tter to the Queen, saying that Louis Philippe and the
Queen of France were in safety, but, as her letter would be sure to be
opened, she could say no more.

Only think of the Princesse Clementine making her escape from France on
board the same packet with her brother, the Duc de Nemours, and neither
of them knowing the other was on the same vessel! The suddenness of the
whole catastrophe makes it seem like some outrageously impossible dream.
What a troubled dream must that king and queen's life seem to them,
beginning and ending in such national convulsions!...

I really believe Macready cannot help being as odious as he is on the
stage. He very nearly made me faint last night in "Macbeth," with
crushing my broken finger, and, by way of apology, merely coolly
observed that he really could not answer for himself in such a scene,
and that I ought to wear a splint; and truly, if I act much more with
him, I think I shall require several splints, for several broken limbs.
I have been rehearsing "Hamlet" with him this morning for three hours. I
do not mind his tiresome particularity on the stage, for, though it all
goes to making himself the only object of everything and everybody, he
works very hard, and is zealous, and conscientious, and laborious in his
duty, which is a merit in itself. But I think it is rather _mean_ (as
the children say) of him to refuse to act in such plays as "King John,"
"Much Ado about Nothing," which are pieces of his own too, to oblige me;
whilst I have studied expressly for him Desdemona, Ophelia, and
Cordelia, parts quite out of my line, merely that his plays may be
strengthened by my name. Moreover, he has not scrupled to ask me to
study new parts, in plays which have been either written expressly only
for him, or cut down to suit his peculiar requisitions. This, however, I
have declined doing. Anything of Shakespeare's I will act with and for
him, because anything of Shakespeare's is good enough, and too good, for
me.... I shall have a nausea of fright till after I have done singing in
Ophelia to-morrow night.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

KING STREET, Tuesday, March 7th, 1848.

Indeed, my dear Hal, I was not satisfied, but profoundly dissatisfied,
with my singing in Ophelia; but am thankful to say that I did not sing
out of tune, which I dreaded doing, from the miserable