of a large
packet confided to me by M. de Tocqueville last spring. About six months
ago he begged me to return it to him, in Paris, when I had a safe
opportunity. No such opportunity offered itself, so that the packet
remains in my library awaiting your orders.

Since I began this letter I have been informed by M. de Corcelle that you
are likely to be soon in Paris. I shall not venture to send it by the
post, lest it should cross you on the road.

I shall anxiously inquire as to your arrival, in the hope that you will
allow one who most sincerely loved and admired your husband, morally and
intellectually, to see you as soon as you feel yourself equal to it.

Believe me, my dear Madame de Tocqueville, with the truest sympathy,
yours most truly,

NASSAU W. SENIOR.

[Mr. Senior continued an active correspondence with Madame de
Tocqueville, and we saw her whenever we were in Paris. Our long-promised
visit to Tocqueville took place in 1861.--ED.]

JOURNAL.

_Tocqueville, Sunday, August_ 11, 1861.--We left Paris on Saturday
evening, got to Valognes by the Cherbourg railway by six the next
morning, and were furnished there with a good carriage and horses, which
took us, and our servants and luggage, in three hours to Tocqueville.

Valognes has been immortalised by Le Sage in Turcaret. It is a town of
about 6,000 inhabitants, built of granite, and therefore little altered
from what it was 200 years ago. Over many of the doors are the armorial
bearings of the provincial nobility who made it a small winter capital:
the practice is not wholly extinct. I asked who was the inhabitant of an
imposing old house. 'M. de Neridoze,' answered our landlady, 'd'une
tres-haute noblesse.' I went over one in which Madame de Tocqueville
thinks of passing the winter. It is of two stories. The ground floor
given up to kitchen, laundry, and damp-looking servants' rooms; the first
floor in this form:--

[Illustration:]

Bedroom.
Door
Stairs Bedroom.

Bedroom. Drawing-room. Dining-room. Hall. Bedroom.

The longer side looks into the street, the shorter, which is to be Madame
de Tocqueville's bedroom, into a small garden.

_August_ 11.--At Tocqueville we find M. and Madame de Beaumont, their
second son--a charming boy of ten years old, and Ampere.

It is eleven years since I was here. Nothing