R: du Houssaye No. 4.
Saturday 9 Jany 1820
What is become of you my dear Henry?
we have not had one line of your hand writing since we came here - your Mother <1> wrote to you & told you our direction the day before we left Cantilew <2> - We had a prosperous journey & thanks to Montgomeries <3> good offices found our apartments ready, & warm, & tho' small comfortable enough. The weather has been very bad indeed since we came, & I must confess I never saw a more gloomy or miserable winter befour [sic] - & inas much as it is gay cheerful & delightful beyond other Towns in the summer, insomuch is the contrast more striking then, when every thing is cheerless & miserable, & the Boulevards instead of the crowds you saw parading about in smart dresses are merely occupied by a stray man or two bustling or rather sliding along the chalky mud wrapped in Fur - I hardly know what to tell you by way of news - every thing is again in the most unsettled state - & it is by no means [illegible deletion] known what alteration in the Charter the Minister will prepare or how much he will be able to carry - there is no calculating on what is likely to happen, where people are so inconsistent as the French are, & where totally without attachment to any fixed principles, or to any men, they are guided in their decision by the passion of the moment - It is terrible to think what powers our government have attained, & at what expense to the spirit of the constitution, through the alarm which has taken place, & for which there certainly was some cause - I will not attempt to write you all my opinions on the subject, because I agree very nearly with the writer in the Times which paper you most likely see, & which is much the best written - the melancholy part, in my view of the subject is by no means the prospect of the radicals overthrowing the government, of which I have no fear, but the real distress which exists, & for which I see no remedy, & have heard of none, & the enormity of our debt & our financial difficulties in short - The only thing like consolation I can find is not very well founded I fear, but arises from a passage in Junius <4> where he says writing in 1769 "outraged & oppressed as we are this nation will not bear after 6 years peace to see new Millions borrowed without" &c, new we very [text missing] <5> that the nation did bear &c, & that [text missing] moreover from a state of financial distress, such as he describes & out of which it was, thought impossible the nation ever should rise, she did become rich & powerful & strong & equal to the exertion of a 23 year war - we cannot think ourselves worse than they thought themselves then, & I can only hope that as they did so we may recover, though I have no conception how it is to be -
Your Mother is perfectly well & enjoys Paris much more than I do - your sisters <6> too have been till this day quite well, but Horatia has at last got a severe cold which we think may turn to the measles. They are very much amused & pleased with the novelty of all they see - Pray write to us & say what you are doing - Is there any chance of your being able to come here at Easter? God bless you my dear H.
Yr affte Friend
C.F.
Henry Talbot Esqr
Trin. Coll.
Cambridge
Notes:
1. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773-1846), WHFT's mother.
2. Town in Ireland.
3. Rev George Stephen Molyneux Montgomerie (1790-1850), close friend of Talbot family, artist, Rector of Garboldisham, near Thetford, Norfolk.
4. Pseudonym of Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818).
5. Text torn away under seal.
6. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808-1881); WHFT's half-sister, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810-1851), WHFT's half-sister.