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A DIPLOMATIC LETTER.
The poet's reflections during the night were thoroughly matter of fact.
He sincerely saw nothing worse in life than the situation of a married man without money.

Still trembling at the danger he had been led into by his vanity, his desire to get the better of the duke, and his belief in the Mignon millions, he began to ask himself what the duchess must be thinking of his stay in Havre, aggravated by the fact that he had not written to her for fourteen days, whereas in Paris they exchanged four or five letters a week.
"And that poor woman is working hard to get me appointed commander of the Legion and ambassador to the Court of Baden!" he cried.
Thereupon, with that promptitude of decision which results--in poets as well as in speculators--from a lively intuition of the future, he sat down and composed the following letter:-- To Madame la Duchesse de Chaulieu: My dear Eleonore,--You have doubtless been surprised at not hearing from me; but the stay I am making in this place is not altogether on account of my health.

I have been trying to do a good turn to our little friend La Briere.

The poor fellow has fallen in love with a certain Mademoiselle Modeste de La Bastie, a rather pale, insignificant, and thread-papery little thing, who, by the way, has the vice of liking literature, and calls herself a poet to excuse the caprices and humors of a rather sullen nature.
You know Ernest,--he is so easy to catch that I have been afraid to leave him to himself.