Pézénas,
7th April 1822
My Dear Mr F.
You will be frightened to hear we were overturned today, but thank God none of us hurt. Gwynne <1> has sprained her wrist a little, but it is of no consequence. My mother <2> behaved heroically, and did not even scream. She was not hurt in the least. We lifted her out of the carriage and fortunately were only five minutes walk from an inn. She was frightened, but not near so much as I thought. It happened by the horses starting at sight of a waggon carrying a great trunk of a tree. The waggon was standing without its horses on one side of the road, a very wide road room [sic] for ten carriages to pass, but Pierre <3> says the postillion was not to blame, and he saw how it happened better than I did and I suppose has no particular wish to excuse a fellow who was so near breaking his neck. At any rate the maitre de poste <4> was blameable for giving us such horses, and I have written to the Director General to complain of it. The accident happened a little after one o’clock between Fabrigues and Gigean, not more than a quarter of a mile from the poste at Gigean. We were delayed about an hour and a half, and in consequence resolved to proceed today no further than Pézénas: but we have formed the courageous resolution to start tomorrow morning at five o’clock, in order to accomplish the 14 postes to Carcassone, there being no convenient gîte <5> nearer, and having a long day’s journey of 12 postes from Carcassone to Toulouse. We mean to dine tomorrow at Narbonne, where I will finish this letter and send it. –
Toulouse,
Tuesday Evening, 9th April
We accomplished a long day’s journey yesterday, and another today, more easily than we expected. We mean tomorrow to go no further than Auch, as it will take all the forenoon to repair the carriage, which has a spoke of a wheel broke, & various little things out of order. It was wonderfully little damaged by the overturn, only the piece de traverse of the limoniere broken, <6> & one of the lamps smashed by the carriage falling on it. It fell against a bank which greatly diminished the violence of the shock. We collected a troop of people, & righted it by main force. We have had no other adventures. The country generally very uninteresting, an undulating surface, covered with corn or stumps of vines, without trees. This morning on leaving Carcassone we saw the Pyrenees for the first time, covered with snow. They are visible from Montpellier, but the weather was hazy while we were there. Tomorrow is the anniversary of our victory here in 1814. <7> I mean to go & see the field of battle. We passed the famous canal of Languedoc several times today.
Yours ever affectionately
W. H. Talbot. –
A Monsieur
Monsieur le Capitaine Feilding
Nice
États Sardes <8>
Notes:
1. Mrs Gwynne (d. winter 1841/1842), lady’s maid, cook and housekeeper to Elisabeth Feilding.
2. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.
3. A servant.
4. Post master.
5. Resting place.
6. Only the cross-piece of the shafts broken.
7. The Duke of Wellington successfully fought the last battle of the Peninsular War against Marshal Soult outside of Toulouse on 10 April 1814.
8. Nice was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia 1814–1860.