Lausanne.
Aug. 20th Saturday
My dear Papa,
Your letter of the 17th arrived, as they always do, an hour after I had posted one to Mama. By mine you will see that we had already decided to go home, and through France. You need not fear that we shall meet with any difficulties by taking that route, which is so much the easiest and quickest that by the time you receive this letter I hope we shall very nearly have reached our journey’s end. All this week parties have been going and coming betwixt this and Paris, and not one of them found the slightest impediment in their way, or the least delay in the trains. So I hope this happy state of things will endure long enough to allow us to pass through and get safe on to the other side. We have engaged a well recommended, steady man, a native of Lausanne, and who speaks French too well to be taken for a German. Besides his passport vouches for his identity. He took ours yesterday to Geneva to be visé but cannot be back in time this morning for the one o’clock train, so we must go at 4, and only get as far as Neufchatel tonight: tomorrow Dijon, Monday Fontainebleau, as our Courier (whose name is Bujard) says many families still object to sleep in Paris on account of the small pox. Tuesday we hope to reach Calais if impossible, but may very likely sleep at Amiens and get there only Wednesday. So that Goodwin, should he come to Dover, must be content to wait until we turn up, or should we discover the means of communicating with him, we will send him a message from C. We choose that crossing, rather than Boulogne, being shorter.
You say my last letter arrived almost open, but so did yours – it was quite easy to read it’s contents, and I am afraid the Police have a fondness for putting their noses into private correspondence. The Article of Wednesday’s Times, on Switzerland, we have not been able to see, somebody having I think smuggled that copy away into their room. The correspondent who complains of double Hotel charges (in Times of 16th) must have been unlucky. We have neither seen nor heard anything of the kind, only much desolation among all the poor Hotel Keepers who declare they will all be ruined. Even Nice you see is in a state of siege, and even before that many families who had engaged appartments there, and at Cannes, for the coming winter, had written to give them up. This hotel Riche-Mont is very moderate – we have paid only 10, and since Giacomo’s departure only 8 francs pr day for rooms – all the rest in proportion.
I might as well re-write all my letter, for now we are thinking of going by Geneva & Macon. At any rate you shall know how we have travelled when we arrive. I have no time to write to Tilly today but will try & do so tomorrow morning from – somewhere!
Goodbye dear Papa – your most affect
Monie
What good news of the Vicarage – We ought to light a bonfire & ring the bells if it comes true on the 1rst October!
I see our letters take 3 let days in going, instead of 2 as yours to us.
Mamie thanks E. for hers.