The squirrels arrived Friday quite well. Peanuts are not in Florence. We give them walnuts, stone pine seeds, pine buds & a little meat, all which they eat thankfully. What a foolish habit they have of sleeping all day and capering all night. Well, that's the way princes do. I shall send photographs of our princess when I go to Turin. Can't get good ones here -- I send autographs of Gen Menabrea, the premier, & of Montegazza, naturalist & physiologist. I have only a framed one of Garibaldi, but shall soon have another & will send it.

Yesterday was my birth day, always a sorrowful day to a childless old man.

[The following appears vertically on the left margin]
also autog of Cambrey-Digny Min of Finance

References in this letter:

Luigi Federico Menabrea (1809-1896), an engineer, was elected to the Sadinian Parliament in 1848. During his terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1867 to 1867, in a bid to restore Italy's public finances, he instituted a period of austerity and was consequently unpopular.

Paolo Montegazza (1831-) naturalist and physiologist or anthropologist??