Louis Napoleon is said to say (a bitter foe of his told me this) that ‘there will be four phases of his life.’  The first was all rashness and imprudence, but ‘it was necessary to make him known:’  the second, ’the struggle with and triumph over anarchy:’  the third, ’the settlement of France and the pacification of Europe:’  the fourth, a coup de pistolet.  Se non e vero, e ben trovato. Nothing is more likely than the catastrophe in any case; and the violence of the passions excited in the minority makes me wonder at his surviving a day even.  Do you know I heard your idol of a Napoleon (the antique hero) called the other evening through a black beard and gnashing teeth, ’le plus grand scelerat du monde,’ and his empire, ‘le regne du Satan,’ and his marshals, ‘les coquins.’  After that, I won’t tell you that ‘le neveu’ is reproached with every iniquity possible to anybody’s public and private life.  Perhaps he is not ‘sans reproche’ in respect to the latter, not altogether; but one can’t believe, and oughtn’t, even infinitesimally, the things which are talked on the subject....

Ah, I am so vexed about George Sand.  She came, she has gone, and we haven’t met!  There was a M. Francois who pretended to be her very very particular friend, and who managed the business so particularly ill, from some motive or some incapacity, that he did not give us an opportunity of presenting our letter.  He did not ‘dare’ to present it for us, he said.  She is shy—­she distrusts bookmaking strangers, and she intended to be incognita while in Paris.  He proposed that we should leave it at the theatre, and Robert refused.  Robert said he wouldn’t have our letter mixed up with the love letters of the actresses, or perhaps given to the ‘premier comique’ to read aloud in the green room, as a relief to the ‘Chere adorable,’ which had produced so much laughter.  Robert was a little proud and M. Francois very stupid; and I, between the two, in a furious state of dissent from either.  Robert tries to smooth down my ruffled plumage now, by promising to look out for some other opportunity, but the late one has gone.  She is said to have appeared in Paris in a bloom of recovered beauty and brilliancy of eyes, and the success of her play, ‘Le Mariage de Victorine,’ was complete.  A strange, wild, wonderful woman, certainly.  While she was here, she used a bedroom which belongs to her son—­a mere ’chambre de garcon’—­and for the rest, saw whatever friends she chose to see only at the ‘cafe,’ where she breakfasted and dined.  She has just finished a romance, we hear, and took fifty-two nights to write it.  She writes only at night.  People call her Madame Sand.  There seems to be no other name for her in society or letters.