Hôtel Sinet
Rue Faubourg
St Honoré
29th January
My Dear Henry
as I understand Amandier <1> the scheme she is going to propound to you will produce more fame than any other, besides eventually more money. I hope it will be brought to bear, but in the mean time should like to know what you are doing on the same subject in England. I saw in a French Paper the other day that there was a new méthode de Daguerrotype invented sur papier <2> by a M. Taylor de Laycock Abbey Wiltshire en Angleterre. <3> you never answered my letter containing little bits of printed papers about your discoveries. Le Duc de Bassano <4> it seems knows all about you from Francis Baring <5> his beau frère. <6> I should think Amandier's brother would be a very good person from what I hear of him, to go down to L. Abbey to learn the Art, & hope I may happen to be there at the time. But what distresses me is that who is to be your Gérant <7> here because you don't know any lawyers or men of business. I think you have been indiquement joué par M. Collens <8>, who besides all his other forfaits <9> has added nothing to your fame, when all this time he ought to have been making improvements. Horatia <10> is so well here, always en appetit <11> - . I cannot say I find any such effects myself. Lord Mt E's <12> German Doctor is gone nothing could keep him as he had promised to cure a gentleman at Bruxelles. Since his departure Lord Mt E. has been ill again, which is very discouraging & he is much out of spirits, as he had been so well & the man had promised a perfect cure & had it been so was to have received £3000 - it would have been cheaply purchased for he has now no enjoyment of Life. Amandier inhabits the most tiny apartment you ever saw, but very snug & chez des honnêtes gens. <13> There is scarcely room to hold her Piano & Harp & other comforts which Caroline <14> has supplied her with. Unfortunately she gets but few scholars
Yrs affly
E F
[envelope]
Henry Fox Talbot Er
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Angleterre
Notes:
1. Amélina Petit De Billier, 'Mamie', 'Amandier' (1798-1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
2. The "daguerreotype on paper" was undoubtedly a reference to WHFT's process of the calotype, introduced the year before.
3. Of Laycock Abbey, Wiltshire, in England.
4. Hugues Antoine Joseph Eugène Maret, Marquis de Bassano (1806-1889), photographic entrepreneur, Paris.
5. Francis Baring, 3rd Baron Ashburton (1800-1868), MP.
6. Brother-in-law.
7. Agent.
8. She means demonstrably deceived by Henry Collen (1800-1879), miniature painter, calotypist & spiritualist, London. [See Doc. No: 04699].
9. Infamies.
10. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810-1851), WHFT's half-sister.
11. With an appetite.
12. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797-1861), WHFT's brother-in-law.
13. Among gentlefolk.
14. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808-1881); WHFT's half-sister.