So, then, you have had an insurrection, which was as silly as the hero[45] who was its instigator. We present a melancholy spectacle of ourselves, by the fashion in which we make use of our liberty and of parliamentary government. It is impossible not to be struck by the really laughable audacity with which propositions of the most monstrous kind are presented and maintained in the Chambers, which no one would dare to utter in a salon. This representative government is a comedy which one can hardly call amusing. Everybody in it lies with effrontery, and nevertheless, every one lets himself be taken in by the most skilful liar. There are persons who consider Crémieux eloquent, and think that Rochefort is a worthy citizen. We were certainly stupid enough in 1848, but we are even more so to-day. I am making the experiment of using a paper of English manufacture, and do not know whether you will be able to read what I write. I have just translated for the _Revue_ a novel by Tourguenieff, which will appear next month. I am writing for myself, and perhaps for you, a little story in which the situation is largely one of love. Good-bye. I wish you health and prosperity. CCCXXVI CANNES, _April 7, 1870_. I have not written before, because I had only bad news to give you. I have been constantly, if not ill, at any rate in pain. I am still so. I am distressingly weak, and I am unable to walk a hundred steps from my home without sitting down several times to rest. Frequently, especially in the night, I have attacks of excruciating pain, which last a long time. “Nerves!” they tell me. Now, medicine, as you know, is almost ineffectual when it is a question of nerves. Last Monday, wishing to make an experiment and find out if I could stand the journey to Paris, I went to Nice, and made a few calls. I thought at one time that I should be guilty of the indiscretion of dying in the home of a person whom I did not know intimately enough to take that liberty with. I returned here in a bad condition, and spent twenty-four hours in a state of suffocation. Yesterday I was a little better. I went out and walked along the sea-shore, followed by a folding-chair on which I sat down every ten steps. Such is my life. I hope by the end of the month to be able to start for Paris. Will it be possible? I often wonder if I shall be strong enough to climb my stairway. You, who know so many things, do you know of some apartment in which I might put away my books and myself, without climbing many steps? I should not care to be too far away from the Institute. I received a letter, very well turned, from M. Émile Ollivier, soliciting my vote.[46] I replied to him that I was no longer of this world. I think he will be elected without opposition.