[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysees:
[January-February 1852].

My very dear friend, let me begin what I have to say by recognising you
as the most generous and affectionate of friends. I never could mistake
the least of your intentions; you were always, from first to last, kind
and tenderly indulgent to me--always exaggerating what was good in me,
always forgetting what was faulty and weak--keeping me by force of
affection in a higher place than I could aspire to by force of vanity;
loving me always, in fact. Now let me tell you the truth. It will prove
how hard it is for the tenderest friends to help paining one another,
since _you_ have pained _me_. See what a deep wound I must have in me,
to be pained by the touch of such a hand. Oh, I am morbid, I very well
know. But the truth is that I have been miserably upset by your book,
and that if I had had the least imagination of your intending to touch
upon certain biographical details in relation to me, I would have
conjured you by your love to me and by my love to you, to forbear it
altogether. You cannot understand; no, you cannot understand with all
your wide sympathy (perhaps, because you are not morbid, and I am), the
sort of susceptibility I have upon one subject. I have lived heart to
heart (for instance) with my husband these five years: I have never yet
spoken out, in a whisper even, what is in me; never yet could find heart
or breath; never yet could bear to hear a word of reference from his
lips. And now those dreadful words are going the round of the
newspapers, to be verified here, commented on there, gossiped about
everywhere; and I, for my part, am frightened to look at a paper as a
child in the dark--as unreasonably, you will say--but what then? what
drives us mad is our unreason. I will tell you how it was. First of all,
an English acquaintance here told us that she had been hearing a lecture
at the College de France, and that the professor, M. Philaret Chasles,
in the introduction to a series of lectures on English poetry, had
expressed his intention of noticing Tennyson, Browning, &c., and
E.B.B.--'from whose private life the veil had been raised in so
interesting a manner lately by Miss Mitford.' In the midst of my anxiety
about this, up comes a writer of the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' to my
husband, to say that he was preparing a review upon me and had been
directed by the editor to make use of some biographical details
extracted from your book into the 'Athenaeum,' but that it had occurred
to him doubtfully whether certain things might not be painful to me, and
whether I might not prefer their being omitted in his paper. (All this
time we had seen neither book nor 'Athenaeum.') Robert answered for me
that the omission of such and such things would be much preferred by me,
and accordingly the article appears in the 'Revue' with the passage from
your book garbled and curtailed as seemed best to the quoter. Then
Robert set about procuring the 'Athenaeum' in question. He tells me (and
_that_ I perfectly believe) that, for the facts to be given at all, they
could not possibly be given with greater delicacy; oh, and I will add
for myself, that for them to be related by anyone during my life, I
would rather have _you_ to relate them than another. But why should they
be related during my life? There was no need, no need. To show my
nervous susceptibility in the length and breadth of it to you, I _could
not_ (when it came to the point) _bear to read_ the passage extracted in
the 'Athenaeum,' notwithstanding my natural anxiety to see exactly what
was done. I could not bear to do it. I made Robert read it aloud--with
omissions--so that I know all your kindness. I feel it deeply; through
tears of pain I feel it; and if, as I dare say you will, you think me
very very foolish, do not on that account think me ungrateful.
Ungrateful I never can be to you, my much loved and kindest friend.

I hear your book is considered one of your best productions, and I do
not doubt that the opinion is just. Thank you for giving it to us, thank
you.

I don't like to send you a letter from Paris without a word about your
hero--'handsome,' I fancy not, nor the imperial type. I have not seen
his face distinctly. What do you think about the constitution? Will it
work, do you fancy, now-a-days in France? The initiative of the laws,
put out of the power of the legislative assembly, seems to me a
stupidity; and the senators, in their fine dresses, make me wink a
little. Also, I hear that the 'senatorial cardinals' don't please the
peasants, who hate the priesthood as much as they hate the 'Cossacks.'
On the other hand, Montalembert was certainly in bed the other day with
vexation, because 'nobody could do anything with Louis Napoleon--he was
obstinate;' 'nous nous en lavons les mains,' and that fact gives me hope
that not too much indulgence is intended to the Church. There's to be a
ball at the Tuileries with 'court dresses,' which is 'un peu fort' for
a republic. By the way, rumour (with apparent authority justifying it)
says, that a black woman opened her mouth and prophesied to him at Ham,
'he should be the head of the French nation, and be assassinated in a
ball-room.' I was assured that he believes the prophecy firmly, 'being
in all things too superstitious' and fatalistical.

I was interrupted in this letter yesterday. Meantime comes out the
decree against the Orleans property, which I disapprove of altogether.
It's the worst thing yet done, to my mind. Yet the Bourse stands fast,
and the decree is likely enough to be popular with the ouvrier class.
There are rumours of tremendously wild financial measures, only I
believe in no rumours just now, and apparently the Bourse is as
incredulous on this particular point. If I thought (as people say) that
we are on the verge of a 'law' declaring the Roman Catholic religion the
State religion, I should give him up at once; but this would be contrary
to the traditions of the Empire, and I can't suppose it to be probable
on any account.

Observe, I am no Napoleonist. I am simply a _democrat_, and hold that
the majority of a nation has the right of choice upon the question of
its own government, _even where it makes a mistake_. Therefore the
outcry of the English newspapers is most disgusting to me. For the rest,
one can hardly do strict justice, at this time of transition, to the
ultimate situation of the country; we must really wait a little, till
the wind and rain shall have ceased to dash so in one's eyes. The wits
go on talking, though, all the same; and I heard a suggestion yesterday,
that, for the effaced 'Liberte, egalite, fraternite,' should be written
up, 'Infanterie, cavallerie, artillerie.' That's the last 'mot,' I
believe. The salons are very noisy. A lady was ordered to her country
seat the other day for exclaiming, 'Et il n'y a pas de Charlotte
Corday.'

Forgive, with this dull letter, my other defects. Always I am frank to
you, saying what is in my heart; and there is always there, dearest Miss
Mitford, a fruitful and grateful affection to you from your

E.B.B.