How are you, dear friend? Have the dinners of the _Kings_ and of the _Carnival_ fattened you much? As for me, I eat nothing at all. At the same time, a friend who came down from Paris expressly to see me considers my food excellent. We have nothing but some queer-looking fish, mutton, and woodcock. You may believe that Cannes is becoming too civilised, entirely too much so. They are now engaged in destroying one of my favourite walks, the rocks near Napoule, to build the railroad in that direction. When it is completed we can take advantage of it, as we did that of Bellevue; but Cannes will then become infested with the Marseillais, and all its picturesqueness will be lost. Do you know a creature called the hermit-crab? It is a small lobster, the size of a locust, and has a tail without any scales. He finds a shell which fits his tail, crawls into it, and thus moves himself along the sea-shore. Yesterday I found one, and very carefully broke the shell without injuring the crab, which I then placed in a dish of sea-water. He made there the most piteous appearance. I then put an empty shell on the dish. The little creature approached it, moved around it, then raised one claw in the air, evidently to measure the height of the shell. After meditating a half minute, he thrust one of his claws into the shell to assure himself that it was really empty. Then, seizing it with his foreclaws, he took a somersault in such a way that his tail entered the shell. At once he began to walk about the dish, with the satisfied air of a man coming out of a furnishing shop with a new coat. I have seldom seen such evidences of reasoning in animals as this. You will observe that I have given myself up entirely to the study of nature. Besides my researches on animals (I have also the story of a goat to tell you), I have painted some landscapes, of which the last one is always more beautiful than the others. Unfortunately, a friend of mine here has filched my two best works. My friend, who is far more of an artist than I, is in a perpetual state of admiration of this country. We spend our days sketching, returning at night utterly exhausted, when I have no courage for writing. Nevertheless, I have written an article on the _Dictionary of Personal Property_, by Viollet-le-Duc, which I shall send with this letter. I should like you to read it. While it is short, it contains, I fancy, an idea or two. Did I tell you that my friend Augier wishes to have a melodrama on _The False Demetrius_, and that I must work also on this? Finally, I have promised the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ an article on Prescott’s _Philip II_. Good-bye. CXC CANNES, _February 5, 1859_.