rase for all persons of distinction in
France, except members of the Opposition. That men like De Morny and
Walewski may speculate unduly I don't doubt, but even the 'Times' says
now that these things have been probably exaggerated. I have heard great
good of both these men. As to Prince Napoleon, he has spoken like a man
and a prince. We are at his feet here in Italy. Tell our dear friend
Milsand that I read the seventeen columns of the speech in the
'Moniteur.' Robert said 'magnificent.' I had tears in my eyes. There may
have been fault in the P.'s private life--and may be still. Where is a
clean man? But for the rest, he has done and spoken worthily--and what
is better, we have reason to believe here that the Emperor sympathises
with him wholly. Odo Russell knows the Prince--says that he is
'petillant d'esprit' and has great weight with the Emperor.

[_The remainder of this letter is missing_]

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

[Rome,] 126 Via Felice: [April 1861].

[My] very dear friends, how am I to thank [you] both? I receive the
photograph with a heart running over. It is perfect. Never could a
likeness be more satisfactory. It is himself. Form, expression, the
whole man and soul, on which years cannot leave the least dint of a
tooth. The youthfulness is extraordinary. We are all crying out against
our 'black lines' (laying them all to the sun of course!) and even
pretty women of our acquaintance in Rome come out with some twenty years
additional on their heads, to their great dissatisfaction. But my dear
Mr. Martin is my dear Mr. Martin still, unblacked, unchanged, as when I
knew him in the sun long ago, when suns were content to make funny
places, instead of drawing pictures! How good of dearest Mrs. Martin (it
was she, I think!) to send this to me! I wish she (or he) had sent me
hers besides. (How grasping some of us are!)

Then she sent me a short time since a book for my Peni, which he seized
on with blazing eyes and an exclamation, 'Oh, what fun!' A work by his
great author, Mayne Reid, who outshines all other authors, unless it's
Robinson Crusoe, who, of course, wrote his own life. It was so very very
good of you. Robert had repeatedly tried in Rome to buy a new volume of
Mayne Reid for the child, and never could get one. Our drawback in Rome
relates to books. We subscribe to a French library (not good) and snatch
at accidental 'waifs,' and then the newspapers (which I int