TALBOT3110

San Bartolomeo

1^st August

My Dear Henry

I have just received your Letter ¹ three days later than by the general post, as it came I perceive by the Foreign Office. I wish I could profit by your proposal, or by Kit’s ² – but alas! the Cholera has so encreased all over Provence that our only Egress ingress there is none which <illegible deletion> is by France, it would be most rash to avail myself of , they are now dying by hundreds daily in every town & village in the departments of the Var, & les Bonches des Rhone, that whole country seems to be thoroughly impregnated with the Miasmata, & as the President receives constantly official accounts, we Knew the the <sic> truth from him. On the North & East we are completely cordonnés, ³ by the order of the King ⁴ who panic struck has entrenched himself in a Palace he has between Turin & Rivoli. The Shore is defended by five guarda Costas ⁵ who sail about continually to prevent any refugees landing from France, & if Kit’s Yacht came he would have twenty days Quarantine & the boat which took me to the Galatia would not be allowed to land again without going all the way to San Speggia to perform Quarantine. Then are the regulations, & they are in some measure justified when one sees the ravages it has made in France for the want of any. Not that we have Kept it out by any means, but still only five die one day & three another, & seven the following, & so on a mere nothing in comparison. However as it broke out in the Banachs very near Caroline, ⁶ She is to be brought up here tomorrow on a Brancard, ⁷ as it is too early days to move her in any other way. Some friends of ours, a Polish family, went off in the middle of the night, thinking to reach the Tuscan Territory before the cordon sanitaire was established, but on entering Oneghia they were received by the Gendarmerie with Drawn Sabres, who refused to let them proceed towards Genoa or return here, & Kept them then at a miserable Inn with a factionnaire ⁸ at their door & where they still are, now as I should not like to meet with the same fate, I think it better to stay quietly here till it pleases the Authorities to relax from their despotism. I am here too in a charming villa, in a lovely situation, on a mountain three miles from Nice, commanding a magnificent view terminated by the Sea. It is old, large, délabré ⁹ & romantic, an immense number of rooms, which we require as Lord V’s ¹⁰ family & ours are not less than six or seven & twenty. this is out of the line of the Cholera which has perused the Sea coast hitherto all along the South of France at least we thought so when we took it, but the heat has been dreadful. Bimbo ¹¹ has suffered much from it, is become pale & thin, & decidedly wants a bracing climate. When he will have it with all these quarantines I cannot guess But they will go if they can.

Since then it has spread inland to <Coni?>, which will encrease the severity of the Loix Sanitaires & the nervousness of the King, a terrific Thunder Storm has been going on ten hours, we think it may do us good disperse mephitic air, or at least cool it, for I am touchée ¹² at Constance ¹³ wishing for me back in England.

H. F. Talbot Esq^r
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Wiltshire
Angleterre