à Rottingdean <1>
vingt quatre de Novembre 1809
Ma chere Maman,
Monsieur Mouchel est ici à present, mais j’ai fini avec lui. J’ai ètè tres tres bon, conformement ses rapports. Je reviendrai à vous le dixneuf de Decembre. J’espere que j’aille à Londres, devant j’irai à Melbury. <2> Je suis fachè que je ne vous ai pas ecri. Je puis parler François un peu, mais nonpas beaucoup, c’est pour cette raison que j’ecrirai unique, que je suis votre fils affectueux,
Guillaume Henri Renard de
Talbot
Lady Elisabeth Feilding
Melbury
Sherborne
Dorset
Translation:
Rottingdean
twenty fourth of November 1809
My dear Mamma,
Mr Mouchel is here at present, but I have finished with him. I was always very very good, just as he said in his reports. I will be coming back to you on the nineteenth of December. I hope that I will be going to London before going to Melbury. I am annoyed that I have not written to you. I can speak French a little, but not a great deal, that is why I shall only write that I am your affectionate son,
William Henry Fox Talbot
Notes:
1. Rottingdean, East Sussex, 4 mi SE of Brighton: WHFT attended school there from 1808–1811.
2. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.