San Bartolomeo
21 August
A steam boat from Marseilles! que pencez vous mon cher? <1> Why that is the very focus of Cholera – it came there first from Iran in Africa last February, and has spread every where from there, & has returned there again with greater violence. Antibes too is a place I should be sorry to set my foot in. it is in every town & village of Provence, & is now gone on to Grenoble and Lyons and has approached so near Switzerland on the Savoy side that the Swiss are going to have Cordons sanitaires <2> in spite of the liberty of the subject, & the discontent of Commerce. An immense emigration has taken place at Genoa & at Leghorn, & then les fuyards <3> carry the contagion in all directions so that no place will be free, & as it is sporadic (at least one sort is) one can never guess What place it will jump up in. There have been several isolated cases even among the farm houses & campagnes on These Mountains where the air seems so pure. Fifteen died yesterday at Nice & so it goes on [illegible deletion], sometimes more sometimes less. But I get used to it & don’t mind it so much as I did, On se fait a tout. <4> Lord V. <5> had made up his Mind to go some tortuous road to Milan & over the Splugen [sic] through the Grisons <6> & the Schwartz Wald & so avoid all infected places, but we are just informed the Austrians have cordonned [sic] the Whole of the Milanese with 60 thousand Men, so that Scheme must come to Nothing. Caroline <7> is much better & able to sit out in the Garden & to day dined down stairs for the first time. I wish the Orphan <8> had been sent to the Cape before he was 14 – I [illegible] answered your question about him last winter. Betty Elms is no protégée of your Sisters, They both say they remember nothing good of her, only she happened to be in their district. your message is not peculiar I have always observed that if one gets a very good set of servants, all suiting their Situation, they invariably quarrel among themselves, which probatum est <9> has just occurred here. I am sorry you cannot Keep James till we return, but of course if he behaves ill we could not take him after wards. Perhaps there are faults in both sides, which is apt to be the case.
If all our Schemes had not been changed Amandier <10> was to have gone [illegible deletion] Mr F. at Aix, & return with them to spend the Winter with us at Nice Now she will be very much disappointed as that cannot take place, neither will Horatia <11> go at all to Aix, & for various reasons it will not do – all which I will explain when I see you. Now I want to ask you a question, Which you must answer candidly, after talking it over with Constance <12> – Would you & She dislike My bringing her with me to Laycock, When I pass through Paris? Say exactly what you feel about this & answer it as soon as you can. Mr F. <13> & Horatia are to be in London before Easter, & I should meet them there with her. Vû les circonstances & les entraves <14> I think it not possible for me to reach England before the 20th of November.
Elize Hunloke <15> is married to the Marquis de Casteja, <16> a Frenchman of a Spanish family [illegible deletion] They say he is an agreeable man I wonder in what cool valley in north Wales this will find you. It must be a long time ago <17> since I mentioned the therm was 81 m the shade, it has been much higher lately Gwynne <18> says in her experience she has always found that in large establishments where the servants live in clover they quarrel even more than in small families, & in a large house that shall be nameless not far from Lacock the [illegible deletion]
Yr
EF
H. F. Talbot Esqr
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Wiltshire
Angleterre
Notes:
1. What are you thinking my dear?
2. A sanitary cordon, ie, a quarantined area.
3. The fugitives.
4. One gets inured to everything.
5. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
6. Largest and most Easterly canton of Switzerland.
7. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
8. The orphan boy. [See Doc. No: 02942].
9. It is proved.
10. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
11. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
12. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
13. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
14. Look at all the considerations and hindrances.
15. Eliza Margaret de Biaudos, née Hunloke (1810–1878), daughter of Lady Anne Hunloke, née Eccleston (1788–1872); after 1860, known as Lady Anne Scarisbrick. Her marriage took place on 20 July 1835.
16. Leon Remy de Biaudos, Marquis de Casteja.
17. See Doc. No: 03109.
18. Mrs Gwynne (d. winter 1841/1842), lady’s maid, cook and housekeeper to Elisabeth Feilding.