English
papers, infamous in their abuse of the Government (because of their
falsifications and exaggerations properly called infamous) and highly
immoral in their tone towards France generally, come in as usual,
without an official finger being lifted up to hinder them. Louis
Philippe would not admit Punch, you remember, on account of a few
personal sarcasms....

So much there is to say, and the post going. Can you read as I write on
at a full gallop? Don't be out of heart. Do let us trust France--not L.
Napoleon, but _France_....

Dearest friends, think of me as your

Ever affectionate
BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss Mitford_

[Paris], 138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysees:
April 7, 1852.

What a time seems to have passed since I wrote to you, my ever loved
friend! Again and again I have been on the point of writing, and
something has stopped me always. I have wished to wait till I had more
about this and that to gossip of, and so the time went on. Now I am
getting impatient to have news of you, and to learn whether the lovely
spring has brought you any good yet as to health and strength. Don't
take vengeance on my silence, but write, write....

Yes, I want to see Beranger, and so does Robert. George Sand we came to
know a great deal more of. I think Robert saw her six times. Once he
met her near the Tuileries, offered her his arm, and walked with her the
whole length of the gardens. She was not on that occasion looking as
well as usual, being a little too much 'endimanchee' in terrestrial
lavenders and supercelestial blues--not, in fact, dressed with the
remarkable taste which he has seen in her at other times. Her usual
costume is both pretty and quiet, and the fashionable waistcoat and
jacket (which are a spectacle in all the 'Ladies' Companions' of the
day) make the only approach to masculine _wearings_ to be observed in
her. She has great nicety and refinement in her personal ways, I think,
and the cigarette is really a feminine weapon if properly understood.
Ah, but I didn't see her smoke. I was unfortunate. I could only go with
Robert three times to her house, and once she was out. He was really
very good and kind to let me go at all, after he found the sort of
society rampant around her. He didn't like it extremely, but, being the
prince of husbands, he was lenient to my desires and yielded the point.
She seems to live in the abomination of desolation, as far as regards
society--cro