[this is written on the same sheet as a note from Lady Elisabeth - see Doc. No: 02036]
London
Aug. 2nd 1830
My dear Henry
We cannot imagine why you expected the French to be deficient in spirit - that you are so surprised at their shewing any. - It seems true that the Duc d'Orléans <1> has accepted the Regency. I am afraid poor Lady Robert <2> & my cousins will be dreadfully frightened. The newsmen were crying all over the streets yesterday "Death of Charles Xth. <3>
We are just now in all the horrors of paying bills & packing up - with oceans of things to do suddenly pouring upon one the three last days. - We are not going to Cowes at all, but straight to Laycock - Thursday as I told you before.
I am delighted the gallery <4> is begun & I shall have le plaisir de la surprise <5>, as I never heard how it is be [sic] done. The fête on board the Nautilus was very pretty - it was a fine moonlight night & the Hospital & river looked beautiful - There were hardly people enough left in town though to make it very gay. - I am so sorry the hot weather is over before we get to Laycock.
I am afraid Sir R. Wilson <6> will lose his election - Addio <7>
Your affte sister
Horatia
W. H. Fox Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Notes:
1. Louis-Philippe (1773-1850), who assumed the role of King of the French.
2. Lady Sophia Charlotte Fitzgerald, née Feilding (d. 1834), Charles Feilding's sister.
3. Charles X (1757-1836), King of France from 1824 to 1830, when the July Revolution forced him to vacate the throne. (Horatia omitted the closing quotation mark, not an uncommon practise at the time).
4. The Lacock Abbey gallery. [See Doc. No: 02023].
5. The pleasure of surprise.
6. Sir Robert Thomas Wilson (1777-1849), general and MP for Southwark from 1818-1831 (the prediction of a loss was correct).
7. Farewell.