TALBOT861

Rue de Houssaye
14^th January

My Dearest Henry

As your letter dated the 26^th December did not get here till yesterday I should have had a very bad opinion of M^r Lincoln N^o. 2 Sackville Street ¹ only that I spied January 4^th on the London mark, so that evidently you had forgot to put it into the post for some days after you had written it. But that we may neither of us have any Méfiance ² you had better write by the common post & direct N^o 4 Rue du Houssaye, Chaussée d'Antin. I had begun to wonder excessively that I had no answer to the letter I wrote you just before we left Cantileu, the end of November I wish you would be more dutiful & write oftener. I like the sejour de Paris ³ very much & should still more if Society was not so divided into so many subdivisions of Politics, so many different nuances that it is very puzzling to find out what they all mean. Benjamin Constant ⁴ has given me a ticket for the Chambre des Deputés ⁵ for the Séance ⁶ of tomorrow, it is expected to be a very interesting Debate. Le jour des Rois at the Thuilleries ⁷ the Duc d'Orléans ⁸ new King this was much talked about at Court, as you knew there is at present no other heir to the Throne, the Duchesse de Berri's ⁹ Child being a Daughter. As for English politics I think better of them than I did a Month ago, thanks to the Whigs those odious Bills were very much softened down, but still they are bad, very bad - & if that unfeeling Castlereagh ¹⁰ remains in England will be no longer a Country worth living in. Le froid est rejouireux ¹¹& the thermometer is 16 below freezing. The French comp[lain] ¹² of it extremely & I must say it is very disagreeable. The Seine has been some days entirely frozen over. You were very ungrateful & took no notice of my second journal of the Weather, so I left off keeping it, but if you will I will begin again. I have heard a great deal of Ivanhoe ¹³ since I have been here, but I have not seen it. The person we see most of is Anacreon Moore,¹⁴ he is very agreeable in prose & such a flood of ideas he is intarissable ¹⁵ on - all subjects. He is very merry too, notwithstanding his recent misfortunate about Bermuda.

Horatia ¹⁶ has been very ill with a sore throat & cough She is better but has not left her room. They have both been twice to the Français & enjoyed the Fourberies de Scapin ¹⁷ &c &c very much. The weather has not been favourable for their seeing much of Paris yet - Dearest God to keep you Pray write write

M^r F. ¹⁸ wrote to you a few days ago. When do you see him?

W. H. Fox Talbot E^re
Trinity College
Cambridge

Penrice ¹⁹ & Morton ²⁰ remove to London in February.