Rue de Houssaye
14th January
My Dearest Henry
As your letter dated the 26th December did not get here till yesterday I should have had a very bad opinion of Mr Lincoln No. 2 Sackville Street <1> only that I spied January 4th on the London mark, so that evidently you had forgot to put it into the post for some days after you had written it. But that we may neither of us have any Méfiance <2> you had better write by the common post & direct No 4 Rue du Houssaye, Chaussée d'Antin. I had begun to wonder excessively that I had no answer to the letter I wrote you just before we left Cantileu, the end of November I wish you would be more dutiful & write oftener. I like the sejour de Paris <3> very much & should still more if Society was not so divided into so many subdivisions of Politics, so many different nuances that it is very puzzling to find out what they all mean. Benjamin Constant <4> has given me a ticket for the Chambre des Deputés <5> for the Séance <6> of tomorrow, it is expected to be a very interesting Debate. Le jour des Rois at the Thuilleries <7> the Duc d'Orléans <8> new King this was much talked about at Court, as you knew there is at present no other heir to the Throne, the Duchesse de Berri's <9> Child being a Daughter. As for English politics I think better of them than I did a Month ago, thanks to the Whigs those odious Bills were very much softened down, but still they are bad, very bad - & if that unfeeling Castlereagh <10> remains in England will be no longer a Country worth living in. Le froid est rejouireux <11>& the thermometer is 16 below freezing. The French comp[lain] <12> of it extremely & I must say it is very disagreeable. The Seine has been some days entirely frozen over. You were very ungrateful & took no notice of my second journal of the Weather, so I left off keeping it, but if you will I will begin again. I have heard a great deal of Ivanhoe <13> since I have been here, but I have not seen it. The person we see most of is Anacreon Moore,<14> he is very agreeable in prose & such a flood of ideas he is intarissable <15> on - all subjects. He is very merry too, notwithstanding his recent misfortunate about Bermuda.
Horatia <16> has been very ill with a sore throat & cough She is better but has not left her room. They have both been twice to the Français & enjoyed the Fourberies de Scapin <17> &c &c very much. The weather has not been favourable for their seeing much of Paris yet - Dearest God to keep you Pray write write
Mr F. <18> wrote to you a few days ago. When do you see him?
W. H. Fox Talbot Ere
Trinity College
Cambridge
Notes:
1. 2 Sackville Street, occasional London base of WHFT. Apparently Mr. Lincoln was either the landlord or the caretaker for the address.
2. Suspicion.
3. Staying at Paris.
4. Possibly Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), politician and novelist.
5. Chamber of Deputies.
6. Session, meeting.
7. 'The day of the Kings' - surprisingly, Lady Elisabeth had her own spelling for the Tuileries.
8. Louis-Philippe I King of The French (1773-1850). He was the son of Louis-Philippe Duke Of Orléans.
9. Marie Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, Duchesse de Berry (1798-1870), wife of Charles Ferdinand of Artois, Duke of Berry. She later conspired to obtain the French throne for her son Henri, Comte de Chambord (1820-1883).
10. Robert Stewart, Lord Castlereagh (1769-1822), politician. In November 1819, Castlereagh introduced in the House of Commons the severe measures that became known as the 'Six Acts'. Castlereagh, as the government's spokesman for civil matters in the House of Commons, took the blame for the repressive measures and lost his popularity ever since.
11. The cold is exhilarating.
12. Text torn away under seal.
13. Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1819). [See Doc. No: 00858].
14. Lady Elisabeth was honoring their close friend Thomas Moore (1780-1852), the Irish poet and lyricist, who published his Odes of Anacreon in 1800. Anacreon (b. ca. 570BC) was a Greek lyric poet so esteemed for his drinking songs and hymns that he was included in the Hellenistic Alexandrian canon of Nine Lyric Poets. He was a monodic singer, one who performed alone rather than in chorus, a description well-suited to Moore. Lady Elisabeth's inspiration undoubtely came from her recently acquired copy of Lord Byron's 1819 Don Juan - see Doc. No: 00853. Byron paid tribute to Moore in Canto 1, Stanza CIV: 'T was on the sixth of June, about the hour / Of half-past six --- perhaps still nearer seven --- / When Julia sate within as pretty a bower / As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven / Described by mahomet, and Anacreon Moore, / To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, / With all the trophies of triumphant song --- / He won them well, and may he wear them long!
15. Insatiable, ie, never drying up.
16. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810-1851), WHFT's half-sister.
17. Les Fourberies de Scapin [The Cheats of Scapin], play by Molière, written in 1677.
18. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.
19. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
20. Moreton, Dorset: home of the Frampton family.