I know a way to settle everything to the advantage of our young lover,--simply by the transmission of the father-in-law's title, and no one, I think, can more readily obtain that favor than Ernest, both on account of his own services and the influence which you and I and the duke can exert for him.

With his tastes, Ernest, who of course will step into my office when I go to Baden, will be perfectly happy in Paris with twenty-five thousand francs a year, a permanent place, and a wife--luckless fellow! Ah, dearest, how I long for the rue de Grenelle! Fifteen days of absence! when they do not kill love, they revive all the ardor of its earlier days, and you know, better than I, perhaps, the reasons that make my love eternal,--my bones will love thee in the grave! Ah! I cannot bear this separation.

If I am forced to stay here another ten days, I shall make a flying visit of a few hours to Paris.
Has the duke obtained for me the thing we wanted; and shall you, my dearest life, be ordered to drink the Baden waters next year?
The billing and cooing of the "handsome disconsolate," compared with the accents of our happy love--so true and changeless for now ten years!--have given me a great contempt for marriage.

I had never seen the thing so near.

Ah, dearest! what the world calls a "false step" brings two beings nearer together than the law--does it not?
The concluding idea served as a text for two pages of reminiscences and aspirations a little too confidential for publication.
The evening before the day on which Canalis put the above epistle into the post, Butscha, under the name of Jean Jacmin, had received a letter from his fictitious cousin, Philoxene, and had mailed his answer, which thus preceded the letter of the poet by about twelve hours.