This time I was prevented by ill health.

* * * * *

Two or three months ago, I wrote to you from the country a letter which
was addressed to Kensington. Did you receive it? and if so, why have you
not answered it?

I wrote upon politics, but especially I asked you about yourselves, your
occupations and projects, some questions to which I was very anxious to
have answers. At any rate, do now what you ought to have done then--write
to me.

I do not now write about politics, because we do not talk, or at least
write about them in France any more than in Naples; besides, such
subjects are not suitable to an invalid.

I will only tell you, as important and authentic pieces of information,
that the new court ladies have taken to trains and little pages, and that
the new courtiers hunt the stag with their master in the Forest of
Fontainebleau in dresses of the time of Louis XIV. and cocked hats.

Good-bye! Heaven preserve you from the mistakes which lead to
revolutions, and from the revolutions which lead to masquerades. A
thousand kind regards.

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.