In revising all this, I have been struck with one thing. On my arrival in the Eternal City, I feel a certain dislike and, for a moment, I believe that everything has changed; little by little, the fever of the ruins overtakes me and I end, like a thousand other travellers, by adoring that which left me cold at first. Nostalgia is the regret of one's native country; on the banks of the Tiber we also suffer from "home-sickness," but it produces an opposite effect to its customary effect: we are seized with the love of solitudes and the distaste for our own country. I had already felt this "sickness" at the time of my first visit, and I was able to say: Agnosco veteris vestigia flammæ[502]. You know how, when the Martignac Ministry was formed, the mere name of Italy had dispelled what remained of my repugnance; but I am never sure of my disposition in matters of joy: no sooner had I set out with Madame Chateaubriand than my natural melancholy joined me on the way. You shall convince yourselves of this by my diary of the road: "LAUSANNE, 22 _September_ 1828. "I left Paris on the 14th of this month; I spent the 16th at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne: what memories! Joubert is gone; the deserted Château de Passy[503] has changed masters; I have been told, 'Be thou the cricket of the nights: _Esto cicada noctium._'" "ARONA, 25 _September_. "Arriving at Lausanne on the 22nd, I followed the road along which disappeared two other women who wished me well and who, in the order of nature, should have survived me. One, Madame la Marquise de Custine, came to die at Bex; the other, Madame la Duchesse de Duras, was hastening, not a year ago, to the Simplon, flying before the face of death which overtook her at Nice[504]." "_Noble Clara_, digne et constante amie, Ton souvenir ne vit plus en ces lieux; De ce tombeau l'on détourne les yeux; Ton nom s'efface et le monde t'oublie[505]! "The last letter which I received from Madame de Duras brings home to us the bitterness of that last drop of life which we shall all have to drain: "'NICE, 14 _November_ 1828. "'I have sent you an _asclepias carnata_; it is a laurel creeper which grows in the open air, is not afraid of the cold, and has a red flower like the camélia, with an excellent smell; plant it under the windows of the Benedictine's Library.