Rectory
Garboldisham
Oct 13th
My dear Talbot
I believe I am going to Rome or Nice or Naples, or wherever Tom & my belle sœur happen to take up their Winter quarters, & so I wrote to Horatia to know whether there was any likelihood of my meeting her or the Mt Edgcumbes in those parts. - I wrote also a line to Ly Mt E to the same effect, but I suppose as she was to follow his Lordship after her waiting was over, that my letter did not reach her before she started - I don't believe I shall be able to Leave England (if I do leave it at all) before the first week in November which is rather late, but I could not well absent myself for so long a time as six months, until I had secured a proper & efficient person to take charge of my Parish, in which I have only just succeeded & he enters upon his duties on Sunday the 31st inst at all events whether I go abroad or stay in England I shall not trouble Norfolk having suffered too much the two last winters here to give it another trial - Should I eventually decide upon Rome I should go straight through France to Marseilles & embark there for Civita Vecchia the cheapest & easiest mode of doing the thing with the help of the railway now open to Bourges I should have to diligence it from Bourges to Lyons & steam it to Avignon <1> - I wish you were going that way, we might perhaps have arranged it so as to journey together if you would divest yourself for a while of matrimonial incumbrances [sic] (dont let Mrs Talbot see that word) but your flights I think take place only in the spring a season more adapted to your botanical taste - my brother T. & my belle s œur have been off these three weeks, but unfortunately detained at Paris by an attack of Erysipilus [sic] with which he was confined to his room for a fortnight - This may perhaps induce them to alter their plans & be content with Nice as it will be rather late in the year for Mont Cenis - Let me hear what are your plans - Pray remember me kindly to Mrs Talbot & also to Mlle Amelina & believe me
Er yrs most truly
G. Montgomerie
I leave this on the 25th on a visit to my eldest brother at Dover from whence I propose sailing for Boulogne
[envelope]
Heny Fox Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Athenaeum Club
London
Notes:
1.A diligence was a stagecoach; the steamer would have gone down the Rhone.