After the twenty-fifth, write to me in Paris, and tell me when I shall see you, and make it as soon as possible. I am writing to you from a wretched town, infested with owls, and with but one abominable inn, where they keep up an infernal noise. I find so many hairs in my food that I can hardly eat. I saw to-day at Saint-Maixent women who dressed their hair in the style of the fourteenth century, and with bodices belonging to almost the same period, which were made so as to show the shirt, which was of coarse linen, buttoned below the neck and split open like that worn by men. In spite of the ginger-bread on the lower edge, it seemed to me very pretty. I almost sprained my hand to-day, and it is not strong enough to write longer. Good-bye. CI PERPIGNAN, _November 14_. You have been such a long time writing to me that I began to be very uneasy. Besides, I have been harassed by an absurd idea which I have not dared to tell you before. I was visiting the amphitheatre at Nîmes with an architect of the department, who was explaining to me at length the repairs which he had made there, when I saw, ten feet away, a lovely bird, a little larger than a tomtit, with a linen-gray body and wings of red, black, and white. This bird was perched on a cornice, gazing at me fixedly. I interrupted the architect, who is a great sportsman, to ask him the name of the bird. He told me he had never seen one like it. I approached, and, until I was close enough to touch it, the bird did not take flight, perching a few steps beyond, and still watching me. Wherever I went, the bird seemed to follow, for I saw it on every tier of the amphitheatre. It had no companion, and its flight was noiseless, like that of a bird of night. The next day I returned to the amphitheatre, and there was my bird again. I had brought some bread with me, which I threw to it. The bird looked at the food, but would not touch it. I then tempted it with a big grasshopper, thinking from the shape of the bill that it would eat insects, but the bird paid no attention to the grasshopper. The most learned ornithologist in the city told me that no birds of that species lived in the country. Finally, when I visited the amphitheatre for the last time, I found my bird again, still pursuing my steps, following me even into a narrow, dark corridor, where, bird of light that it was, it should not have dared to venture. I recalled then that the Duchess of Buckingham had seen her husband in the form of a bird the day of his assassination, and the thought came to me that you were dead, perhaps, and that you had assumed this form in order to visit me. In spite of myself I could not shake off this foolish idea, and I was delighted, I assure you, to see that your letter bore the date of the day when I had first seen my inexplicable bird.