self in the mirror (there is one always above the fireplace), to be roasted alive. It is true that one dies but once, and that it is a great source of satisfaction to exhibit a monstrous bustle, as if any one could be deceived by a balloon full of air! Why do you not have a metallic curtain before your chimney-place?
It seems that they are becoming more religious in Paris. I receive sermons from people from whom I should have expected something quite different. I am told that M. de Persigny came out as an ultra-papist in the committee of the Address to the Senate. Well and good, I do not believe there has ever been a period in the history of the world when it was more stupid than it is in this age. All this will last while it may, but the end is a little terrifying. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCLXI
Paris, April 26, 1863.
Dear Friend: As I was not counting on your travelling tortoise fashion, I did not write to you at Genoa. I am addressing this letter to Florence, where I hope that you will stop for a time. Of all the cities of Italy that I know, it has best retained its characteristics of the Middle Ages. Only be careful not to catch cold, if you stay on the Lung’ Arno, as all respectable people do.
As for Rome, it has been so long since I was there that I am unable to advise you about it. I shall offer you suggestions only on the two following points: first, do not be out in the air at twilight, because you might easily catch the fever. A quarter of an hour before the Angelus you should go to Saint Peter’s, and wait there until the peculiar dampness which arises just at that time should have passed. There is nothing, moreover, more beautiful as a place of reverie than this great church at the fall of day. In the dimness, when all is seen indistinctly, it is truly sublime. Think of me there.
My second suggestion is, if you should have a rainy day, employ it by visiting the Catacombs. While you are there, go into one of the small corridors opening on the subterranean streets, extinguish your candle, and remain alone there three or four minutes. You must tell me the sensations which you felt. It would be a pleasure to me to make the experiment with you, but then you would not feel, perhaps, the same emotions.
It has never happened to me to see in Rome what I had intended to see, because one is attracted on every street-corner by something unexpected, and it is a great pleasure to yield one’s self to that sensation. I advise you, also, not to devote too much time to visiting palaces, which are for the most part overestimated.
Pay special attention to the frescos, regarding them from an artistic standpoint, and to views of nature blended with art. I commend to you the view of Rome and of its surroundings seen from Saint Peter’s in Montorio. You will see there, also, a very beautiful fresco of the Vatican. Be sure to see at the Capitol the Wolf of the Republic, which bears the trace of the lightning which struck it in the time of Cicero. It is not a thing of yesterday.
Make up your mind that you will not be able to see the hundredth part of what you wish to see, in the short time that you can devote to your journey, but you need have few regrets on that score. There will remain with you a memory of the whole, which is far better than a lot of petty memories of details.
I am feeling infinitely better, and regret your departure. I will say to you, however, and to your sister, that you have done well to take advantage of the opportunity to see Rome. There remains only the question of damages due me, which I pray you to keep in mind; I hope you will sometimes think of this.
There is not a beautiful place which I have seen, where I have not regretted my inability to associate you with it in my memory.
Good-bye, dear friend. Let me hear from you often, a few lines only; enjoy yourself, and come back in good condition. When I know that you are in Rome I shall give you some commissions. Good-bye again.
CCLXII
Paris, May 20, 1863.
Dear Friend: I am writing to you with an abominable grippe. For two weeks I have coughed instead of sleeping, and I have frequent attacks of choking. The only remedy is to take laudanum, and this gives me headache and stomach-ache, which are as distressing as the cough and the choking. In short, I feel weak and avvilito, and I am going to the dogs, my health and myself.
I hope it is not the same with you. I believe I have cautioned you to guard against the dampness accompanying the sunset in the country where you are now. Take care never to get cold, even if you should be too warm. I envy you for being in that beautiful land, where one feels a melancholy that is sweet and agreeable, which he recalls afterwards with an emotion of pleasure: but to make the comparison better, I wish you would go to Naples for a week. Of all transitions, it is the most abrupt and the most amusing that I know. It has, moreover, the advantage of comedy after tragedy; one falls asleep with his head full of comical thoughts.
I do not know whether the science of cooking has made any advancement in the states of the Holy Father. In my time it was the abomination of desolation, while in Naples one managed to subsist. It is possible that the political revolutions have laid equally low the cookery of both Rome and Naples, and that, epicure as you are, you will find them both bad.
We are thriving here on the experiences which have happened, or have been ascribed to Madame de ——. What is certain is that she is crazy enough to be bound. She beats her servants, she slaps and strikes people, and makes love to several fast fellows at the same time. She pushes her Anglomania to the point of drinking brandy and water—that is to say, a great deal more of the former than the latter.
The other evening she introduced her foppish lover to President Troplong, by saying, “Monsieur le President, I present to you my darling.” M. Troplong replied that he was happy to make the acquaintance of M. Darling. If what I hear of the reigning society women of this year is true, it is to be feared that the end of the world is at hand. I dare not tell you all that is done in Paris among the young representatives of the rising generation!
I hoped that you would relate some incidents of your journey, or at least that you would share your impressions with me. It is always a pleasure for me to know how things appear to you. Do not forget to look at the statue of Pompey, which is probably the one at the base of which Caesar was assassinated; and if you discover the shop of a man named Cades, who sells imitation antiques and pottery, buy me an intaglio of some beautiful stone. If you should go through Civita Vecchia, go to a curio merchant named Bucci, give him my regards, and thank him for the plaster cast of Beyle which he sent me. You can purchase from him for a song black Etruscan vases, engraved gems, and other things of the kind. You can decorate your mantel charmingly with those black vases.
Good-bye, dear friend. Keep well, and think sometimes of me.
CCLXIII
Paris, Friday, June 12, 1863.
Dear Friend: I learn with great pleasure of your return to France, and with even greater pleasure of your intention to be in Paris soon. It seems to me that the trouble you took to be coquettish in order to work that unfortunate Bucci was truly extraordinary. If I had given you a letter of introduction to him, according to my intention, you might have carried away his whole shop, without the necessity of resorting to the process of wheedling so habitual to you. Indeed, he is a fine man to have retained an affection for Beyle, whose only resource he was during his exile at Civita Vecchia. It would have been better to have induced him to speak of the pontifical government. If he had been as sincere as he was gallant, he would have given you more information on that subject than all the ambassadors in Rome. The long and the short of that information would be, to tell you what you already know, I hope....
I leave the 21st for Fontainebleau, which will prevent me, it may be, from going to Germany, as I had planned, the end of this month. I shall be there until July 5th—that is to say, until the end of the sojourn. I think you will have returned next week, and that I shall see you before my departure. I hope this will decide you to come a little earlier, if need be.
You do not refer to your health. I suppose that, in spite of the wretched papal cooking, you are returning in good condition. I have had influenza constantly, more or less, and have been wheezy as usual, in the bargain. The stay at Fontainebleau will certainly finish me up, according to all the indications. I will tell you why I did not endeavour to escape this honour.
I am thinking of taking a short trip to Germany this summer, in order to see the propylons of my friend, M. Klenze, in Munich, and also to take the waters which have been advised for me, but in which I have no great faith. As I am unaccustomed to being ill, I persevere tenaciously in trying to get well, and if I do not succeed, I do not wish it to be from any fault of mine.
You have not dared, probably, to read Mademoiselle de la Quintinie, while you were on holy ground. It is mediocre. The book has but one pretty scene. In novels I know of nothing new that is worthy of your wrath. Chmielnicki is in its fifth article, which I am now correcting, and it is not the final one. I will give you the proofs, if you like, if you can read them not corrected.
Good-bye, dear friend. I should be glad if you would decide to hasten your return.
CCLXIV
Palace of Fontainebleau, Thursday, July 2, 1863.
Dear Friend: I should have liked to reply sooner to your letter, which gave me much pleasure; but here one has no time for anything, and the days pass with an astonishing rapidity without knowing how. The important and principal occupations are eating, drinking, and sleeping. I am successful in respect to the first two, but not as to the last. It is a very poor preparation for sleep to spend three or four hours in tight trousers, rowing on the lake, and catching a terrible cold. There are a number of people here, well selected, it seems to me, and much less official than usual; which contributes to the cordial relations between the guests. Now and then we take walks in the woods, after dining on the grass like the milliners of the rue Saint Denis.
Several immense chests were brought here day before yesterday from his Majesty Tu-Duc, the Emperor of Cochin-China. They were opened in one of the court-yards. Within the large chest were smaller ones painted red and gold, and covered with roaches. The first which was opened contained two very yellow elephant tusks, and two rhinoceros horns, plus a package of mouldy cinnamon. From all this there arose inconceivable odours, something between rancid butter and spoiled fish. In the other chest were quantities of rolls of very narrow stuffs resembling gauze, in all sorts of hideous colours, all more or less soiled, and, moreover, mouldy. They had promised to send some gold medallions, but they did not come, and have remained, probably, in China. The inference is that this great Emperor of Cochin-China is a fraud.
We went yesterday to see the manœuvres of two regiments of cavalry, and were horribly roasted. All the ladies are sun-burned. To-day we are going to have a Spanish dinner in the forest, and I am charged with the gaspacho—that is, to make the ladies eat raw onions. The mere mention of this vegetable would cause them to faint. I have given orders that they are not to be warned, and after they have eaten the onions I reserve to myself the privilege of making a confession, in the manner of that of Atræus.
I am delighted that my Cossack[30] has not bored you to death. For my own part I am beginning to be very tired of him. It is absolutely necessary to bury him the first of next month, and I do not know how to bring it about. Although I brought my notes and books with me, I can not succeed in accomplishing any work here.
Good-bye, dear friend. I expect to be here until Monday, or Tuesday at the latest. At the same time, they pretend that on account of our extreme amiability, they wish to hold us here several days still. I hope to find you in Paris when I come. Again good-bye.
CCLXV
London, August 12, 1863.
Dear Friend: I thank you for your letter, which I was expecting impatiently. I thought I should find London empty, and, indeed, that was the first impression which I received. But after two days I perceived that the great ant-hill was still inhabited, and especially, alas! that they ate as much and as long as they did last year. Is not the slowness with which people dine in this country inhuman? It even takes away my appetite. One is never less than two hours and a half at table, and if we add the half hour in which the men leave the women to speak ill of them, it is always eleven o’clock when we return to the drawing-room. It would be only half bad if we were eating all the time; but with the exception of roast mutton, I find nothing to my taste.
The great men seem to me to have aged a little since my last visit. Lord Palmerston has renounced his false teeth, which make an immense change in his appearance. He has retained his whiskers, and looks like a gorilla that is slightly tipsy. Lord Russell has a less good-humoured expression than formerly. The great beauties of the season have departed, but they were not praised as anything extraordinary. The toilets seem to me, as usual, very common and shabby; but nothing can resist the air of this country. My throat is an evidence of it. I am as hoarse as a wolf, and breathe very badly.
I fancy that you must be having cooler weather than we, and that the sea-baths will give you an appetite. I am beginning to be bored with London and the English, and shall be in Paris before the 25th. And you? I have read a rather amusing book, The History of George III, by a Mr. Phillimore, who makes out this prince to be a rascal and a fool. It is very witty, and convincing enough. I paid twenty francs for the last work of Borrow, The Wild Wales. If you want to pay fifteen francs for it, I shall be charmed to turn it over to you. But you will not want it at any price. The fellow has altogether deteriorated. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCLXVI
Paris, August 30, 1863.
I go to-morrow to Biarritz with Panizzi, who joined me here yesterday. We are invited by our gracious sovereign, who will entertain us at the sea-shore for I know not how long. I shall settle in Cannes during October, returning to Paris for the discussion of the address, and remaining here, probably, all the month of November. In spite of presidents and sea-monsters, I hope to see you at that time.
I have an extremely curious book, which I will lend you if you are good and kind to me. It is an account of a trial of the Seventeenth Century, related by an imbecile. A nun belonging to his Majesty’s family was in love with a Milanese gentleman, and as there were other nuns to whom this was displeasing, they killed her, aided by her lover. It is highly edifying, and, as an exponent of the morals of the time, very interesting.
Read Une Saison à Paris, by Madame de ——. She is a person abounding in candour, who felt a keen desire to make herself agreeable to his majesty, and said so to him at a ball in terms so categoric and so definite, that nobody in the world, except yourself, would have failed to understand her. He was so astounded that he found nothing to say in reply, and it was only after three days, so they say, that he repulsed her. I can imagine you making the sign of the cross and that horrified face with which I am so familiar.
Have you read Renan’s Life of Jesus? Probably not. It is a small book, but full of import. ‘Tis like a great blow of an axe on the edifice of Catholicism. The author is so terrified by his own audacity in denying the divinity of Christ, that he loses himself in hymns of praise and adoration, until he has no longer the philosophic understanding which enables him to decide on questions of doctrine. It is interesting, however, and if you have not already done so, you will read it with pleasure.
I have my packing to do, and so I must leave you. My address until the new order is established will be Villa Eugénie, Biarritz (Basses-Pyrénées). Write to me quickly. Good-bye.
CCLXVII
Cannes, October 19, 1863.
Dear Friend: I have been here a week, resting in the desert from the fatigues of the court. The weather is magnificent. I see in the paper that your Loire is overflowing its banks; from which I conclude that you are having frightful storms, and I pity you from the bottom of my heart.
I shall enjoy Provence but a fortnight longer, as I must return for the opening of the session. I am not sanguine over it. The death of M. Billault makes it an unpropitious beginning. For some time past I have talked assiduously, preached and persuaded M. Thiers to preach likewise, but I do not know what will be the result. It seems to me that we are drawing nearer and nearer our former parliamentary course, and that we are about to repeat once more the cycle of the same mistakes, and perhaps the same catastrophes. See, in addition, the strenuous efforts on the part of the clericals to make themselves detested, and to stretch the cord until it snaps. All this is enough to make one pessimistic concerning the future.
You have heard that on our journey here we were derailed near Saint Chamas. I was not at all affected, not even by fear, for I did not realise the danger until it was past. The only persons injured were the mail-clerks, who were thrown in a heap among their tables and chests. They came out of it with severe bruises, but no broken limbs.
Have you read the charge of the Bishop of Tulle, who orders all the pious ones of his diocese to recite Aves in honour of M. Renan, or, rather, to prevent the devil from carrying off everybody, because of this same M. Renan’s book?
Since you are reading the letters of Cicero, you must see that in his age people had more wit than in ours. I am overwhelmed with shame every time I think of our nineteenth century, which I find in every respect so inferior to its predecessors.
I believe I made you read the Lettres de la Duchesse de Choiseul. I wish some one to-day would try to publish those of our most beautiful society woman. I leave you to go fishing, or, rather, to see other people fish, for I have never succeeded in landing a fish. The best part of it is that on the sea-shore they make an excellent soup for those who like oil and garlic. I suppose you are among this class.
Shall I find you in Paris early in November? I am expecting to be able to remain there all the month, except a few days, perhaps, at Compiègne, if my sovereign invites me there for his fête-day. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCLXVIII
Château de Compiègne, November 16, 1863. At night.
Dear Friend: Since my arrival here I have led the exciting life of an impresario. I have been author, actor, and stage director. We have played, with success, a piece which is somewhat immoral, the theme of which I will tell you on my return. We have had beautiful fireworks, although a woman who wished to see them too closely was killed outright. We take long walks, and until the present I have succeeded in escaping from all these diversions without catching cold.
I shall be held here for another week. I shall remain in Paris, probably, until early in December, and shall then return to Cannes, which I left with nature abloom. It is impossible to imagine anything more beautiful than those fields of jasmines and tuberoses. I am not feeling very well, and the last few days especially I have been good for nothing and despondent.
You write to me so laconically, that you never reply to my questions. You have a way of acting in accordance with your caprices which perplexes me always; you jest, you make promises; when I read your letters I fancy I hear your voice speaking. I am disarmed, but in reality furious.
You tell me nothing about that charming child in whom you are so interested. Bring her up, I pray you, so that she will not become as silly as most of the women of our time. Never, I think, has anything like it been seen. You will tell me what they are in the provinces. If they are worse than in Paris, I can not imagine in what desert one may escape them.
We have stopping here Mademoiselle ——, who is a lovely slip of a girl five feet four inches in height, with all the gracefulness of a grisette, and a blending of easy manners with sincere timidity which is sometimes most amusing. Some one expressed apprehension that the second part of a charade would not equal the introduction (of which I was the author).
“That is all right,” she said; “we will show our legs in the ballet, and that will compensate them for everything else.”
N. B.—Her legs are like two pipe-stems, and her feet not exactly aristocratic.
Good-bye, dear friend....
CCLXIX
Paris, Friday, December 12, 1863.
Dear Friend: I was about to write to you when I received your letter. You complain of having a cold, but you do not know what it means to have one. At this moment, but one person in Paris has a cold, and that person is myself. I spend my time coughing and choking, and if it continues, you will soon have to deliver my funeral oration. I am longing anxiously for Cannes, for it is only under its sun that I shall get well. Before going, however, I must vote on that tedious and involved discourse which our president, so worthy of his name,[31] has composed for our edification.
Do you know Aristophanes? Last night, being troubled with insomnia, I took up a volume and read it through. It was highly amusing. I have made a translation of it, none too good a one, but it is subject to your orders. There are things which will be shocking to your prudery, but they will interest you, especially now that you have learned from Cicero something of the morals of the ancients. Good-bye....
CCLXX
Cannes, January 12, 1864.
Dear Friend: I was seriously ill on my arrival here. I brought from Paris an abominable cold, and it is only during the last two days that I have begun to feel like myself. I do not know what would have become of me if I had remained in Paris, for I see by the papers that you are having snow. The weather here is admirable, with seldom a cloud, and a temperature which is usually at least 14 degrees. Occasionally, the east wind brings us a touch of snow caught from the Alps, but we are in a favoured oasis. They tell us that all the surrounding country is under snow. At Marseilles, at Toulon, and even at Hyères, it is said the ground is covered. I imagine a citizen of Marseilles in the snow as something like a cat walking on ice with nut-shells on his paws. It is a long time, even at Cannes, since such a lovely, mild winter has been known.
I am charmed that Aristophanes had the honour of pleasing you. You ask me if the Athenian ladies were present at the theatrical representations? There are men of learning who say Yes, and others who say No. If you had gone to see Karagueuz when you visited the Orient, you would have found, no doubt, many women there. In Eastern countries to-day, and formerly in antiquity, there is not and there never has been any of the false modesty which you have. One saw at every glance men in bathing costumes, and on every public square were statues of gods which gave ladies an exaggerated idea of the human form.
What is the name of that comedy in which Euripides is dressed as a woman? Do you understand the stage setting, and the part of the Scythian gendarme? What is more extraordinary than anything else is the unceremonious fashion in which Aristophanes speaks of the gods, even on their festival days, for it was at the Dionysia that the play of The Frogs was given, wherein Bacchus takes a singular rôle.
The same thing occurred during the early period of Christianity. Comedy was played in the churches. There was a Mass of the Fools and a Mass of the Ass, the text of which is still extant in a very curious manuscript. The wicked have spoiled everything by doubting. When faith was universal, all was permissible.
Besides the absurdities which Aristophanes throws, like lumps of salt, into his plays, there are choruses of the most exquisite poetry. My revered teacher, M. Boissonade, used to say that no other Greek writer had written better poetry. If you have not read it already, I recommend to you The Clouds. It is, to my mind, the best of his plays that have been preserved. In it there occurs a dialogue between the Just and the Unjust, which is in the most elevated style. I think there is some truth in the reproaches which he addresses to Socrates. Even after having heard him in Plato, one is tempted to forgive him the hemlock. A man who proves to every one, as Socrates did, that he is a fool, is a plague.
I have just read that the conspiracies are beginning again. I have no doubt that those Italian devils, and those no less Polish devils, would like to set the world on fire; and the world, unhappily, is so stupid that it will allow it to be done. I have had letters from Italy which cause me to fear that Garibaldi and his volunteers will in the spring undertake some movement against Venice. It needs but some calamity of that sort to finish us up entirely.
Good-bye, dear friend. I try to think as little as possible of the future. Keep well, and think of me now and then. Have you any suggestion for the 14th of February, Sainte-Eulalie’s fête-day? Again good-bye.
CCLXXI
Cannes, February 17, 1864.
Dear Friend: Since you have been willing to take the trouble to read Aristophanes, I will forgive your affectations and your prudishness in reading him. Admit, however, that he is very witty, and that it would be a great pleasure to see one of his comedies played. I do not know what the opinion of erudites of our day is on the presence of women at the theatre. It is probable that there were in the same country periods of tolerance and of intolerance, but women never appeared on the stage. Their parts were played by men, which was all the easier, since the actors invariably wore masks....
I am desperately ill, dear friend, and realise that I am on the way to a better world, through a path which is not the most agreeable. From time to time, the intervals of which are much more frequent than formerly, I have convulsions, and attacks of severe pain. I scarcely ever sleep; I have no appetite, and suffer from weakness, which is most exasperating. The least exercise exhausts me.
What will become of me when, instead of a magnificent sky, I shall have the leaden skies of Paris, and constant rain and fog! I am thinking, nevertheless, of returning by the end of this month, if I have the strength, for I am somewhat ashamed of doing none of my official duties. It is necessary to sacrifice one’s self, and I reconcile myself to it, whatever may befall.
Since I have already waited so long, I will wait longer for Sainte-Eulalie’s gift. So far as pins and rings are concerned, I fancy the embarrassment is the same as of old. Her bureau-drawers have been overcrowded with them ever since I first began to remember my cousin’s fête-day. I have exhausted every variety of trinkets possible to imagine. If you have discovered anything out of the ordinary, which is not ruinous, you will have solved a tremendous problem.
There is another and still more interesting one on which I shall be obliged to consult you. It is how I shall manage, in a legitimate way or otherwise, to have some clothes sent me from London. Among your sea-dogs, it is not impossible that there is some one by whom Mr. Poole might send my clothes. Think about this, and you will render me a great service.
Good-bye, dear friend. I have had a wretched night, and coughed enough to split my cranium. I hope you have escaped all the forms of cold which are so prevalent. In Paris it seems that every one is afflicted, and that some people even are stupid enough to die of it. Good-bye again.
CCLXXII
Friday, March 18, 1864.
I am writing to you in the Luxembourg, while the Archbishop of Rouen is thundering away at impiety. I have been very ill; I never have two good days successively, but frequently several bad ones. I am not yet sure that I shall be in any condition to go to Germany, as I had planned. It will depend on the weather and on my lungs.
I am still tied in the Luxembourg, but we shall finish the engagement, I hope, next week, and I shall then be freer. If you have not yet seen in the Louvre the new hall where the collection of vases and terra-cottas are placed, you would do well to go there. I offer you the light of my knowledge to accompany you there. You will see some things which are very beautiful, and others which will interest you, although they may shock your prudery. Appoint your day and hour.
CCLXXIII
Wednesday, April 13, 1864.
Dear Friend: I regretted keenly your departure. You ought to have bidden me one more farewell. You would have found me decidedly blue. In spite of arsenic and the rest, I suffer constantly from exhaustion. After the cold abated, I was beginning to feel better, but I have taken a cold which casts me down lower than ever.
I seldom go out; still I was anxious to see my sovereigns, whom I found in excellent health. This visit gave me an opportunity of seeing the new fashions, which I do not altogether admire, especially the basques worn by the women. This is a sign that I am growing old. I can not endure the hair-dressing. There is not a single woman who dresses her hair to suit her face; they all follow the style of wigged heads. I met one of my friends who presented me to his wife. She is a young and pretty woman, but she had a foot of rouge, pencilled eyelashes, and was powdered. She disgusted me.
Have you read About’s book? I have it, and it is at your service. I do not know whether it is a success; nevertheless it is very witty. The clericals, perhaps, had good sense enough not to anathematise it, which is the most positive way of insuring the popularity of a book. It is in this way that the success of Renan, pecuniarily speaking, was achieved. I am told that he made a hundred and seventy thousand francs by his idyl.
I have still, subject to your orders, three immense volumes of Taine on the history of English literature. It is both witty and sensible. The style is somewhat affected, but it is delightful reading. I have also two volumes of Mézières on an analogous subject, the contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare. It is Taine warmed over, or, rather, cooled down. As for novels, I no longer read them.
We nominate to-morrow in the Academy either the Marseillais Autran or Jules Janin. Apparently, it will be the former. My candidate will be defeated. I have promised myself to go to the Academy no more, except to collect my allowance, eighty-three francs, twenty-three centimes, every month. During the next two years the mortality among the members will be frightful. I examined yesterday the faces of my colleagues; not to mention my own, one would suppose them to be people awaiting the coming of the grave-digger. I can not imagine who will be elected to replace them.
When shall you return? You spoke of remaining a fortnight only at ——; but I suppose that you will, as usual, string out that fortnight into a long month. I desire earnestly to see you soon and take a walk, as we used to do, admiring radiant nature. It would be for me a rare occasion to enjoy a little poetry.
Farewell, dear friend. Write to me. If you have at your disposal none but the town library, you would do well to read Lucian, in the translation of Pierrot d’Ablancourt, or some one else; it would amuse you, and indulge your Hellenic tastes.
I am deep in a history of Peter the Great, which I mean to share with the public. He was an abominable man, surrounded by abominable scamps. His history amuses me no little.
Write to me as soon as you have received my letter.
CCLXXIV
London, British Museum, July 21, 1864.
Dear Friend: You have guessed my retreat. I have been here since the last time we met, or, to speak more exactly, since the following day. I spend my time, from eight at night until midnight, in dining out, and the morning in examining books and statues, or else in writing my long article on the son of Peter the Great, to which I am tempted to give the title: On the Danger of Being Stupid, for the moral to be drawn from my work is the necessity of being clever.
I think you will find, here and there, in a score of pages, some things which would interest you, notably how Peter the Great was deceived by his wife. I have translated with great care and pains the letters of his wife to her lover, who was impaled for his trouble. They are really better than one would expect of the time and country in which she wrote, but love works miracles. It was a misfortune that she did not know how to spell, which makes it extremely difficult for grammarians like myself to guess what she means.
These are my plans: I am to go, Monday, to Chevenings, to visit Lord Stanhope, where I shall stay three days. Thursday I shall dine here with a large company, leaving immediately afterwards for Paris.
They talk of nothing here but the marriage of Lady Florence Paget, the London beauty of two seasons ago. It is impossible to see a prettier face or a more graceful figure, but too small and delicate to suit my own taste. She was notorious for her flirtations. M. Ellice’s nephew, Chaplin, of whom you have often heard me speak, a tall fellow of twenty-five, with an income of twenty-five thousands pounds sterling, fell in love with her. She trifled with him a long time, then engaged herself, and it is said, accepted jewels and six thousand pounds to pay her debts with the dressmaker. The day for the marriage was appointed. Last Friday, they went together to the park and to the opera. Saturday morning she went out alone, proceeded to the Church of Saint George, and there was married to Lord Hastings, a young man of her own age, very homely, and with two petty vices, gambling and drink. After the religious ceremony they went to the country to consummate other ceremonies.
At the first stop she wrote to her father as follows: