ee that the French Government has protested against
the reactionary iniquities of the Tuscan Grand Duke, and every day I
expect eagerly some helping hand to be stretched out to Rome. I have
looked for this from the very first, and certainly it is significant
that the Prince of Canino, the late President of the Roman Republic,
should be in favour at the Elysee. Pio Nono's time is but short, I
fancy--that is, reforms will be forced upon him.

When George Sand had audience with the President, he was very kind; did
I tell you that? At the last he said: 'Vous verrez, vous serez contente
de moi.' To which she answered, 'Et vous, vous serez content de moi.' It
was repeated to me as to the great dishonour of Madame Sand, and as a
proof that she could not resist the influence of power and was a bad
republican. I, on the contrary, thought the story quite honourable to
both parties. It was for the sake of her _rouge_ friends that she
approached the President at all, and she has used the hand he stretched
out to her only on behalf of persons in prison and distress. The same,
being delivered, call her gratefully a recreant.

Victor Cousin and Villemain refuse to take the oath, and lose their
situations in the Academy accordingly; but they retire on pensions, and
it's their own fault of course. Michelet and Quinet should have an
equivalent, I think, for what they have lost; they are worthy, as poets,
orators, dreamers, speculative thinkers--as anything, in fact, but
instructors of youth.

No, there is a brochure, or a little book somewhere, pretending to be a
memoir of Balzac, but I have not seen it. Some time before his death he
had bought a country place, and there was a fruit tree in the garden--I
think a walnut tree--about which he delighted himself in making various
financial calculations after the manner of Cesar Birotteau. He built the
house himself, and when it was finished there was just one defect--it
wanted a staircase. They had to put in the staircase afterwards. The
picture gallery, however, had been seen to from the first, and the great
writer had chalked on the walls, 'Mon Raffaelle,' 'Mon Correge,' 'Mon
Titien,' 'Mon Leonard de Vinci,' the pictures being yet unattained. He
is said to have been a little loth to spend money, and to have liked to
dine magnificently at the restaurant at the expense of his friends,
forgetting to pay for his own share of the entertainment. For the rest,
the 'idee fixe' of the man was to b