Please tell me what I may read of the good things written since I ceased to live among the cleverest people of the universe. I should like, indeed, to see you. Good-bye. I am going to take care of my health until the fêtes at Compiègne make me ill again. CCLXXXV PARIS, _November 8, 1865_. DEAR FRIEND: I have delayed writing to you, because I have been like a bird upon a bough, yet attached by the claw. After bidding adieu to my hostess at Biarritz, I had intended going to my usual wintering-place, and thus to avoid the first effects of the cold; but I was urged to remain for the opening of the season at Compiègne, and the request was asked so graciously, that I could not very well decline. Then followed the questions relating to cholera: to go or not to go to Compiègne. Yesterday only the matter was decided. I am to go, and shall leave here the 14th, to return the 20th. Tell me now if between the 14th and after the 20th, there will be any chance of seeing you. I returned from Biarritz in an excellent state of preservation, but after three days I experienced all the rigours incident to a change of climate. The fact is, I have been almost constantly desperately ill, not from cholera, but from my usual trouble, inability to breathe, from which may God preserve you! For several days, I have been better. I think that Compiègne will make me much worse, but I shall hasten to take my flight to the South and count on the sunshine to live through the winter, which the successors of M. Mathieu (_de la Drôme_) predict will be a severe one. You, I suppose, expect to be in a mild climate on the borders of the Loire. I hope, at any rate, that you have neither cold nor rheumatism. Would that I were able to say as much! You can not imagine the scandalous gossip concerning the princess Anna’s marriage, nor the ridiculous anger and rage of the faubourg Saint Germain. There is not a family with a daughter who did not count on the duc de Mouchy. The burning question at present is, “If they make calls, shall we leave cards for them?” On the other hand, there is in the marriage market at this moment a young girl with several millions in her pocket, and about fifty others to come to her. She is a pretty girl, somewhat mysterious, the daughter of M. Heine, who died this year; an adopted daughter, of course, whose origin no one knows. But in consideration of the millions, the greatest names of France, Italy, and Germany are ready to overlook all the dulness and stupidity. Adopted children of this sort are very pleasing to the goddess Fortune. The Greeks of to-day call them children of the soul; is it not a pretty name? Have you read the _Chansons des Rues et des Bois_, of Victor Hugo? They will read them, I fancy, at ----. Will you tell me if you find a marked difference between his former poetry and that of to-day? Has he become suddenly mad, or has he always been so? For my part, I incline to the latter.