lled
to Berlin. You can't have any more aversion to Wilhelmstrasse than
myself, and if I am not persuaded that it must be, then I will not go.
I consider it cowardice and disloyalty to leave the King in the lurch,
under pretence of illness. If it is not to be, then God will permit
those who search to find another _princillon_ who will offer himself
as cover for the pot. If it is to be, then "_s'Bogom"_ ("with God"),
as our Russian drivers used to say, when they took up the reins. * * *

Your v.B.

Bordeaux, July 27, '62.

_My Dear Heart_,--You cannot refuse to testify that I am a good
correspondent; I wrote this morning from Chenonceaux to your
birthday-child, and now this evening, from the city of red wine, to
you. But these lines will arrive a day later than those, as the mail
does not leave until tomorrow afternoon. I left Paris only day before
yesterday noon, but it seems to me a week. I have seen very beautiful
castles--Chambord, of which the enclosure (torn out of a book) gives
only an imperfect idea, corresponds, in its desolation, to the fate of
its owner (I hope you know it belongs to the Duke of Bordeaux). In the
wide halls and magnificent rooms, where so many kings kept their
court, with their mistresses and their hunting, the Duke's only
furniture consists now of the children's toys. My guide took me for a
French Legitimist, and squeezed out a tear as she showed me the little
cannon. I paid for the tear-drop, tariff-wise, with an extra franc,
although it is not my vocation to subsidize Carlism. The castle
court-yards lay in the sun as quiet as deserted churches; there is a
distant view round about from the towers, but on all sides silent
woods and heather to the farthest horizon; not a city, not a village,
not a farm-house, either near the castle or in the region round it.
The enclosed sprigs, specimens of heather, will no longer show you how
purple this plant I love so much blooms here, the only flower in the
royal garden, and swallows the only living creatures in the castle; it
is too solitary for sparrows. The situation of the old castle of
Amboise is glorious; from the top you can look up and down the Loire
for about thirty miles. Coming from there to this place one passes
gradually into the south; wheat disappears, giving way to maize;
between, twining vines and chestnut woods, castles and country-seats,
with many towers, chimneys, and gables, all white, with high-pointed
slate roofs. It was boili