TALBOT9058

Hotel Bellevue Cannes

Good Friday

My Dear Constance

I wrote to you from Hyères and to Monie from hence, which I hope were received – I propose to leave this on Monday and spend a day or two at Nice – Poor Lady Abercorn met with a bad accident 2 days ago She was standing on a flight of steps when she merely turned round to speak to somebody and in so doing fell and it is feared she has broke her leg. She has suffer’d much pain since & the doctors are uncertain whether there is a fracture or not. Yesterday the eldest son Lord Hamilton arrived from England taking advantage of the Easter Holidays to escape from Parliament. Only last week he was reported to have such a bad cold as to be unable to speak, so that we think this rapid journey travelling all night was rather rash. The weather is extremely fine, but it is not pleasant to go out before ½ past 2 or 3 oclock. There is no shade anywhere unless you retire some miles from the sea coast into the vallies. Yesterday Caroline & I took a drive to see a chapel calld Madonna or Notre Dame de Vie on a height to which a magnificent Avenue of old Cypresses leads – but we lost the way and had to clamber over walls & very rough ground but it was picturesque – We passed a small field of Catalonian Jasmine which was just coming into flower, intended no doubt for the Perfumers. At last we reached the Chapel – There is an excellent fish on this coast called the John Dory I forget its native name. I think we have not this at Edinburgh. There are exceedingly few wild flowers in this country; in the Villa gardens there are several. But in the country, the vallies are occupied by cultivated plants, and the heights are so baked by the sun and the soil so poor and sandy that nothing grows but heath and pine trees & Cistus monspeliensis not yet in flower, and yellow thorny broom. The sea and the Est<er?>lle Mountains are always beautiful, & there is a very fine group of snowy Alps in the North East, which lie behind Nice, which one would like to explore!

Love to all Your aff^te

Henry