While I am not ill, I am so nervous that it is worse than illness. I neither eat nor sleep, and have, besides, the blue devils. My only consolation is the knowledge that you are enjoying yourself, and are rapidly gaining in flesh among your mountains and country-folk. I have just received from London the _Memoirs of the Princess Doschkoff_, and am not yet entirely reconciled to the thirty francs which it cost me. I am promised on my return from Tarbes a novel written in Little-Russian dialect, and translated into Russian by M. Tourguenieff. It is said to be a masterpiece, superior to _Uncle Tom_. There are, besides, the _Letters of the Princess of Ursins_, which are highly spoken of; but I have a horror of that woman, and do not care for the book. As for interesting books, I know of nothing new; I have dipped into several, in order to beguile the lonely evenings, and I have found none worth the trouble of cutting the leaves. I met M. About the other day. He is always delightful. He has promised me something. He lives in Saverne, and spends his time in the woods. A month ago he came across an extraordinary-looking animal walking on all-fours. He wore a black coat and patent leathers, but was minus socks. It was the professor of rhetoric at Angoulême, who, having had conjugal differences, went to Baden, where he promptly lost all he had, and returning to France through the woods, had got lost, and for a week had had nothing to eat. About carried, or rather dragged, him to a village, where he was provided with clothing and food, but he died, nevertheless, at the end of a week. It appears that after the animal-man has lived for a certain time in complete solitude, and has reached a certain condition of physical wretchedness, it seems, I repeat, that this noble creature walks on all-fours. About assures me that he makes a hideous-looking animal. Write to me in care of the Minister of State at Tarbes. Good-bye. I hope the autumn opens more benignly for you than it has for me. It is cold and rainy, with much electricity in the air. Take care of yourself, eat and sleep, since you are able to do it. CCIV PARIS, _September 15, 1859_. I should have written to you from Tarbes immediately after receiving your letter, but I was out all the time and in a constant state of excitement. First came a letter from Saint Sauveur, where I was obliged to go to spend a day; and the following day my visit was returned at the home of M. Fould.[22] Consequently, there was a tremendous commotion, and Madame Fould had to contrive a dinner and breakfast, which, in a town like that I have just left, is no small undertaking. Besides, as lodgings had to be provided for eight persons, I, as well as M. Fould’s son, was obliged to give up my room and go to the inn. In the midst of all this august upheaval, it would have been impossible to find paper and pens in the house.