Dearest Franz,
I should like to thank Princess M. for the news contained in her last letter, and to congratulate her cordially on her impending marriage, but I am ill, and a feverish cold has suppressed all rational thoughts in me. But as I wanted to give you some news of me without delay, I ask you, for the present, to be the very eloquent interpreter of my sincere feelings to our amiable Child. The effort thus made, in spite of my indisposition, enables me to add that, although the disappointed hope of your visit, which would have been most welcome just now, fills me with grief, I fully understand that the sacrifice in my favour would have been too great. On the other hand, I lay the sacrifice made by me at the feet of the happy Child with joyful pride. As to my fate I can tell you nothing, not knowing myself whither I shall direct my steps. I should like to live in Paris in absolute retirement, but the French Minister refuses to give me his visa for my passport. In answer to my remonstrances, he wrote to Paris a fortnight ago, but has had no answer. I am probably taken for an obstinate conspirator, an opinion which the treatment I receive at the hands of Germany seems to countenance. I wait for my fate in my little room here, neither longing for Paris nor attracted by any other place that is open to me. Draseke is still with me, and I enjoy his visit. Soon he will go too. Even the effort of these few lines has put me in a perspiration.
Richard Wagner
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #4234, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 2, No. 296