This reminds me of something else, and that is, that I have never sent you my good wishes on your fête-day. When does it come? and, in the first place, what sort of a name have you? It seems to me it is a Lutheran or an heretical name. Is your patron saint the Evangelist, or the Baptist? And when is his fête-day? You may imagine that I wish to give you a surprise--a difficult thing to do. I am at this moment lying on my couch in great distress. When I sit up it seems as if my chest were being scorched with hot iron. Doctor Maure advises me to apply some soothing lotion; but it does not in the least ease the pain. I am expecting two of my friends who are coming to spend a week with me, and I am anxious lest the weather should be bad. Just now the sun shines magnificently, but this is an exceptional year, and one can not count on anything. The wind yesterday blew with such an icy blast that it seemed to come from Siberia. Like you, I find politics very entertaining. To see certain people rage makes my heart rejoice. Good-bye. Next month I shall see you again. Meanwhile, I am ill, melancholy, and bored. My eyesight is failing, and I could no longer sketch, even if my health would permit it. How sad it is to grow old! Good-bye. CCX CANNES, _February 21, 1860_. Two of my friends have been visiting me, and my duties of guide, which have dragged me into several long excursions, have left me no leisure to reply to you promptly. Besides, it was only day before yesterday that I heard from my cousin about the Byzantine clasps. I send you her literal opinion. She thinks they are charming, too charming for her, and much too young. Nevertheless, for fear that her criticism has been too severe, she adds that she has just ordered a new gown expressly to wear with the clasps. If you are not satisfied with your success, you are difficult to please. I am still about the same--that is, very far from well. On the one hand, a cold; on the other, a pain in the heart, of rheumatic variety, which is extremely uncomfortable and strange, for it does not prevent me from walking, and causes me suffering only when I sit down. This is what I endure when I draw after sunset on the sea-shore. The weather just now is not fine. The sun shines, but the air is chilly, and the mornings and evenings are sometimes most unpleasant, on account of the wind blowing from the Alps. Never before have I seen them so covered with snow, from base to summit. Snow fell this morning on the Estérel mountain, and a few flakes even on the square in front of my windows. This is something unheard of in Cannes, which even the oldest inhabitants can not remember having seen before. My only consolation is the thought that you in the north are much worse off. The newspapers make my teeth chatter with their accounts of ten degrees below zero, three feet of snow in Lyons, in Valence, and so forth. Nevertheless, I must leave my oasis and go to shiver in Paris.