Do you know that from all sides have arrived congratulations on my successorship to M. Mocquard? I thought nothing of the matter; but after seeing my name in the _Belgian Independence_, in the _London Times_, and in the _Augsburg Gazette_, I had come to be a little uneasy. Knowing my temperament as you do, you may imagine how the place suited me, and how I suited the place. I have breathed more easily, however, for several days. Are there any new novels for Christmas? English novels, I mean, for this is the period for them to bloom! I have almost no books here, and I am anxious to send for some. When at night I have an attack of coughing, and can not sleep, I am as wretched as it is possible to be. Only fancy, I have read Lamartine’s _Meditations_. I have come across a Life of Aristotle, in which it is said that the retreat of the Ten Thousand took place after the death of Alexander. Really, would it not be preferable to peddle steel pens at the door of the Tuileries than to say such enormities? Good-bye, dear friend. I have thirty-five letters to write, and I wanted to begin with you. I wish you all the prosperity in the world. CCLXXIX CANNES, _January 20, 1865_. DEAR FRIEND: Have you at last received your execrable _Nipi_ handkerchiefs? I have learned that the person to whom I intrusted them, having been elected a member of the Cortes, remained in Madrid, and gave the handkerchiefs to Madame de Montijo, who did not understand what they were, for a Spaniard is not conspicuously clear in making an explanation. I have written to the countess Montijo, begging her to give the package to our ambassador, who will send it to you by the French mail. I hope you will have the thing before receiving my letter; but I do not wish ever again to assume the responsibility of your purchases, which force me to take more trouble and to write more prose than they are worth. The best thing for you to do is to throw the handkerchiefs into the fire. I have suffered severely the last week from exhaustion. We are having a detestable winter, not cold, but rainy and windy. I have never experienced anything like it. For a week nearly, in spite of M. Mathieu (of the Drôme), we have had delightful, warm days, which are the greatest benefit to me, for my lungs are better, or worse, according to the height of the barometer. I find amusement in reading the letters of the bishops. There are few lawyers more subtle than these gentlemen; but the best of them is M. D----, who interprets the Pope’s Encyclical as exactly the reverse of what he really said, and it is not impossible that he may be excommunicated at Rome. Is it possible that they are hoping for a miracle to return to them Marche, the Legations, and the county of Avignon? The worst of it is, that society in this age is so stupid, that, in order to escape the Jesuits, it will probably throw itself into the arms of the Bousingots.[32]